How Virtual Tours Drive ROI in Office Space Marketing

Why Virtual Tours Work for Workspace Marketing

Marketing commercial property isn’t what it used to be. With the rise of hybrid working and changing tenant expectations, workspace providers now face a new challenge: how do you attract high-quality tenants in a market where convenience, transparency and flexibility matter more than ever?

Enter the virtual tour – at one time a nice-to-have, now a must-have. For landlords, operators and workspace brands, virtual tours are an accessible, powerful way to let prospective tenants experience a space without needing to book a viewing or leave their desk. But they’re not just pretty visuals. Virtual tours can deliver real commercial value by generating more interest, improving the quality of leads, and helping deals close faster.

In this article, we’ll break down the ROI potential of virtual tours in a way that’s easy to follow – even if numbers aren’t your thing. We’ll use one of our recent projects for FORA’s Jellicoe building as an example, combining real-world performance data with industry benchmarks to help you understand what kind of return a virtual tour can deliver.

example of an office virtual tour in London

Case Study: FORA’s Virtual Tour at The Jellicoe

FORA are a well-established flexible workspace provider offering beautifully designed offices and co-working environments across London and Europe. In early 2025, Scene3D created a virtual tour of their Jellicoe building – one of their largest sites, spanning 180,000 sq ft.

The cost for the virtual tour was £8,200 + VAT (approximately £0.04 per sq ft).

In the 90 days following launch (as of May 2025), the tour generated:

635 impressions – how many times the webpage with the tour was loaded
506 visits – how many people actively interacted with the tour
380 unique visitors – how many individual people explored it
Click-through rate: 79.7% – a high indicator of interest

In short, the tour performed pretty well, with an 80% click through rate and around 25% of visitors viewing the tour more than once.

What Kind of ROI Can You Expect from a Commercial Office Virtual Tour?

Let’s now break down the numbers using some common industry benchmarks and a few logical assumptions. We’ll keep it simple and walk through two different scenarios: one conservative, one more optimistic.

Scenario A: Conservative ROI Estimate (20% Uplift)

Step 1: How many people actually enquire?

Commercial property websites typically convert 3.4% of visitors into enquiries [1]. According to a Matterport & Zumper study, virtual tours can boost this by 16% to 67% [2].

We’ll use a conservative uplift of 20%, which increases the conversion rate to 4.1%.

That uplift would apply to the people who meaningfully interacted with the tour. Over the 90 day period the tour generated 380 unique visitors – If we extrapolate that up to a year: 1520 unique people interacting with the virtual tour.

4.1% of 1,520 = 64 enquiries (so in this scenario the tour generated 12 new leads beyond what the site may have achieved on its own.)

Step 2: How many of those become paying clients?

Again, it bares repeating that we don’t have direct access to FORA’s sales dashboard. But, based on available industry data, qualified B2B leads (like those who engage with a virtual tour) tend to convert at about 25% [3][4][5].   That gives us an estimated 3 new clients for the year.

Step 3: What’s that worth?

FORA’s pricing for a 2-person private office at The Jellicoe starts at £795 per person/month – using this office as an example, a contract is worth £1,590/month.

If each client signed a 12-month agreement, the value would = £19,080 per client.

Multiply that by 3 clients = £57,240 in revenue in year one.

That’s a healthy return – approximately 7x the tour’s cost in year one, even under cautious assumptions.

	Estimated Additional Leads	Estimated Revenue (at £19,080/client)
Year 1	12 leads → 3 clients	£57,240
Year 3	36 leads → 9 clients	£171,720
Year 5	60 leads → 15 clients	£286,200

Scenario B: Aggressive ROI Estimate (60% Uplift)

Now let’s explore the other end of the spectrum, assuming the tour delivers results at the upper range reported by Matterport.

Step 1: How many new leads?

As we mentioned above, Commercial property websites typically convert 3.4% of visitors into enquiries. A 60% uplift from a virtual tour brings that to 5.4%.

Let’s apply that to the same figure from Scenario A: 1,520 unique visitors per year.

5.4% of 1,520 = 82 enquiries (30 additional enquiries due to the uplift).

Step 2: How many become paying clients?

Assuming the same 25% close rate, 30 additional leads = 7 to 8 new clients (for the sake of this article we’ll round down to 7)

Step 3: What’s that worth?

If each client = £19,080 x7 new clients = £133,560

In this more aggressive ROI calculation, that’s a return of ~16x the cost of the tour in year one.

	Estimated Additional Leads	Estimated Revenue (at £19,080/client)
Year 1	30 leads → 7 clients	£133,560
Year 3	90 leads → 21 clients	£400,680
Year 5	150 leads → 35 new clients	£667,800

Graph comparing the office virtual tour estimated revenue for scenarios A / B

Even in the more cautious scenario, the virtual tour covers its cost several times over in just the first year. And it continues delivering value long after that.

The Real Revenue Picture

The above revenue estimates are based on a 12-month lease for a 2-person office – totalling £19,080 per client. But it’s worth taking a broader view. That’s a conservative starting point – In reality, many clients lease larger spaces, stay for longer periods, or take on additional services.

Virtual tours don’t just help convert private office enquiries. They support revenue generation across your entire space – showcasing meeting rooms, co-working zones, lounges, phone booths, and bookable amenities. For providers like FORA, this means income through event hires, day passes, flexible memberships, and more.

By helping prospective clients visualise the full experience, a well-executed virtual tour doesn’t just convert leads – it increases their long-term value.

If you’re still unsure whether these numbers are realistic, here’s what the wider industry shows:

87% more views on listings with virtual tours [6]
Users spend 5–10x longer on websites with immersive content [7]
Properties lease 31% faster when virtual tours are included [8]
85% of commercial real estate professionals report better-quality leads [5]
90% report increased revenue from using virtual tours [5]

So it’s not just theory – the trend is well established.

Why This Matters for Your Workspace Marketing

Virtual tours do more than show off your space. They:

Qualify prospects before they ever contact you
Reduce wasted viewings
Help close deals faster

Instead of relying on photo galleries and brochures, you’re offering an interactive, self-serve experience that builds trust from the start.

Best of all? Just one or two conversions can cover your entire investment and from there, your tour becomes a 24/7 sales asset.

Final Thoughts

The Jellicoe project shows how even a single virtual tour can deliver big results not just in engagement, but in qualified leads and long-term revenue.

Virtual tours won’t guarantee results on their own – brand equity, pricing, and sales process still matter. But as part of a modern marketing toolkit, they’re proving to be one of the most effective ways to drive serious engagement and improve pipeline performance.

They don’t just help you stand out – they help you convert.

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Or if you want to learn more about virtual tours, check out our Learning Hub