Soneva Fushi' Pioneering VR Experience point to the Future of Travel

13 August, 2021

Soneva Fushi has announced the launch of an exclusive new Virtual Reality (VR) experience.

At a time when many around the world are unable to travel due to the ongoing limitations and lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Soneva VR headset overcomes restrictions to bring an enchanting insight into island life into viewers’ homes.

A curated experience with discovery at its heart, the VR series shares Soneva’s SLOW LIFE ethos and champions the beautiful Maldives archipelago as a bucket-list destination.

To achieve this, the Soneva team partnered with a UK-based studio to create a best-in-class, personalized VR content series that showcases Soneva Fushi’s one-of-a-kind charms to a global audience.

The unique video series focuses on a number of key areas, which include: 

- 25 Years of Soneva: celebrating the brand’s storied history and its journey to becoming a world-leading destination, with rare experiences and a dedication to social and environmental sustainability at its core. 

- Soneva Fushi Water Retreats: launched recently, these stunning new retreats are the largest and most luxurious one- and two-bedroom over-water villas in the world, offering an unsurpassed over-water experience to guests, and further expanding the resort’s award-winning villa portfolio. 

- Soneva in Aqua: an ultra-luxurious 23-metre yacht that sails from Soneva Fushi and Soneva Jani. It combines Soneva’s renowned hospitality with the freedom of a personalised charter across the Indian Ocean. 

- The Den: a playground for the imagination and the region’s largest children’s zone. The Den’s playful spaces include a pirate ship, Lego rooms, music studio and more. 

- Family Villas: a focus on the largest villas at Soneva Fushi, which offer an exceptional amount of space, privacy and luxury for multi-generational families, groups of friends or corporate gatherings. The largest, the 3,048 sqm Private Reserve, has nine bedrooms with room for up to 14 adults and nine children, and features a private pool, gym, sauna and staff quarters. 

- The Complete Resort Tour: this tour offers a comprehensive journey of discovery around Soneva Fushi’s island home, Kunfunadhoo, taking in dining destinations, the observatory, the organic gardens, picture-perfect sandy beaches and the lush tropical jungle along the way. 

To see all this video series go here

“With many international travellers restricted from visiting the Maldives in person during the pandemic, it felt imperative to create new ways of engaging with audiences that extended above and beyond Soneva’s popular social media channels and consumer newsletters. Technology in tourism has increased rapidly over the last decade, and this became an exciting opportunity for us to modernise beyond on-property considerations. The visual nature of Virtual Reality is a natural fit for supporting Soneva Fushi’s continued mission to connect with guests and to tell the resort’s vibrant story in new ways,” said Soneva’s CEO and founder, Sonu Shivdasani. 

Renowned as a pioneer in the hospitality sector, Soneva has achieved a raft of industry firsts since the launch of Soneva Fushi in 1995: banning plastics across its resorts, developing Eco Centro waste-to-wealth facilities, and operating the Maldives’ first and only villa ownership scheme, to name but a few.