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The more experience I gain in heritage tourism, the more I find myself wanting to step back and look at the whole picture.
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Traditional interpretive planning tends to assume that the planning process culminates in products: signs, exhibits, programs, digital media. But what if it culminated in better processes, too? If we’re already taking a hard look at the visitor offer—what works, what doesn’t, and what needs to change—why not also ask how did we get here? What habits, systems, and assumptions have shaped the visitor experience we have today?
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I’m experimenting with adding a step to my planning methodology that I call Patterns and Pathologies. It means looking courageously at how we’ve been doing things, with no sacred cows: how we recruit and train docents, how we use staff time, what we keep doing simply because we’ve always done it, and where we may be burning through resources for very little visitor benefit.
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I’m not entirely sure yet where this expansion of my practice will lead. But increasingly, I’m convinced that improving the visitor experience sometimes means changing not just what we offer, but how we work.
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Here are a few thoughts about what that might look like. I hope you find them interesting.
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Special Events burning you out? Beef up your daily offer instead.
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Special events can bring in big crowds — but that doesn’t mean they’ll build a lasting audience. Research suggests that repeat visitation depends much more on the quality, value, and relevance of the everyday visitor experience. Before you plan another exhausting festival, it might be time to invest in the thing people can come back to all year.
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Your Best Docent Candidates Might Know Almost Nothing About Your Site
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Subject knowledge matters—but it may not be the most important thing to look for when recruiting volunteer interpreters. Research suggests that communication, adaptability, and genuine curiosity about visitors matter just as much. So maybe it’s time to rethink how we choose our docents.
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Essence of Place and Sustainable Tourism
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What do we mean by Essence of Place?
It’s the sum of the qualities, tangible and intangible, that define a place and set it apart from the rest of the world.
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