For many tourism and culture providers, the pandemic was a painful realisation of just how far behind they were in their digital transformation journey.
Providers who successfully launched virtual and digital culture and travel experiences initially thought they would only be in operation for a short time.
However, almost two years later, with Covid-19 still impacting our lives, the sector has realised the benefits and sheer necessity of maintaining and scaling its digital solutions.
While people are gradually returning to physical tourism and cultural activities, hybrid experiences that include physical, digital and virtual elements are proving to provide the most engaging visitor experience overall.
Anne Hoffmann, Head of Digital at Les 2 Musées de la Ville Luxembourg, whose focus lies in creating digital visitor experiences to convey cultural heritage and history through the implementation of new technologies, says: “In my opinion, museums and cultural institutions have almost to reinvent themselves radically to stay relevant in this ever-changing environment. The pandemic has shown that we should work even harder on becoming a place – both physical and digital – where meaningful visitor experiences and interactions are created, pre,-during and after visiting. Online and offline experiences need to go hand-in-hand to continue stimulating not only our existing audience but also to attract and target new audience groups.”
When organisations integrate both layers effectively, physical and digital visitor experiences can reduce effort and friction and create a more enriching and immersive experience. At the same time, opportunities to create brand new “moments that matter” during the experience journey emerge through boosting one or several of the three critical experience elements:
1. Increasing the sensory appeal of the experience
The “Imagine Van Gogh” exhibition has created an immersive experience where visitors can walk through enormous Van Gogh artworks. The experience designers employed advanced techniques of multi-projection and immersive audio to add emotional depth to each image, allowing us to live and feel the artist’s creative energy.
2.Raising the stakes by adding gamified layers to the physical experience
Museums or travel providers have an opportunity to add Pokémon-Go style seek and find activities to their physical experiences to engage different (i.e. younger) visitor profiles and add additional appeal to the experience.
3.Reimagining endings through greater reach into people’s homes
Through the adoption of digital tools, experience endings can also become extended beyond the moment a visitor is leaving the physical space to create a stronger connection and greater brand loyalty.
Likewise, for predominantly digital experiences such as virtual events, experience designers need to consider bringing the sensory appeal of physical experiences into the digital sphere.
Take, for example, the Qualtrics (SAP) partner summit, where organisers sent physical goody bags to all attendees, sharing a piece of the local cuisine in the form of a cookbook and an apron.
They also included the event lanyard, other giveaways and small souvenirs to mimic the physical experience and to create experience artefacts.
The future of visitor experiences and travel is hybrid and here to stay, and companies have an opportunity to use digital tools to create additional elevation and moments that matter as part of the reimagined visitor experience.
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