Is The Notion of Build It And They Will Come Dead?
What if there was a way to make them a next time not just a one time? Guests we mean.
What if they visited your destination this year, then the next year and then the year after? What if they visited this week, next month and the month after?
This is an enormous challenge due to rapid and substantial changes to the consumer mindset. A mindset that is more likely chasing perceived once in a lifetime experience driven by social media and the prospect of sharing such experiences to the applause and kudos of their social circle than simply just going to the mall. Add in depleting attention spans, greater autonomy, streaming and a very strong sense of self and what that self-desires and this results in a very tough task to get a guest to pick a destination for a singular visit, let alone any next time visits.
Challenge two is far more tricky – to get them to come back for a next time and potentially a next time after that when they’ve already visited your destination. It is, however, entirely possible. Believe it or not, “Once in a Lifetime” thinking underlines this. The key is to create a long lasting and consistent experience – but to then combine this with carefully identified, planned, and strategized elements and features as well as contextually and culturally relevant differences that are malleable enough to be refreshed and updated regularly through deft planning and execution.
For instance, in the hospitality space this is important for turning a one-time guest into a potential next time guest. Because hospitality can be very fickle it’s really about creating a unique experience, ideally perceived as “once in a lifetime” one where guests not only want to feel valued for their custom- but they also really need to know they are going to feel this on a one time visit AND on any potential next time visits too. Hospitality has almost become a disposable moment in time which is driving increasingly bespoke and nuanced destinations and approaches to visitor experience. The starting point for this is establishing a clear destination narrative based on positioning and target audience which plays into crafting the overall sense of place and then radiates outward to the human-to-human contact elements of a stay.
For hoteliers this means developing and managing the ‘once in a lifetime’ dream is paramount: creating it and reinventing it, providing a consistent experience and adding unexpected elements, features and differences along with outstanding service, convenience and guest recognition.
These curated experiences should delightfully reveal and uniquely surprise and cater to a guests need of ‘short-term’ wanderlust (first time / one visit experience) and combine it with context and culturally sensitive surprises and experiences as a part of a long-term strategy to create that ‘next time’ allure and potential. And no this isn’t about switching up food menus or activities, this is about hospitality destinations taking the time to really understand their brand positioning and audience and creating cultural and contextual brand relevancy that provides enough meaning and resonance for guests to not only choose you for a “once in a lifetime” experience the first time but to have them coming back again and again as well – all the while sharing their story across their social circles both on and off line.
This means beautifully arranged lobbies that evolve throughout the year to deliver amazing arrival experiences through to tailored visitor centric and stay specific guest interventions that may involve minor or major gestures and activations across a variety of spaces including personalized efforts to acknowledge and reward high value guests of loyalty programs.
Visitor Is The Hero.
In retail terms, repeat visitation is a little more functional based around a specific set of visitor and consumer needs. Clearly, supermarkets drive repeat visitation to malls of all sizes based on the need to replenish the fridge.
Outside of the core necessities of life, retail visitation is based around disposable income, electronics, and leisure activities. Time spent at the mall can be taken in across a range of segments from early morning mall walking to family entertainment and social gatherings of all stripes at today’s red hot go to, F&B.
But building a retail destination based on the build it and they will come mindset is a guaranteed recipe for disaster. These days are behind us as there is simply too much availability of retail with cookie cutter offerings to take care of the basic needs for that approach to be a success in this day and age of mass saturation and even worse – social media condemnation and mockery. This is where a developer needs to ask themselves do we want to be a part of the conversation or become a meme?
Instead, genuine and successful repeat retail visitation requires not only careful planning around audiences but also a targeted leasing strategy that backs it up and these are just the basics. This is the domain of highly experienced retail professionals like Phil McArthur at McArthur Retail Development Specialists who have a keen sense of the retail landscape and how to plan mixed use and retail destinations for the future.
Moreover, what consumers need are visually dynamic destinations that bring together aspects of contextual architecture, placemaking and public art, bespoke displays and activations and continually evolving spaces that deliver the standard expectation with a new and embellished layer of changing, innovative experiences across the retail environment that invigorates and inspires. Positioning and brand story are key, this is where an experienced consultant like Creative Dialog comes in to assist the stakeholder group to define and strategize placemaking and wayfinding programs that help to activate and differentiate a destination. Keenly aware retailers know the importance of delivering tailored year-round activations.
Bottom Line
Developers across hospitality and retail that combine a good location and scale with a well-executed destination offer as well as highly legible built environment that is easy to consume with a generous and consumable culturally relevant visual layer set themselves up for ongoing visitor experience success. At Creative Dialog, with more than 25 years of industry experience across wayfinding, signage design, placemaking and destination branding we put people, strategy, and expertise at the forefront of what we do, to ensure that the visitor is always the hero.
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Get in touch with Creative Dialog today to see how we can distill these insights into actionable strategies and solutions to improve the visitor experience across your organization.