Case Study: Elevating Destination Visitor Experiences
How Dunedin’s tourism team used experience design to turn good products into memorable ones
Dunedin has no shortage of passionate operators and unique experiences. But like many destinations, the challenge is transitioning standalone ‘products’ into memorable, high-value visitor journeys that stand out in a competitive market.
I was invited to work with Dunedin’s tourism team and a group of local operators to do exactly that.
The challenge
Dunedin wanted to:
Help local operators lift the quality and consistency of their visitor experience
Move beyond one-off training and into real behaviour change back in the business
Connect experience design with commercial thinking so improvements also grew yield, length of stay and word-of-mouth
Build collaboration and a shared language around a great Dunedin visitor experience
Rather than running a single ‘one off’ workshop, we designed a program that combined inspiration, structure and hands-on support.
1. Setting the scene: why experience design matters
We started by framing the opportunity at their quarterly Destination Hui, talking about things like:
How visitor expectations are changing
How to balance more visitors while also building better experiences
The cost of the “leaky bucket” (great marketing, average delivery, bad yield)
The upside when you design the journey on purpose: higher value, better reviews, more repeat and referral business
This gave everyone clarity on why to come and we had a great turnout at the workshop;
2. Visitor Experience Design workshop
Next, we brought 50 operators together for a working session focused on their own business.
In the room, we:
Mapped visitor journeys
From the first moment of discovery through to post-visit follow-up, looking at impactful touchpoints.
Identified “peak” and “pit” moments
Where are we already creating memorable moments? Where are we losing people through friction or missed opportunities?
Introduced simple but important design tools
Using frameworks from my Visitor Experience Design work including 10-Star Thinking and the “Happy Hormones” lens, we explored how to dial up emotion, memorability and value.
Linked ideas to commercial outcomes
For each experience upgrade, we asked how does this connect to visitor + business value?
Operators left with a clear picture of their current experience and a shortlist of practical changes they could implement quickly.
3. One-to-one follow-up with operators
Workshops are only useful if something happens afterwards. But often people finish a workshop and get caught up in BAU. We countered this with follow up one-on-one sessions with operators to:
Work through their specific challenges and constraints
Prioritise which changes to make first
Sense check pricing, packaging and positioning
Turn ideas into action (that also become reportable outcomes for the destination)
This is where a lot of the value was created - taking good intentions and turning them into concrete next steps back in the business.
Outcomes
While every operator started from a different place, we saw some common shifts:
Greater collaboration between operators
A shared language around visitor experience for Dunedin
Greater awareness of the importance of destination wide visitor journeys
New products being created
The destination team and operators now share common concepts and tools around visitor experience design, which makes future product work easier and faster. Most importantly, the work wasn’t theoretical. Operators walked away with specific changes to test on their next guests and a structure for checking what works.
Why this matters?
Destinations win by:
Designing experiences that visitors can’t easily get elsewhere
Helping local operators connect the dots between design and commercial results
Marketing the new and improved experiences that are aligned with wider strategic plans
Better results for visitors, operators and destinations.