Prolonging anticipatory happiness: How can destinations exceed expectations?

The abil­ity to deliv­er on or exceed expect­a­tions determ­ines wheth­er your des­tin­a­tion will cap­ture a repeat vis­it­or and/or their pos­it­ive word-of-mouth … or a much more vir­al neg­at­ive sentiment. 

In his unique and inim­it­able style, K Michael Hay­wood explores the theme and advoc­ates for the twin approach of com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions and destinations-in-action. 

It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight. (You too can write a “GT” Insight.)

“New friends and new places to see […] I’m on my way”

Famil­i­ar refrains sung and spoken by all. 

The joys asso­ci­ated with leav­ing ordin­ary worlds in search of spe­cial worlds. 

The pull of the exot­ic. The push or escape from the mundane toward the magnificent. 

The many new adven­tur­ers, trav­el­lers; are they pur­su­ing or fol­low­ing their bliss?

I won­der. 

Agonies of anticipation

Fas­ti­di­ous about the type of res­pite and exper­i­ence desired, we can be quite cir­cum­spect about find­ing our ver­sion of nirvana. 

Giv­en dashed expect­a­tions from pri­or trips, marketing’s exag­ger­ated hype, implied prom­ises, and how it affects our brains, we ques­tion wheth­er our options are appro­pri­ate, and wheth­er prom­ises made can be fulfilled. 

We might turn to trus­ted sources for con­firm­a­tion but, once done, we rejoice; though not obli­vi­ous to the agon­ies of anti­cip­a­tion that beset us.

Nev­er­the­less, with book­ings com­pleted, with high hopes and even high­er pre-trip expect­a­tions, we savour future-for­ward memor­ies, dream­ing about life’s pos­sib­il­it­ies, how the places we’re going to will change us.

For we are the lucky ones who take our freedoms and right-to-move for gran­ted; freedoms denied to so many, whose odys­seys are marred by heartache and tragedy (‘Io Cap­it­ano’).

Don’t miss oth­er “GT” posts tagged ‘des­tin­a­tion mar­ket­ing’

Based on exper­i­ences, we all know that depar­tures can be con­ten­tious; the tri­al and tribu­la­tions of get­ting to where we hope to be going can rattle even the most even-headed of temperaments. 

Even the blur of arrival over­whelms, espe­cially the crassness of bur­eau­cra­cies that rarely allow us to feel vic­tori­ous, let alone human.

Not to men­tion the des­tin­a­tions that fail to cor­res­pond with pre-con­cep­tions or resemble the images we’ve been bom­barded with. 

If only we could emu­late the Hero’s Jour­ney; to be the hero and have the gump­tion and acu­men to over­come adversity; with con­fid­ence that trans­form­a­tion will hap­pen and that our anti­cip­at­ory pleas­ures will be fulfilled. 

And that’s the point, isn’t it? If only we, with the help from ‘hid­den hands’, could dis­cov­er the secrets to real­ising bliss and encounter … 

Magnificence

Think of all those joy­ous, golden, and enrich­ing moments when the max­im­um of beauty and truth unfolds before us; when more is giv­en than is expec­ted; when hos­pit­al­ity melts our isol­a­tion, strengthens our resolve, and relationships

Our pres­ence gif­ted with heart­felt grat­it­ude. The actions of oth­ers mag­ni­fied for our bene­fit. Our needs respec­ted and honoured.

The world of pos­sib­il­it­ies unfold­ing, feel­ing free to explore thrilled and ener­gised with what we sen­sa­tion­ally exper­i­ence and receive.

Mag­ni­fi­cence, the embod­ied exper­i­en­tial won­der­ment, the pleas­ures of well-being. 

Hap­pi­ness real­ised and hope­fully pro­longed … but not as the ulti­mate goal.

Soulless saboteurs

We’re all aware of the organ­isa­tions and des­tin­a­tions that under­per­form, inat­tent­ive to the essen­tial basics of qual­ity, cus­tom­er ser­vice and effect­ive­ness, slash­ing costs while con­tinu­ing to spend inor­din­ate amounts on demand creation. 

Man­agers obsess­ing about grow­ing rev­en­ues and mar­ket share, put­ting profits over the cre­ation of com­munity shared value; a hier­archy of value com­posed of mul­tiple ele­ments, import­ant to all stake­hold­ers, but too often ignored.

Man­agers gush­ing over the poten­tial of martech and adtech (that couldn’t pass Tur­ing Tests), yet fail­ing to invest in, and sup­port, ser­vice and social innov­a­tions, reveal­ing indif­fer­ence to strength­en­ing their rela­tion­ships with cus­tom­ers and citizens.

Yet, if the ulti­mate goal is to cre­ate cus­tom­ers-for-life (loy­alty), why do so many fail to adjust to changes in their life cycles, life­styles, and desires? Why jeop­ard­ise the cre­ation of real option-based, cus­tom­er life­time value? 

Don’t miss oth­er “GT” posts tagged ‘des­tin­a­tion man­age­ment’

Why per­mit struc­tur­al, sys­tem­ic, and stra­tegic imped­i­ments to foster misery, mono­tony, and mediocrity, espe­cially when so many believe that mar­ket­ing is everything, everything is mar­ket­ing?

Is it because tour­ism, as an industry, con­sists of so many lay­ers and play­ers? A frag­ment­a­tion that does not eas­ily lend itself to gov­ernance and leadership? 

Cor­por­ate entit­ies always in com­pet­it­ive mode, too many under-serving their com­munit­ies and under­valu­ing caring, coordin­a­tion, cooper­a­tion, and collaboration?

