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Today\u2019s guest \u2014 UgoVirtual\u2019s Michael Cohen \u2014 describes the hospitality industry like a snowflake \u2013 add a little heat and, well, you can imagine. Hotels and cruises rely on proven practices to keep guests happy. Luckily, XR doesn\u2019t have to disrupt those practices; they can build on top of them.\xa0\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAlan: Coming up next on the XR\nfor Business podcast, we have Michael Cohen from UgoVirtual. We\u2019re\ngoing to be talking about how virtual/augmented/mixed reality\nsolutions \u2014 or XR solutions \u2014 can be used for front-of-house for\ncustomer facing activations, from AR to VR. Pre-experiences, what is\nit like to book this hotel, looking all around you? And also the\nback-of-house: how do we use this technology to give the best\npossible training for the staff, so that the customer experience is\nflawless across the board? All that and more coming up, on the XR for\nBusiness podcast, coming up next. Michael, welcome to the show, my\nfriend.\n\n\n\nMichael: Thank you very much.\nReally appreciate it, Alan.\n\n\n\nAlan: It\u2019s my absolute pleasure.\nIt\u2019s been a long time coming. We\u2019ve been kind of doing the dance,\nwatching each other grow. And I\u2019m really excited to learn about what\nyou guys are doing in the hospitality field. It feels like it\u2019s a\ngreenfield opportunity in hospitality, from travel/tourism. A bunch\nof companies started with, \u201cWe\u2019re going to put a 360 camera and\nlet you have a virtual tour.\u201d But explain to us, what are you\ndoing at UgoVirtual, and what is the response so far in the\nhospitality industry?\n\n\n\nMichael: Well, first of all,\ntiming is everything, as we know. [chuckles] And the global travel\nand hospitality industry is absolutely a greenfield opportunity. It\u2019s\nprimed for scale and expansion in regards to XR. The reason being is\nthat there have been investments and there have been initiatives,\nboth on the brand and enterprise level of hospitality and travel\ncompanies, but also in startups and larger companies who have\nenabled, let\u2019s call it a slice of VR or a slice of AR. Or as you\nmentioned, enabled OK 360 hotel tours that were maybe derivative out\nof the real estate market and that sort of scenario. Now, the\nopportunity is very, very serious for UgoVirtual, because we are the\ntravel and hospitality virtual solutions company, very myopically\nfocused to both consult to the major travel and hospitality brands to\nhelp them navigate and make investments and strategic decisions for\nthe next three, four, five years on what XR will be for them.\n\n\n\nAnd also from our perspective, we have\na portfolio of XR oriented solutions that are very focused and linear\nto the travel and hospitality space. So we\u2019re not taking generic\nsolutions and trying to overlay them on travel and hospitality. The\ngroup that\u2019s involved with UgoVirtual \u2014 who I\u2019m a strategic advisor\nto \u2014 we\u2019re all 15-20 year veterans on hospitality technology\ncommercialization for the front-of the house, which is guest facing\nsolutions and the back-of-the-house, which is employees and staff. So\nwhen you overlay that kind of multi-decade experience on how to get\ntechnology efficiently deployed, efficiently commercialized, exceed\nthe demands or the needs of travel and hospitality brands, with these\nnow slowly maturing VR/AR/XR opportunities, it\u2019s a wonderful fit for\nUgoVirtual right now.\n\n\n\nAlan: So give us an example. You\ntalked about front-of-house, customer facing solutions. Let\u2019s start\nwith front-of-house and then we\u2019ll go back-of-house. Because I don\u2019t\nknow if you know this, but I actually met my wife working at Delta\nHotels in Toronto.\n\n\n\nMichael: [chuckles] That\u2019s\nperfect.\n\n\n\nAlan: Yeah.