Experience person of May 

Anna Pollock has over 30 years' experience working in the tourism sector as a consultant, strategist, futurist, change agent and entrepreneur. Described as an irrepressibly curious "renaissance woman", her strength derives from an ability to dig beneath surface trends to find and make sense of the real drivers of change combined with a creative capacity to develop innovative responses.

Having made seminal contributions to many aspects of tourism development (resource development, sustainable tourism, health tourism, adventure travel and digital marketing) over her long career, Anna's current preoccupation is helping clients understand the full scope and likely impact of moving from a high carbon, industrial economy to a low carbon, networked economy. She recently co-founded The Icarus Foundation, a not-for-profit agency formed to encourage the Canadian tourism industry become climate friendly and is now exploring how social media can be deployed to accelerate behavioural change and enrich experience delivery.

When and how did you realise you were living in the Experience Economy?

For as long as I can remember! As soon as I started looking at tourism holistically back in the 1980s in Canada, I realized that the industrial model does not apply to the majority of tourism businesses. Tourism is not a neatly structured "industry" with relatively fixed supply chains selling products but a community of independent, generally small, and fragmented micro businesses providing parts of a complex experience – whose value and purpose is determined entirely by the person having the experience. While mass tourism has deployed an industrial model with success – if growth is the measure of success – it has also commodified the travel experience, degraded margins and become dependent on volume.

Each visitor experience has physical, emotional, mental and spiritual attributes simply because, as humans, we are complex and have an array of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs and desires. Thanks to Maslow, we also understand that as humans grow and mature, the relative importance of those attributes and their perceived value changes.

For example, hoteliers now understand that they don't rent out beds for an unconscious sleeping experience but to provide an attractive, safe, convivial setting in which travelers can "feel" nurtured, at ease, stimulated, soothed, or possibly inspired while travelling away from home. Hoteliers also understand that their guests' perception of their experience might be more influenced by their experience of getting to and from the hotel or by what happened to them during their stay but off premise. Once individual suppliers realize their dependency on other suppliers for ensuring the guest goes home happy and willing to rave about their trip, they start to work collaboratively and the fragmentation of tourism starts to melt away.

Why do you think companies should make an effort of staging experiences?

If the guest is the author and star actor of their own play, then suppliers within the tourism community are both actors and stage managers. Through their actions, the provision of "props", stage settings, circumstances etc. they can help stimulate a range of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual responses within the guest's psyche that, ideally, are perceived as positive. Thus, the greater the range and depth of response elicited by the experience, the greater its perceived value. After all, we do not travel to sleep walk but to feel "alive". Throughout the history of travel and tourism, the experience of travel has been associated with rejuvenation, re-creation, restoration. So if we want our guests to speak positively about their travel experiences in our destination to their peers, we must ensure that they leave us feeling fully alive and happy about that. The efficient provision of airline seats, beds, and utilitarian meals will not achieve that result.

In today's digitally connected world, where increasingly sophisticated consumers distrust manufactured messages spun by professionals in government and corporations, we are increasingly dependent on "word of mouth" referrals. In fact Harvard professor, Howard Reichfeld has gone so far as to suggest that there is only one metric worth monitoring and that is the percentage of customers who rave about your product, service or experience to their friends. Furthermore, 70% of these rave reviews occur when an experience exceeds expectations. Given these observations, I am surprised that all tourism destinations aren't investing heavily in ensuring their customers leave as ecstatic advocates.

You have said that Experience Economy is a feeling business. What do you mean by that?

Our actions are driven by emotions – we feel bored at work and start dreaming about a weekend away; we feel stressed from all the demands of modern living and fantasize about swimming with dolphins in tropical waters; we feel alienated from our partner due to different work schedules and imagine a romantic dinner together under the stars. A decision to travel for pleasure nearly always starts with a feeling and some form of fantasy. If the feelings are strong enough and the circumstances permit, we start planning and booking and then having the experience of our dreams.

And what do we take home in addition to a digital camera full of images and some dirty laundry but emotionally charged memories that have the power to stimulate a return trip or influence others.

