Designing Visitor Experiences

When we go out and see the world, most of the time the things that we remember are not the things that we buy or consume, it’s the people that we meet and the experiences that we share.

As Seth Godin one my favourite authors and marketer says “People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories and magic.”  Seth Godin

Experiential tourism encourages visitors to participate and interact. Its draws people into cultures, places, communities, nature, and characters. 

It’s that magical tourism experience that you remember. When you look at creating magic consider four key factors: 

• Experiential factor – what people learn, do and how it engages their senses
• Emotional factor – how you allow people to connect 
• Physical factor – enhance the magic of the location  
• Service factor – continuously improve how you deliver that service 

Think about it this way, at every step you can enhance your visitors’ experiences that sets you apart from your competitors by deliberately designing around the four key factors.

Who of you would not be fully invested once you have walked through the vineyard, touched the soil, tasted the grapes, sampled a barrel sample and listened to the personal stories of the winemaker while tasting the finished product and cuddling Rusdy, the winery dog? The bottle of wine is still a commodity but through that emotional connection you created you may look at the brand in a completely new way and the wine may taste better than ever before. 

I am personally a big fan of design thinking. It is a human-centric approach for guiding the creativity of individuals and teams with the use of tools, for example personas and customer journey mapping, that help solve even the most complex challenges.  

There are five stages of design thinking 

• As Tim Brown from Ideo highlights you have to start with the customer in mind, therefore, the first stage empathize is about learning from the audience who you are designing for. This can be done through interviews, interaction and observations. You aim to fully understand the experience from a customers’ point of view. 
• The second stage define is about creating a point of view from a customer perspective based on the insights gained from the empathy work. 
• The third stage ideate then explores as many creative solutions as possible, beyond the obvious solutions, through various brainstorming techniques. 
• The fourth stage prototype builds a representation (physical form) of the ideas generated (rough draft) which can then be used to develop more empathy, learn and iterate. 
• The last stage test encourages to test the prototype with the customers to gain further feedback and refine what worked and what didn’t. This enables businesses to continue refining the solution until it meets or exceeds customer expectations and is ready for launch. 

It’s no doubt a great process to create new tourism experiences or redesign existing ones and services.  

We know that 90% of human decision making is based on emotions, therefore, you would want to incorporate multiple sensory experiences into your tourism product that provoke emotions. 

Why not start with the end in mind…

• Imagine raving customer review online. How does your ideal customer describe your experience? 
• What was their emotional reaction, what messages or memories will they share?  
• What are the stories that your guests will want to share with their friends and families? What will they brag about? 
• What senses do they describe? 

Think about your experience as a story – just like a book it will have a start, a middle and an end. How will it all weave together? Plan in as much detail as possible every step of the way. Plan time for interaction, conversation, reflection. Remember your experience will only as good as its weakest part. Think about how you want to make your guests feel when they first arrive at your doorsteps. 

• How will you greet them? 
• What will be their first impression? 
• How will you make each guest feel special and welcome?
• How can you personalise their experience?
• How will you say goodbye?

• Will your guests be friends when they leave? 
• What are the little things that will delight your guests (value add, things that costs little but can make a big difference, for example, photos of the experience or the recipe of the dish served)?

Talking the time to answer these questions and visualise the experience will ensure that the experience will be unique and only available at your place as you are adding all of your own personal touches to it.

To summarise, here are my key success factors for designing great tourism experiences: 

1. Use Design Thinking processes and tools and be customer-centric
2. Understand your target markets’ needs, interest, motivations, touchpoints 
3. Engage all 5 senses – touch, smell, taste, sight, sound and ensure the experience is only available at your place, no one does it better
4. Be authentic and genuine, true to your brand and deliver a remarkable hospitality experience
5. Make customers feel like a local 
6. Share inspirational and personal stories 
7. Provide a backstage pass and opportunity for learning  
8. Surprise and delight 
9. Add value at each touchpoint
10. Start with the end in mind and create a distinct Unique Value Proposition