52 Million Americans Could Be Doing This By 2020

According to a report from Forrester Research released last month, many of us may be sporting virtual reality headsets in the next few years. Whether its for gaming or watching dad walk with dinosaurs, the virtual reality market is on the rise.

Forrester estimates that by the year 2020, VR headsets in the US could spike to 52.3 million. This is compared to around 3.3 million VR headsets right now. The report did not include cardboard devices like Google Cardboard in its estimates.

The travel industry has also been adapting to VR in order to show their clients a fuller picture of their destinations.

“We see a lot of hoteliers and they come in with the same boring stuff that everybody else shows, which is an IPad with pictures of their properties,” says Steven Kadoch, a managing partner of Ultimate Jet Vacations (UJV), a luxury travel agency.

“It’s the same stuff every time and it kind of puts people to sleep.”

“When you look around it’s as if you are standing right there in the room,” Kadoch told Yahoo Finance. “You look around and kind of feel like you’re inside, which is the big difference between virtual tour that you can see on the website and virtual reality tour where you feel like you are immersed in it.”

As for the future of VR, Kadoch has said: “It terms of the future demand for VR, we’ll see. I think there’s a lot of companies that are starting to come out with interests in things to do with VR and I think the demand will continue to rise.

The big question I think is, how many people are willing to use a piece of equipment and put it on their heads as to entertain themselves?”