St. Louis creates virtual city to attract real tourists

By Ann Rubin

KSDK -- St. Louis is taking a new and cutting edge approach to tourism. The city is one of the first to buy virtual real estate in cyberspace, in something called Second Life. The idea is that tourists will visit online and later choose to visit in person.

Second Life is a three-dimensional, computer-generated world which millions of people have already visited. Tourism officials hope some of them will check out St. Louis while they're there.

One of the first landmarks the St. Louis Convention and Tourists Commission chose to build: the Gateway Arch.

"There's not another city that's built what we've built," said Brian Hall, a spokesman for the commission. "We've taken our marquee attraction, the Gateway Arch, that is known around the world and we've replicated it within the context of Second Life."

Second Life is a virtual world. Millions of people use it, businesses do work here, and universities conduct classes here. Now, St. Louis wants to attract tourists here.

"I find people from Canada, I found someone from Russia, from China," said Hall. "These are folks that have never set foot in St. Louis, but they're able to do so through Second Life."

They're able to check out the Old Cathedral, the mighty Mississippi, and even go into the Arch itself. Beneath the legs, there's a mini tourism center with actual Internet links to click on. There you can do everything from booking a flight to booking a hotel. You can also go up to the top of the Arch to check out the view.

Even though this experiment is only weeks old, tourism officials say the virtual St. Louis is popular.

"We're very excited with the traffic that we're seeing through the website," Hall said. "We quite literally are hosting hundreds of people on a daily basis."

The hope is that those virtual tourists may someday become actual tourists, bringing actual dollars to St. Louis. It's not a bad idea according to those already visiting.

"My son and her kids are always on the Internet. I mean, everything is on the Internet. And it opens up the world," said Tourist Borbala Bohus.

Another tourist, Chris Perry, added, "It might intrigue the younger crowd too."

The Convention and Visitors Commission plans to track the trends and monitor the number of virtual users that eventually visit. There are also plans to expand the number of landmarks and buildings in the virtual St. Louis.

To visit Second Life, click here: http://secondlife.com/