COVID-19 Travel
In the age of Covid-19, global travel — and even local travel — has become highly restricted. Even for those of us that live here in Korea, we cannot enjoy the incredible things this country has to offer in the same way as we used to. However, ZEPETO World offers a fun, colourful Korea virtual travel opportunity with incredible attention to detail…
The virtual avatar trend originated from young people in China, who are under imperative to conceal their identities online. However, the trend soon took off across the world, with millennials everywhere sharing virtual selfies with their friends. Say hi to my own mini Majid below!
What is ZEPETO?
ZEPETO is a metaverse smartphone app created by Korean SNS giant, Naver. Once you download the app, the first step is to create and customize your avatar. Compared to other AI apps, you’ll find that you can get your avatar looking really similar to you! If that’s your prerogative.
After you’ve made your mini-me, you will enter ZEPETO world and be able to explore the maps created by other users. You can communicate with different people, go shopping and watch performances. Or, if you’d rather stick to exploring, you can just roam around as a virtual traveller.
While ZEPETO is not the first metaverse game — Secondlife and IMVU spring to mind — it is highly developed for a smartphone app. What’s more, ZEPETO seeks to bring out the wonder of the real world, at a time where we can’t explore it in person.
ZEPETO has a following of approx. 190 million members, spanning nations worldwide. Users can make avatars from scratch or get assistance from their smartphone’s facial recognition function. The game also involves different tasks and games for your avatar to participate in, mirroring the experience of real travel.
Korea Virtual Travel
Like most countries, international tourism plays a huge role in Korea’s economy and image. In fact, Korea’s welcoming attitude to foreign travellers is what makes it one of the most popular tourist destinations.
In order to preserve their status as an international tourism icon while not increasing the risk of Covid-19, the Korean Tourism Organization is dabbling in virtual platforms to promote Korea. Therefore, they created the Korea Virtual Travel Tour via ZEPETO World for foreign travellers to enjoy Korea Covid- and passport-free!
The Korea Virtual Travel Tour features a highly-detailed interactive map of Han River Park. Those of us that live in Seoul can appreciate just how accurate it is! Your ZEPETO World character can fly around the park, enjoy the rainbow fountain at Banpo Bridge and see real photos of tourist hotspots like Namsan (N SEOUL) Tower. Cool right?
The Korea virtual tour gives you the opportunity to see the water taxis. In addition to that, you can make music videos using Han River Park as a background. With this app, your social media will be updated with refreshing content.
You can hop on one of the Han River cruises, meet new friends and even make a virtual music video! But why did The Korean Tourism Organization choose to make Han River Park?
Well, they actually conducted a survey, asking ZEPETO users where they would most like to travel to in Korea and the Han River Park won the vote. The virtual Han River Park now gets almost 257,000 visitors a day.
And the creators didn’t just stop at the scenery, your avatar can cook up ramen at the convenience store, a popular Han River picnic activity!
Conclusion
ZEPETO World app has a huge following, which is replicated in the users of the Korea Virtual Travel Tour: Han River Park. If your trip to Korea was delayed because of Covid-19, or if you’re simply interested in what Korea is like, I recommend you try out ZEPETO World!
