Be Our (Behaved) Guest
NO ONE’S GLOOMY OR COMPLAINING
We understand about setting customer expectations, but why not set customer expectations for how they will be expected to treat each other and staff? Most of us know of at least one teacher that knew how to facilitate a classroom in a way that good behavior and learning just came naturally. Can we use those same techniques with adults outside of school?
Encouraging guests to behave in this way, consciously or not, begins with setting clear and consistent expectations. According to Kickboard, an organization with over 100 years of combined experience in the field of education, students know and understand what’s expected of them, which gives them confidence. If we clarify our expectations with guests, chances are their behavior will adjust accordingly. This messaging must be consistent across the organization. Most importantly, the organization needs to model and practice these expectations—the staff needs to follow the rules too!
Don’t be bashful about employing messaging directly to affect change: make an appeal using graphics, media, or presentations to your guests.
Liverpool Museums commissioned artist Tracy Worrall to create a set of safety signs that go deeper than stating the rules, her signs explain the rules with clear language and eye-catching graphics.
Joseph Cappella, professor at the Annenberg School of Communication, says you need a strong appeal, and audience engagement, to affect change. In a 2017 workshop on Lessons Learned from Diverse Efforts to Change Social Norms, Capella explained that “the notion of a strong appeal goes back to work in social psychology on positive and negative thoughts induced by a message in the target audience … Strong appeals lead to more effective message.” In other words, the stronger and more engaging your message is to your guest, the more likely you are to affect change in that guest’s behavior.
LET US HELP YOU (HELP US)
Once the expectations are laid out, enlist the public to help in your cause. People like to feel included and, according to games researcher Jane McGonigal, they need four things to be happy:
Satisfying work to do
The experience of being good at something
Time spent with people we like
The chance to be part of something bigger
If we can use these four ways to engage the public, their meaningful participation to our cause should follow. “Satisfying work” might mean successfully engaging in an experience. “Being good at something” could be as simple as being a respectful, engaged guest. And, as we’ve learned the hard way over the past year and a half, “spending time with people we like” is critical to enjoying in-person experiences. But it’s the last piece, “the chance to be part of something bigger,” that poses an opportunity.
As explained in the book The Participatory Museum, when you invite people to participate in an activity, you should be explicit on how they can fulfill their own needs and contribute to a project with larger impact. Acting like something is “just for fun” devalues their relevance. By clearly demonstrating how they can have a meaningful and exciting impact, participants will be more engaged.
For instance, the See Something, Say Something campaign manages to enlist public individuals in the greater good of the collective. A big part of Ben and Jerry’s success has been using social media to advance their social engagement and social justice work.
PUT OUR SERVICE TO THE TEST
Once the expectations are laid out, and you’ve enlisted the public, the final piece of the puzzle is whether or not the design makes it easier to follow the rules of behavioral standards or to break them. Working within people’s restraints is key. According to Don Norman, author of The Design of Everyday Things, “good design requires, among other things, good communication of the purpose, structure, and operation of the device to the people who use it.” In other words, if you don’t want people to litter, do what Disney does and put trash bins every 30 steps!
The design of the built environment provides the opportunity to dramatically affect human behavior. As visionary artist, designer, and author Maria Lorena Lehman explains, “As an architect, your building needs to find ways to engage with its occupants, and knowing when the right time is to approach them with certain interventions is critical. This means that your architect needs to “listen” and “observe” the patterns of occupant behaviors.” As destinations designers, we wield great control orchestrating the guest experience—where they go next, how long they stay in certain spaces, what they experience on their way out. It’s no mistake that most attractions exit everyone through the gift shop!
AND IT’S ALL IN PERFECT TASTE
Clearly, guest behavior impacts (negatively and positively) the experience of others at attractions. What we as designers, attraction owners, and destination leaders can do to positively influence this behavior will be a key factor in transforming tourism for the better, long-term.
Reinvention is more fun with friends. Got a topic you want to see on Destinology?
Email us at destinology@pgav.com or start a conversation on Facebook, Twitter on LinkedIn.
Tap the buttons below.