Mar­riott has cre­at­ed a 4D expe­ri­ence that takes par­tic­i­pants to Hawaii and Lon­don and, the brand says, “[rede­fines] the future of trav­el.” It’s a unique offline brand expe­ri­ence that can poten­tial­ly make the hotel chain look tech savvy and excit­ing while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly dri­ving guests to a microsite where they can sub­mit ideas about how to improve the Mar­riott expe­ri­ence.

Mar­riott part­nered with video effects and cre­ative con­tent stu­dio Frame­store and expe­ri­en­tial mar­ket­ing agency Relevent to give con­sumers what it calls an immer­sive, 4D sen­so­ry expe­ri­ence based on Ocu­lus Rift tech­nol­o­gy. Ocu­lus Rift is a vir­tu­al real­i­ty head­set that allows for “immer­sive” 3D gam­ing and its par­ent com­pa­ny was acquired by Face­book for a report­ed $2 bil­lion in March.

Dur­ing Marriott’s vir­tu­al trav­el expe­ri­ence, par­tic­i­pants enter the Tele­porter, a phone booth-like struc­ture with an Ocu­lus Rift DK2 vir­tu­al real­i­ty head­set, wire­less head­phones, and 4D sen­so­ry ele­ments that allow par­tic­i­pants to feel sun, wind, sea spray, and the mov­ing ground, as well as the “smell of some­where new.”

Once con­sumers don the head­sets and head­phones, they vis­it a vir­tu­al ver­sion of a Mar­riott great room lob­by and trav­el to a beach in Maui and to the top of a sky­scraper in Lon­don. This, Mar­riott says, enables “trav­el enthu­si­asts” to “see, hear and feel” what it’s like to be in glob­al des­ti­na­tions and at “Mar­riott Hotels of the future.”

In addi­tion, the Tele­porter itself is trav­el­ing to eight U.S. cities from Sep­tem­ber to Novem­ber: New York, Boston, Wash­ing­ton D.C., Atlanta, Dal­las, San Diego, San Jose, and San Fran­cis­co.

Mar­riott encour­ages fans to fol­low along on Face­book and Twit­ter with the hash­tag #Get­Tele­port­ed.

In a press release, Mar­riott says it want­ed to cre­ate a vir­tu­al trav­el expe­ri­ence that “tru­ly feels like ‘being there.’”

“Mar­riott seized on vir­tu­al real­i­ty and tele­por­ta­tion to give the next gen­er­a­tion of trav­el­ers the clear cut notion that more amaz­ing trav­el expe­ri­ences are com­ing and to encour­age them to co-cre­ate the future of trav­el with us on TravelBrilliantly.com…” Michael Dail, vice pres­i­dent, Mar­riott Hotels Brand Mar­ket­ing, said in a pre­pared state­ment.

Marriott’s Trav­el Bril­liant­ly site asks guests to sub­mit ideas about how to improve the Mar­riott expe­ri­ence and allows users to “show love for [their] favorites” by click­ing on a but­ton that says, “That’s Bril­liant.”

Trav­el Bril­liant­ly launched in June 2013 and has yield­ed fea­tures like new mod­ern great room lob­bies, mobile check-in and check­out, a mobile app for chat­ting between guests and prop­er­ty hosts, and a healthy vend­ing machine with fresh food on demand, accord­ing to Mar­riott.

“I love that it is tak­ing some­thing that is very pop­u­lar from a tech­nol­o­gy stand­point and using it in a way that is on brand,” said Jason Bur­by, pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­c­as at cre­ative agency Pos­si­ble, of Marriott’s Ocu­lus Rift expe­ri­ence. “It’s not just some­thing cool. Mar­riott is about trav­el and explo­ration – this ties per­fect­ly to it.”

How­ev­er, Bur­by said the rel­a­tive suc­cess of the cam­paign comes down to the actu­al expe­ri­ence and whether Mar­riott is able to make con­sumers feel like they are explor­ing the includ­ed des­ti­na­tions.

In addi­tion, Bur­by observes most of Marriott’s rev­enue comes from busi­ness trav­el­ers who like to lever­age tech­nol­o­gy and “inno­v­a­tive approach­es to make their trips eas­i­er and bet­ter” and these same peo­ple also take trips to Hawaii and Lon­don, “so I think the val­ue to Mar­riott is in the expo­sure and brand per­cep­tion lift as a leader.”

But Mar­riott cer­tain­ly isn’t the first brand to employ the tech­nol­o­gy.

Ear­li­er this year, UK-based gro­cery store chain Tesco used Ocu­lus Rift to allow con­sumers to trav­el through a some­what less excit­ing (although like­ly more famil­iar) des­ti­na­tion: a gro­cery store.

In addi­tion, UK-based dig­i­tal com­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny – and proud Eng­land Rug­by spon­sor — O2 launched Wear the Rose, a vir­tu­al real­i­ty sports expe­ri­ence that uses Ocu­lus Rift to make fans feel like they are part of the Senior Eng­land Rug­by Team.

Sun­glass­es brand Oak­ley and Warn­er Broth­ers have also report­ed­ly employed Ocu­lus Rift in their own efforts.

What do you think about Marriott’s efforts? Have you con­sid­ered incor­po­rat­ing Ocu­lus Rift or vir­tu­al real­i­ty into your cam­paigns?