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Spicing up your experience 🌶️
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If I challenged you to make a moment more immersive, what would you do? Would you know which levers to pull? How many immersion strategies would you know to implement? Experience design isn't always instinctual, it's part science. Even story has formulas - a string of occurrences doesn’t make something a story. (THIS does.) If you’re responsible for the guest journey in your business, you should be able to take any basic activity or moment and add layers to it to make it more dynamic and compelling! In a conversation the other day with a host in France who owns a hotel with an incredible culinary program, I explained it like this: the base activity (for example, star-gazing) is the Poulet rôti. A lot of hosts & operators stop there. My job is to bring in the spice, sauce, sides - aspects of brightness, richness, and complexity that makes the dish more enjoyable. In this analogy, the added flavor is actually storytelling, culture, connection, play, and creativity - just to name a few. We have reached a point in the travel & hospitality industry where you can do pretty much anything, anywhere. You don’t have to go to France to stargaze, or kayak, or picnic, or hike, or create art… although I will say, kayaking to the Pont du Gard was a pretty cool experience. But I think I just proved my own point! Cultural nuances make an experience feel more exciting and immersive. However, that’s just one layer… one lever… one sprinkle of flavor… Start paying attention to how dynamic your experiences & activities are. Because if your guests are avid travelers, they've already done a lot of what you have to offer. I've kayaked everywhere from the Finger Lakes to Lake Como. I'm not some kayaking aficionado, it's not a hobby, it's just what's on offer when we travel. So we do it to get some exercise & scope out the surrounding area. But I can see how this activity... and really any experience... can be so much more. Can't you? Are you ready to put your own spin on things? Let's talk. Looking for more inspiration? Subscribe to Built For Stories: your guide for developing compelling destinations |
Creating Storied Experiences
Ready to elevate your hospitality, travel, or leisure experience? Get weekly insights on the experience economy, traveler behavior, and how you can create immersive & enriching experiences that attract high-value guests.
"Stories set the inner life into motion, and this is particularly important where the inner life is frightened, wedged, or cornered. Story greases the hoists and pulleys, it causes adrenaline to surge, shows us the way out, down, or up, and for our trouble, cuts for us fine wide doors in previously blank walls, openings that lead to the dreamland, that lead to love and learning, that lead us back to our own real lives…” – Clarissa Pinkola Estes The deeper into the world of story I go, the...
“They're not looking for a story that tells them who they are - they already know who they are. They're here because they want a glimpse of who they could be.” - Dr. Robert Ford I scribbled this quote down when watching Westworld many years ago, and just stumbled upon it again as I was cleaning out my notes. Pretty wise for a fictional character, right? Travel brings out old & new sides to us. Sides we’ve only had glimpses of. Hidden, never-before-seen sides. Sides we’ve rejected &...
If you've been following me for a while, you know that stories are not solely for entertainment, but for, more importantly, sending a message. I was reminded of this as I breezed through my beach read last week, an enjoyable story of Circe, greek goddess and daughter of Helio. As I reflected on the core message of the book, I felt perhaps the most compelling was that "true happiness does not come from power". This got me intrigued by the theme of power and my relation to it - after all, this...