Disney and Google have collaborated to create a virtual version of Walt Disney World Resort that allows users to experience the Magic Kingdom from the comfort of your own home. Disney expects that the virtual experience will encourage users to book a real life holiday.

Working with programmers at Google Earth, Disney have created a fully three dimensional virtual viewing experience – believed to be the most advanced rendering Google has ever created.

Walt Disney World Resort in 3-D allows users to zoom through all four Disney World Orlando theme parks and get a good look at the company’s accompanying hotels and restaurants. You are able to move down streets, fly past the rides and go in to a souvenir shop – all through Google Earth.

Google Earth Product Manager Bruce Polderman got a bit excited in his development blog: “It wasn’t enough to model the nearly 5,000 structures within the park, so Disney included significant amounts of real-world objects such as a monorail, picnic tables, benches, streetlights, signs and trees — lots of trees, as in thousands of them!”

The detail is so small; you can even read the text on menus in some of the parks’ restaurants.

“You know the phrase ‘next best thing to being there’? Walt Disney World Resort in 3-D is going to deliver on that,” promised Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Chairman Jay Rasulo. “Guests and travel planners can now explore our world with just a few clicks of a mouse, and they can book vacations while being immersed in what the destination has to offer.”

The virtual world is clearly a clever ploy to make you part with your cash. Users can view the hotel virtually, and then book a reservation if they like what they see, there and then.

As you can imagine, this was a mammoth task. Google Earth used eight photographers who took over 100,000 photos of Disney, capturing every possible surface in an exhaustive ten day shoot.

“The work done here will provide a professional counterpart to the wealth of Disney images and 3-D models from around the world contributed by thousands of volunteers,” Rasulo said.

KML technology that combines video with flash animation was built by Google and Disney. Clicking on the Cinderella Castle, for example, reveals a mouse-controlled magic wand tool that lets you spread pixie dust over the park.

“If Disney’s goal is to capture imaginations, then I think they’ve hit it out of the park,” Google Earth’s Polderman says.

Disney and Google’s creation may just be an early step in a high-tech transition for the world of tourism. Disney estimates 90 percent of travellers now plan and book trips online.

“This is another example of how social media is impacting the way people travel,” said Visit Florida Corporate Communications Manager Dia Kuykendall.

“It’s basically taken the ‘You Are Here’ map and made it electronic, made it up-to-date,” she said. “You can really see where you are now.”

“There would be a time when if you wanted to take a vacation or go somewhere, you’d call up a travel agent,” Kuykendall said. “Now with the power of the Internet, everyone has become their own travel agent.”