Packaging places: Designing heritage trails using an experience economy perspective to maximize visitor engagement

This research is in the field of heritage studies and cultural management and marketing.

Forming part of a EU Interreg project in 2001 to help develop the North Kent/Medway cultural infrastructure involving, among other things, heritage trails, the co-researchers undertook research into the critical success factors that inform their design and management. The initial stage of the research was to audit self-guided trails in England to identify the number in operation as well as their themes, characteristics and style of presentation. This was followed by qualitative research focusing on trail developers, usually local authority officers with a responsibility for a diverse range of portfolios including, culture, leisure, tourism, planning education and the environment. The purpose was to explore the development of trails from a cultural planning perspective (Evans 2002) and to assess their purpose, function and the degree to which trails deliver against these expectations. Pine and Gilmore’s 1998 study of designing experiences were used as a starting point for mapping the kind of experience provided by the sellers of self-guided heritage trails.

Using their map the researchers were able to reach a number of conclusions. Specifically that self-guided heritage trails were often generic and rarely personalised. The visitor became both the providers and the consumer of the experience. The visitor was rarely offered anything non-standard and that there was a prevailing formulaic approach to experience. Very little ‘narrative story’ led the visitor to customise. Didactic language was common. Personal mode of address was rare. The research concluded with a mapping of opportunities for visitor engagement including related events and activities on route.

Preliminary findings were presented at the International Cultural Policy Research Conference in Montreal, Canada, in August 2004.