Better-than-the-rest Visitor Experiences Rarely Happen by Chance

The best visitor experience you ever had likely didn't happen by chance. They are often a carefully architected journey.

In this Conversation Series we unpacked how to design this journey for better experiences and how that can lead to a higher value tourism industry.

We kicked off with an example:  At The Magic Castle Hotel in LA, they have a poolside phone called the 'popsicle hotline'. You pick up the phone and a staff member answers "popsicle hotline". You tell them how many you want and a few minutes later they are hand delivered by hotel staff in white gloves on a silver tray. Although there is staff time and cost (the price of popsicles + staff time) involved, it creates a highly memorable moment. The type of moment that can define a trip - the kind of experience that other hotels fail to develop. Plus the marketing that guests do for this hotel because of this type of experience help to offset the cost. At one point they were the #1 ranked hotel in all of Los Angeles - even above the Ritz Carlton.

With Mat Woods from Destination Queenstown and Nick from Planit BnB we explored how they have applied experience design that has helped improve their business results.

Planit BnB is the world’s first Itinerary management platform which allows you to instantly explore, curate and book your travel itinerary. 

Nick talked about how through delivering a uniquely curated experience in combination with real time technology helps them exceed their clients expectations and creates a competitive advantage for their business.

Mat discussed how learning to ski sucks - it's cold and you fall over a lot. You also spend a lot of time going up and down learner carpets which historically, have not been the best experience. While you're just trying to stand up on your skis, you're moving on a uphill conveyor and when the weather is bad you get knocked around by the wind, snow, ice etc. This changed with the opportunity to install clear tunnels or "galleries" that help provide a better experience for beginners. Cardrona was the first NZ ski area to embrace the idea and while Mat was there they put the first one up in 2016. The experience that first time users/visitors have of an activity and making it better, is important. For snow sports, in order to maintain let alone grow the number of skiers and snow boarders in New Zealand, it's crucial that it's made as easy as possible for first timers. Getting them to have the best possible experience at the beginning leads to return visitation and recurring revenue.

It's a moment worthy of investment. 

To see Brad's credentials, see here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brad-rowe-nz/ 

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