360-degrees tours

By project TAAS

Published on 06 June 2025

Netherlands

About this good practice

Much historical heritage sites and buildings in Zuid-Limburg cannot always be visited, some cannot be visited at all. To create more accessibility and ensure that the stories and events within these places are told Visit Zuid-Limburg has collaborated with multiple parties, including a 360-degree photographer, videographers and audio creators, to digitally unlock heritage locations through a 360-degree tour. Using a smartphone, the 360-degree tour allows you to walk through a location to view it. In the digital environment, you can also click on video and audio fragments to listen to and watch entertaining stories and anecdotes. In this way, heritage becomes accessible to everyone.

The 360 degree tours are processed in multiple route products and campaigns. The specific locations also all have a separate facade sign with a QR code to the 360 degree tour. These QR codes can be measured.

Municipalities, local history associations and cultural institutions in particular use this development to keep heritage viable and to share the stories with the public. The practice enhances territorial growth by boosting tourism, supporting local businesses, and increasing accessibility to heritage sites. It fosters regional cooperation among municipalities and cultural institutions, while data from digital tools supports better planning and development.

Resources needed

• Creating a tour based on three 360 degree photos €160.
• Retrieve the right content. On average 4-6 hours pro location.
• Creating voice-over scripts and videos. About € 2.000 per tour.
• There are no additional maintenance costs. There are costs if the content in the tour needs to be expanded.

Evidence of success

• The 360-degree tours make heritage and the stories that took place there more prominent and accessible.
• Meanwhile, 40 heritage sites in South Limburg have been digitally unlocked and linked to route products and campaigns around contemplative and sustainbale tourism.
• In 2024 The webpage with this theme had over 7500 unique visitors.
• The QR-codes in the field where used over 4.000 times.

Potential for learning or transfer

Preserving heritage and its cultural history stories are of great importance to a region. The 360-degree tours provide an interactive and sustainable experience and give access to locations that cannot normally be visited. The tours can be viewed on site, but also, for example, from home. And they are immediately digitally shareable with everyone. It generates interest to then visit the location in real life, or use one of the route products created for this purpose. It also adds an element to the trend around so-called contemplative tourism.

This practice is easily transferable as it uses widely available digital technologies. Key success factors include strong cooperation between contacts of the specific site, local history clubs and the municipality. Potential barriers are lack of funding to create content like videos and audio clips.