Heritage sites and experiential tourism: friends or foes?
Some years ago, I was invited to an international conference in Moscow, Russia. Part of the activities organised for the participants included a visit to the Armoury Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin Museum. Out of thousands of impressive artefacts on display, including Faberge eggs, only one is stuck to my mind even today. The wedding dress of Catherine the Great. Made to impress, the wedding dress is made of silver brocade, decorated in silver embroidered roses, shimmering and dazzling in the light. For a moment I could imagine I was the young empress with the 17-inch waist wearing this exquisite dress. I was having an experience I would never forget. And judging by the queue of other women and men waiting to see it, I was not the only one.
It is this reaction that is alluded to in the reference “an experience occurs when a company intentionally uses services as the stage, and goods as props, to engage individual customers in a way that creates a memorable event” [Gilmore and Pine]. Having an experience doesn’t only affect companies, as in the reference above, it affects tourism too. In particular, leisure activities, the entertainment sector, and theme parks are used as prime examples of experiential tourism [Zhang et al].
But what about heritage sites? What common characteristics exist between heritage sites and the entertainment sector or theme parks? Many heritage practitioners, managers, and lovers would shudder at the thought that the Tower of London, for example, could be viewed in the same vein as Disney’s Cinderella Castle. There are of course differences, mainly on issues of authenticity that cannot be overlooked. But there are also many connections between heritage sites and theme parks. Some of these connections are: issues of seasonality; offering different attractions; issues of visitor flow; meeting visitor needs; and offering value for money. To an extent both heritage sites and museums can be compared to theme parks in that “they … provide visitors with a themed experience which, given usually the more specific focus, may be equally intense” [Lovell and Bull].
I will not argue that theme parks and heritage sites can be treated in precisely the same way. Studying how theme parks approach the experience visitors, however, is essential. They are not only examining ways to increase visitor numbers but, at least as importantly, visitor satisfaction. In improving the visitor experience, theme parks are way ahead in the game, particularly in their effort to improve positive cues and eliminate negative ones. Cues, whether positive or negative, are important as they are big factors in creating impressions in visitors’ minds and therefore shape experiences. TripAdvisor reviews are a gold mine in examining the effect negative and positive cues have on visitors. In the words of an experiential tourism researcher “focusing on what tourists really want…should be the primary concern of practitioners in the field of heritage tourism” [Apostolakis].
The experience people seek to have in historic sites and buildings is in fact heritage tourism. This experience can be improved by adopting and implementing changes in: the quality of interpretation; the environment surrounding the site; the facilities on offer; the artefacts on display; mining TripAdvisor reviews. Or by being given a moment’s solitude to see and experience objects. All these are opportunities offered to heritage sites to improve their experience offerings.
Not all heritage sites can be fortunate enough to have silver wedding dresses in their collection. Every heritage site though does have access to TripAdvisor reviews and could be examining the comments to eliminate negative experiences. And, as discussed in previous blogs, facilitate social distancing by using a-social apps or virtual queueing. All these are opportunities offered to heritage sites to improve their experience offerings. Who would have thought that heritage sites and experiential tourism are friends after all?
Sources
Alexandros Apostolakis, The convergence process in heritage tourism, doi:10.1016/S0160–7383(03)00057–4
Jane Lovell and Chris Bull, Authentic and inauthentic places in tourism: from heritage sites to theme parks.
B. Joseph Pine and James H. Gilmore, Welcome to the experience economy, https://hbr.org/1998/07/welcome-to-the-experience-economy
Yingsha Zang, Li (Robert) Xiang, Su Qin and Hu Xingbao, Exploring a theme park’s tourism carrying capacity: a demand-side analysis, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2016.08.019
