From a Goa beach, to a teeming bazaar of Delhi, to a close view of the Guru Granth Sahib in Amritsar’s Golden Temple, Google Arts and Culture brings India’s heritage, festivity, spirituality and adventure to users in form of a new 360-degree video.
Created in partnership with the Ministry of Tourism for its international tourism campaign ‘Incredible India’, the video takes viewers on a journey to some of the most iconic destinations in India like Hampi’s Vitthala Temples and Qutub Minar in Delhi.
Speaking about India as a destination of diverse experiences, Union tourism minister K J Alphons said, “India is an iconic destination that offers unique experiences of climate, geography, culture, art, literature, and food. We want to give people in India and across the world an opportunity to immerse in our country’s rich heritage. Through our partnership with Google, we want to engage new and global audiences and offer them immersive content in a never-before-seen manner.”
The Google teams visited Hampi, Delhi, Goa and Amritsar over 12 days to capture ‘stunning slices of life that typify each place’ using the best of 360-degree video capture technology, including Google’s Yi Halo camera. “After 12 days in India, and over 40 hours of travel, we had transversed India. The music is inspired by the rhythms and melodies of the regions depicted in the video,” the company said in a blog post.
For Google Cardboard users the experience will be even more gratifying as they can turn the 360-video into a fully immersive Virtual Reality experience. “Google Arts & Culture brings the best of travel experiences from the world to the fingertips of culturally curious people and travel enthusiasts. Through our partnership with ministry of tourism for their internationally acclaimed Incredible India! campaign, we want to bring new and global audiences to India’s rich heritage and history,” said Luisella Mazza, head of operations, Google Arts & Culture.