All short­com­ings mag­ni­fied when unex­pec­ted volat­il­ity dis­tracts and nul­li­fies the abil­ity to react to real-time events, draw­ing atten­tion fur­ther away from those we serve; our vis­it­ors, our employ­ees, our communities.

Communities-as-destinations exceed expectations …

I raise these issues and ask the ques­tions out of deep respect for those enlightened organ­isa­tions and com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions that put into prac­tice the sin­cere and trans­form­at­ive power of hos­pit­al­ity (do watch the entire inter­view); those who work tire­lessly to design spaces and places that eli­cit emo­tion, put­ting joy and hap­pi­ness at the epi­centre of who they are, what they do and stand for. 

As John Stew­art Mill once quipped: 

“I nev­er, indeed, wavered in the con­vic­tion that hap­pi­ness is the test of all rules of con­duct, and at the end of life. But now, I thought, that this end was only to be attained by not mak­ing it the dir­ect end. Those only (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some oth­er object oth­er than their hap­pi­ness, on the hap­pi­ness of oth­ers or the improve­ment of man­kind, even on some art or pur­suit, fol­lowed not as a means, but as an ideal end. Aim­ing thus at some­thing else, they find hap­pi­ness by the way.”

As con­firmed by psy­chi­at­rists, it’s the act of noti­cing and pay­ing atten­tion to the oth­er that always mat­ters most. The act of cre­at­ing value that is truly and unfor­get­tably social and life-affirm­ing; val­ues that should be guid­ing the trans­form­a­tion of our down­towns and des­tin­a­tions so depend­ent on visitors. 

As do destinations-in-action

If you believe, as I do, that tourism’s suc­cess is ulti­mately con­tin­gent on fos­ter­ing and then sus­tain­ing peoples’ anti­cip­at­ory and aspir­a­tion­al hap­pi­ness — wheth­er for hosts or guests — we need to under­take some ser­i­ous soul-search­ing to over­come those forces that mani­fest misery, serve to pre­serve mediocrity, and under­mine magnificence.

This will neces­sit­ate joint efforts by every­one in des­tin­a­tions; entire tour­ism clusters under­tak­ing deep-dive assess­ments, examin­ing, expand­ing, and elev­at­ing the notion of cre­at­ing shared value mean­ing­ful for hosts, vis­it­ors, and com­munit­ies; form­ing integ­rat­ive net­works, coali­tions, alli­ances and partnerships. 

Every­one com­mit­ted to activ­at­ing, inspir­ing, and encour­aging great­er intro­spec­tion and buy-in from all stake­hold­ers intent on alter­ing the des­tiny of des­tin­a­tions, chan­ging the levers of decision-mak­ing, and decent­ral­ising power away from the usu­al power brokers. 

DMOs refor­mu­lat­ing their rationale and agen­das, start­ing with the need to artic­u­late a noble and prin­cipled pur­pose for tour­ism, rein­vent­ing the man­age­ment of com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions as pro­posed by DMO­cracy and under­taken in places like Hawai’i.

But, there has to be more. 

Read more by Pro­fess­or K Michael Haywood

I like to think of tour­ism as rep­res­ent­ing people’s quest for ongo­ing net pleas­ure that builds on a found­a­tion of pos­it­ive expect­a­tions, exper­i­ences, and excitement. 

Don’t des­tin­a­tions already make prom­ises that vis­it­ors will enjoy their vis­its or hol­i­days? If only they would make those prom­ises clear and unam­bigu­ous and rep­res­ent­at­ive of acts of strategy-mak­ing; guar­an­tees that exper­i­ences will be mean­ing­ful, mem­or­able, valu­able, and deliv­er­able; exper­i­ences brought to life through story-doing, not just storytelling.

Des­tin­a­tions rein­for­cing their com­mit­ments to the power of world-class hos­pit­al­ity and exper­i­en­tial won­der­ment. Build­ing suc­cess-upon-suc­cess through har­mo­ni­ous attach­ments to and with­in com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions; affirm­ing the pres­ence of, and being present for, all our hosts and our guests.

Vis­it­or-serving enter­prises being the ‘hid­den hands’, doing their best to ener­gise people’s blithe­ness of spir­it, affirm­ing and pro­long­ing their anti­cip­at­ory happiness. 

Acts of kind­ness and expres­sions of grat­it­ude that are bound to spur tourism’s good-to-great tra­ject­or­ies and help reju­ven­ate communities-as-destinations. 

Des­tin­a­tions-in-Action instinct­ively know­ing what’s right and what to do.

Every­one con­fid­ently singing: “I’m on my way”. 

Con­tents ^

What do you think? 

Share your own thoughts in a com­ment below on how des­tin­a­tions might meet or exceed expect­a­tions. (SIGN IN or REGISTER first. After sign­ing in you will need to refresh this page to see the com­ments section.)

Or write a “GT” Insight or “GT” Insight Bite of your own. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive about travel & tour­ism, because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

“GT” doesn’t judge. “GT” pub­lishes. “GT” is where free thought travels.

If you think the tour­ism media land­scape is bet­ter with “GT” in it, then please …

About the author

K Michael Hay­wood is Pro­fess­or Emer­it­us, School of Hos­pit­al­ity, Food and Tour­ism at the Uni­ver­sity of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Prof Hay­wood has recently writ­ten an e‑book “Aston­ish, Smarter Tour­ism by Design”. Find Michael on Linked­In.

Featured image (top of post)

Pro­long­ing anti­cip­at­ory hap­pi­ness: How can des­tin­a­tions exceed expect­a­tions? Packed and ready. Pic by Arnel Has­anovic (CC0) via Unsplash. “GT” added the words.

Con­tents ^