Cityneon to Bring a Digital Experience of Machu Picchu in VR

Machu Picchu is a UNESCO world heritage site that has welcomed a million visitors each year. However, due to the pandemic, the tourism industry got hit hard due to travel restrictions. For Machu Picchu, the visitor count dropped drastically to 250,000.

To maintain and promote Machu Picchu, a Singapore-based company named Cityneon is bringing to life the treasures of this fifteen-century urban Inca empire’s citadel via a digital tour of the site. In collaboration with the World Heritage Exhibitions (WHE), this will be the company’s first artifact IP exhibition and the world’s first virtual walk-through of a UNESCO heritage site.

A digital tour of treasures

The Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru exhibition will use VR motion chairs that will have “high-resolution six degrees of freedom (6-DOF) VR headsets, haptic feedback on the backseats, scent dispensers, and 360-degree rotation”. Meanwhile, the visual data is gathered by the company using drones with permission from the Peruvian government to create that immersive VR and AR experience. Necessary COVID-19 precautions for museum visitors and travelers will also be in effect.

The virtual tour will be guided by Ai Apaec, a mythical Andean hero. The Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru tour will cover 192 artifacts from the royal tombs, including a fully intact gold attire of a Chimú Emperor of the Imperial period which dating back to 1300 AD.

Due to Cityneon’s partnership with Inkaterra Asociación on this venture, the Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru will also have a feature on the artifacts of the Incan civilization. This includes the opulent collections of Andean gold which is one of the most luxurious remains of the Incan empire that stands at par with the engineering and opulence of ancient Egypt and the Roman empire.

Keeping culture alive

The president of WHE Anthony Tann expresses his enthusiasm for the use of the technology, saying that it will be, “an impressive and extensive exhibition that showcases the limitless potential of VR technology.” The Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru exhibition is supported by the Peruvian government and the Ministry of Culture.

The exhibition will be available first in Boca Raton Museum of Art located in South Florida for a limited time only. The tickets are now on sale starting at $19.95 and the tour to open starting October 16, 2021.

Founded in 1956, Cityneon is a global entertainment company and runs on its philosophy of “big ideas, bigger experience.” The executive chairman and the group CEO of Cityneon, Ron Tan, welcomes interested tourists to this unique experience and take part in the Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru exhibition to “personally feel the magnificence of Machu Picchu like they are physically there while exploring the ancient cultures who lived in this city 7,000 feet above sea level in the Andes Mountains.”