Until relatively recently, destinations would feature the scenery (the back drop), and describe the culture, history, attractions and amenities. People were often missing from the brochures and, if they were included, they looked like actors or models. Now, thanks to the ubiquity and low cost of digital technology and user generated content, destinations can feature real people displaying real emotional responses that have far great power to attract attention through the power of identification.

New technology, and especially social media, has revolutionized marketing. Give three suggestions to tourism businesses to make the most out of the change?

1. Recognize that customers are now fully in control – it's their experience, after all. Your role is not to persuade them to consume but to support them in achieving the emotional response they seek.

2. Find as many ways to engage them in a dialogue before they arrive so that you can detect cues as to their inner fantasies.

3. Focus on helping to create as many positive memories as possible and encourage/incentivize your guests to capture those memories in a form that can be shared and that might attract others. Let your ecstatic guests market your destination through their own social networks by encouraging them to share their memories and provide reviews and referrals to others.

How do you see Finland's and Lapland's position in the world's experience industry map?

I am profoundly impressed with the level of attention paid to the power of experience by Finland's tourism industry and the body of knowledge that has been developed by organizations such as the Lapland Centre of Expertise for the Experience Industry. Other countries, especially those that are richly endowed with spectacular scenery, could learn much from you.

This work is important for a very important reason – tourism cannot continue to grow in volume terms at its historical rate. There simply isn't enough space; the atmosphere cannot absorb the carbon waste products. We have to generate higher yields and the only way I see us doing that is through enabling our customers to have experiences they rate as "priceless" and are willing to pay for appropriately.

Ironically, real, life changing experiences often require little or no investment. For a resident of a mega city, trapped in a concrete jungle, the act of being carried across a frozen wasteland by a pack of dogs; cutting a hole in the ice; catching a fish and cooking it for supper might produce an "aha moment" that could last a lifetime.

What is your advice to the Finnish tourism industry to keep up with the global competition?

In my brief time in Lapland, I discovered an interesting contradiction/anomaly. Finland is a nation of engineers that leads the world in mobile technology and digital connectivity. As stated earlier, you also lead the tourism industry in your understanding of "experiences". Yet, surprisingly, you seem to lag behind others in the use of the internet to connect with customers – to stimulate their fantasies before they come; deliver relevant information to help them feel good about their trip and to enable them to share their memories when they get home.

I learned that less than 30% of your supplier businesses have a web presence. This is a missed opportunity. Two-thirds of the customer's experience is a virtual one – in their heads, occurring as fantasies and memories. You have a chance to influence and enrich those virtual places if you use today’s technology creatively. This is the new frontier…

How do you know that someone has had a meaningful experience?

You don't – unless they start to express it in their smiles, their chatter, and their behavior. There's plenty of research to suggest that people tend to talk more about their bad experiences more than positive ones. I think it has more to do with the intensity of emotional response. The result you want is either an enthusiastic referral, or a return visit, or, at best, both!

What is the most meaningful and memorable experience you've had yourself?

Arriving in Bali in 1972 when there was no electricity on the island and being driven in a rickshaw through the velvet darkness to our "Losmen" – aware of Balinese villagers clustered around candles and gas lamps watching shadow puppet plays; hearing the sound of the gamelan competing with the sound of crickets; being surprised by a Barong character jumping from the bushes and the ever present perfume of clove cigarettes. Pure, sublime magic and mystery underlined by a sense of the unknown. Every sense and every aspect of my being was stimulated positively! I can close my eyes and relive that feeling of pure wonder, even today, some 35 years later.

Last month's experience person, Experience Director Marko Huttunen at AS Restaurants asks you: Experiences has become a megatrend over party and occupation borders. What do you think will be the next step?

Our fascination with technology will mean that digital experiences will become more real and immersive and be used to enrich and supplement a visitor's experience of a place. If you wish to see just how far technology is racing ahead, look at this presentation from MIT.

At the same time, I hope we continue a contrary trend – a fascination with what makes real places real and unique; a recognition that all senses can and should be involved; and that becoming acutely and slowly aware of one's surroundings – especially if they are radically different to that we experience every day – can be a major source of pleasure and generate real value. It's time for tourism and tourists to slow down and enjoy the journey!

Back in 2006, I wrote a blog post on The Transformation Economy, inspired by the last chapter in Pine and Gilmore's book. This is the frontier where real value occurs.