Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa, 07/16/2008 – In association with the South African Tourism Board, Virtual Africa has recently announced the release of their official South Africa Tourism Google Earth Layer, which has been included into Google Earth’s Primary Database.

This layer includes 100 scenic virtual tours of the most important tourism destinations in South Africa, compiled by South Africa virtual tour company, Virtual Africa. Google Earth users simply need to go to the ‘layer section’ (bottom left in Google Earth), navigate to the Gallery and select the South Africa Tourism layer under ‘Travel and Tourism’.

“We shot and processed about 60,000 individual pictures in 7 months, stitched them all into 5,000 panoramic images, chose the best 2,500 and dropped them into 100 location based virtual tours. It is a truly amazing accomplishment and we are excited to be included in Google Earth’s Primary database. The addition of these virtual tours will help stimulate tourism in our beautiful country by encouraging tourists to visit sooner rather than later.” says Tinus Le Roux, Managing Director of Virtual Africa.

Internet users can now enjoy and explore South Africa virtual tours of places like Robben Island, Soweto, Cape Town and the Kruger National Park all with the click of a button.

“We’re really proud of the end result. In less than a year we have created an incredible tourism tool for our country. We would not have been able to deliver on a project of this scale, within the timeframe allowed, if it wasn’t for the built in scalability and ease of use of the RTV virtual tour creation system and Google Earth layers. Six months ago a Google Earth layer with links to virtual tours was the only available way to explore South Africa online. Now we have created something much more powerful and effective.”

With the 2010 Soccer World Cup around the corner and South Africa’s popularity as a tourism destination at a constant rise, the timing of these virtual tours is perfect. But, according to Le Roux, it’s only the first step. Le Roux revealed that Virtual Africa is in the process of geo-locating each of the images shot during the project and embedding them into a Google Maps South Africa interface on their website. Currently 1,000 images have been geo-located with 3,000 more planned in the coming months.

Virtual Africa is a Full Service provider for international virtual tour software company, RTV. For more information about this Google Earth project, visit their website or contact them directly.

Contact Information:

Tinus Le Roux
Managing Director
Virtual Africa
South Africa Virtual Tours