We recently connected with Arturo Rico and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Arturo, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

I believe that the most recent Virtual tour is one of my most meaningful ones. It involves a tour of a plane crash that happened here in North Carolina. I captured this tour to show people all around the world the impact of this crash with a link to the full story and description that tells the story of what happened. I think it’s important to give free and accessible tours of landmarks. Essentially, to share the story that they may carry; I’m always wanting to share what I have access to around the world to the closest experience of actually being there. I believe that everyone should have free access to knowledge about these landmarks. Or even the landmarks in general. It’s important to me to share what I’m around with those who don’t necessarily have the opportunity to see in person.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I initially got into creating Virtual tours as a hobby to share my local landmarks with everyone around the world for free. I believe it is currently the closest thing to bringing the experience of being at these landmarks to anyone. With Virtual tours, you can freely look around on your phone or laptop with a full 360 view. I also share any information in regards to the location through informative text boxes or links, so that the viewer can learn more about what is there.

Over time, I created my website to put all my tours in one location for anyone curious, to easily find and view.

I eventually started reaching out to local businesses not just as a source of income on the side but most importantly to increase traffic to these businesses! I help increase website traction by creating these tours, I can help show these businesses’ aesthetics, menus, and any other information they’d like; in a virtual tour that anyone can access freely. My most recent restaurant tour, it’s garnered over 12k views through the virtual tour I created! I also link the tours to google maps, so it’s easily accessible and more likely to come up through tourists or anyone looking for specific kinds of meals.

It’s most important for me to help others and bring attention this way, to businesses or landmarks. At the end of the day, I just want to help and share what is already here or on the come up, to anyone. Whether it be locally or around the world!

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

I think in the very beginning it’s a bit hard to sell the idea of a virtual tour. I found that once I started with the business aspect of it all, I had a friend renovating homes and I asked if I could practice with his property at the time. I did one full tour of the spot unedited and then came back to it months later with an updated view of how to edit and re-did the tour. The difference was huge.

I started to become a lot more confident in my skills to edit and create these tours. So I actually then created my social media pages for my business. I started following local businesses and found one in specific that I’m very grateful for. It is a local car rental business, I explained the process and found that by renting out these exotic cars, I could get curious renters to get a better look without having to stop by. They gave me a chance, I created this tour showcasing the outside and inside of these beautiful vehicles, and they were so blown away with the end product (tour) that they eventually reached out to me to do two different tours! I accepted and grew my business portfolio.

This was all very new to me, I had to figure out pricing, scheduling, and how to display and edit tours all at once. It’s still my favorite tour I started on. I learned a lot and I still think back to it to pick apart in terms of growth with the business and conducting myself professionally to future businesses.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Personally, Instagram. I like to reach out to businesses that are starting up or have websites that they can put the tours I create, onto. I also hand out business cards. However, Social media has been a great way to reach out and get clientele. It’s easy for me to share a link to my website or a tour as an example of what they can expect if they do get a tour! My website linked to social media shares all the benefits as well as examples to anyone curious whether it be businesses, real estate, or anything else. It’s the quickest and easiest way to share what I do.    

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.atoz360vr.com
• Instagram: atozvirtualtours
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AtoZ360VR