Why Experiences Matter

Quality visitor experiences attract a higher yield for your business. They generate word-of-mouth promotion, repeat visits and ongoing customer relationships, and they make you a desirable partner for regional and state promotion.

Differentiated visitor experiences, aligned to the Tasmanian tourism brand, are the way to build your business edge. Experiences build relationships with customers, leading to greater job satisfaction for you and a competitive edge for your business.

To create a more competitive offer you should emphasise the difference between your visitor experience and others of a similar nature. Tourism competition is fierce. And the businesses that succeed in the long-term will be those that understand the changing trends underpinning this global consumer shift to the seeking of experiences.

The Power of Experience

Experiences have the power to:

• spark the imagination
• engage the senses
• stimulate the intellect
• invoke an emotive response
• enliven the spirit.

They can do this in wide-ranging settings – from an underground mine to an eco-cruise, from a wildlife night prowl to a mountain lake.

As a tourism operator, your role is to create an environment for the experience. You need to provide the ingredients and set up the circumstances so that the visitor can be an active part of what happens - like shucking their own oysters as part of a marine farm tour or going with the chef to buy vegetables as part of a food tourism experience. 

Strong experiences can profoundly influence your visitors. Experiences can change the way they view their lives and the world around them. They can have a long-lasting impact on the way your visitors think and on what they believe. This can even lead to changes in their behaviour, for which some interpretive programs, like those in sensitive natural areas, are aiming.

For more information, including a video clip and more on what visitors are seeking in an experience see Tourism Australia’s Improving Your Bottom Line [PDF 3.3MB].

Experiences and People

An experience is not just what happens when a visitor arrives for your tour, adventure or attraction. It’s a managed process of personalised interaction and processes. The people factor has never been more important in tourism – and that means much more than efficient service. Visitors increasingly want to make genuine connections with local people and the local sense of place.

Visitors ultimately create their own experiences but they do this by drawing on what you provide at every level of the product. Experiences are the meeting point between what visitors bring to the moment and what you provide them. This control over the external elements is the way in which you ‘stage’ the experience so that visitors get the most out of it.

The tourism experience has plenty of scope for interaction with people.

Visitors arrive with their own point of view. Their perceptions, knowledge and unique blend of beliefs and feelings form an internal world that they bring to the interaction. Each has their own world view, their own biases, their own likes and dislikes. So as well as managing the external elements, you can work with your visitor’s internal world and their personal role in creating the experience.

You can do this by:

• ‘Reading’ the group – gauging the interests, backgrounds and views of the group from observation, feedback and discussion – and responding accordingly
• Ensure that interpretation takes into account the range of personal learning styles
• Ask questions and invite comment or share a story.

For further examples see Hollybank [PDF 210KB] and Henry Jones Art Hotel [PDF 121KB] .

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