Why authentic experiences are vital to the future of places and people

welcome to the future of Tourism podcast I'm David peacock stop owning your own content young leaders are stepping up bring everyone to the table and imagine their wild an [Music] new the pressing need for destinations to community unicate their authentic state of being has never been more apparent the African-American story in America is one that has been told many ways with many wrinkles the challenge now is to tell it authentically and openly in a way that acknowledges the pain and also the genius and resilience of people Benish Brown is the CEO of destination Agusta Georgia he's a friend and a peer and I admire immensely his continual work not just just to drive the sharability of Augusta but to empower and en Noble the people who live there joov venito is an interesting character in the tourism world he founded the venito collaboratory nearly three decades ago with a specific focus on working at a granular level with destination stakeholders to create authentic experiences the results speak for themselves good morning Benish how are you where are you what's it like good morning David uh I'm in Augusta Georgia uh the city where it's been my home now for the past five years we have had a great summer and uh I'm excited from my team standpoint we're diving into our first year of a three-year strategic plan so our work is laid out for us we will be prepared for any uh opportunities that might come to change that but uh we're excited to be here and I am just honored and thrilled to be uh here to have a conversation with you and another icon that I know you're going to introduce that's that's joining us so thank you so much well well thank you you very much for that it's always a pleasure to have you on um um I will introduce that other icon that guy's Joe Vito um Joe I had a question for you um here's a quote for you deep enriching experiences are the currency of 21st century travel and the demand is being driven by consumers jovano do you any idea who said that I think I do uh thank thank you thank you David for quoting me I'm super excited to be with you this morning and also with Benish uh it's certainly a privilege to be with two gentlemen I admire and talking about uh authentic experiences and destination development two of my favorite topics well very good yeah the quote was from a podcast you did with Andreas venor and Ben Switzer on a Continuum of experiential development in the digital world it about about eight months ago awesome thanks for thanks for allowing me to quote me and I I just want to see if you even recognized it all right Benish it's good to see you we were just talking before you've just finished the second destination next uh survey in six years yes uh exactly my predecessor uh did what I called a DX 1.0 which gave us at least a inch Mark uh to look at and you know through time it I felt like it might have sat there just a bit we knew last year after I'd been here for three three and a half years it was time for us to reset you know we've come through the pervent times all of us faced and we were like where do we go now and I thought a great starting point would be let's do D next now let's see where we where we were six years ago what does DX tell us now and my My ultimate goal David is to make sure this needle moves significantly uh in the next three years we're giving ourselves until 2025 uh to do another assessment and uh it's so interesting and because the topic we're talking about I noticed now in this next version of D it's even moved up higher we see that in you know a priority is really tying communities to those authentic experience those immersive experiences that has just gone up in popularity with what consumers want so we're very much focused on that I have some more history I can speak about to how we've gotten to where we are now but uh yeah for us it's really moving forward D next has allowed us to align with this community really hear the voice of this community and always say you know you you listen for the opportunities that come for the from your community and figure out how to exploit those opportunities that's where we spend our time how do we exploit what our people are saying is important to them well I really do appreciate um the work though that goes in behind it you're Benish one of the things I like when I hear strategy in the context of uh D next and the work that you're doing is you put it into practice and and a real example of that is um in your 2017 strategy the idea of developing experiential links and using it to connect to the community was in there as a strategy piece but let's let's be frank you know so much of strategy doesn't survive the photocopier right we we see it all the time and then I'm I'm really when you say you're doing D next also know you're connecting with your community and you're using it that way so let's go back to that strategy piece experiential development in Augusta why was that important why is that important it does so many things it's complicated but why is it important part of the strategy tell tell us about that why did you zero in on it we and I'll tell you from the the product you're talking about was called um destination blueprint and destination blueprint was specifically designed to say if here are some things Augusta really needs to consider to ele to continue elevating itself as a competitive destination for visitors which also enhances a place where people want to live and one of the analysis that came out is that Augusta has an opportunity to now for for for our experiences to uh you shift from the show and tell and there's a quote you're are so great with quotes there's a quote that we all have heard in some version it says you know tell me I'll forget it teach me I'll remember it but involve me involve me and I'll I'll learn it and it was basically saying Augusta you have the opportunity to really really um combine experiences of some of your assets that your assets are kind of working in silos you have some great opportunities of things that are totally unique about Augusta that you can combine and compile and make these very profound opportunities that people will uh will travel to Augusta to experience to immerse themselves and I'm not sure at that point we use the word immers We Came Upon the word immersive experiences when we started going to uh this collaboratory experience my team went and we can talk more about this later I'll just shorten this my team went to a few of those collaboratory experiences came back with great ideas oh wow here's how we can get some of our assets our museums our and we're working now with some nonprofits and for-profit entities to that for the experiences we have built but I tell you in the light of went off David we went maybe three times I finally had the light bulb moment when I said we can come back and talk to our attractions as much as we want tell them how this idea sounds let's take them they need to go and feel this and they went to Louisville and the rest is history well that that is a fantastic intro Joe I think you've been set up for a win here um so there there's the reason behind it but walk us through a little bit of of of what the what the the uh the lab is about tell us about how it's set up we've got we got a great set up from Benish of why it's important now you captured his attention I think with the Louisville work but how does it work yeah so what we did about a dozen years ago uh we we had requests from destinations throughout North America to really see our work and what we did was we created this three day immersive experience called The Experience lab that we host every year and what we do is we bring DMO execs in they can bring their attraction Partners in sometimes it's Economic Development folks but they come into a community where we've created what I call Unforgettable experiences these engaging and immersive experiences and what we do is for three days they're immersed in a little bit of our process how does it work how does a destination fac facilitate the development of Unforgettable experiences and we walk them through that but at the same time we do what I call mobile workshops and what they do is they literally as customers are immersed in about six or seven different mobile workshops and what we do is we sort of pull the curtain back and we talk about how these experiences were developed and the experiences are sometimes as Benish says with nonprofits for-profits solo preneurs Etc and again it's it's a proof of concept because destinations in many cases know they need to do it in most cases to your point and Ben's Point people are doing strategic plans and master plans and this destination development piece it's it's like a black hole nobody knows how to do this and the experience lab really shows this proof of concept and my hope is that when you come in and see the lab you're looking at at least seven attractions that three or four of them are going to resonate because you're going to say to yourself well we have Arts we have historic sites we have museums we have breweries or culinary venues so so Joe let me understand this there's an experience lab in the late fall this year right is that correct yes so our our newest uh destination lab is going to be November 6th through the eth and it's going to be in Scottdale and Scottdale the city and experien Scottsdale the CBB um just underwent two different rounds of experiential development and the interesting thing about Scottdale is that it's a very developed destination and so people might think well if Scottsdale is a really developed destination why do they need it they needed to stay competitive their goal was increasing competitive advantage in a tourism world where people are looking for what else so you're when people in Scottdale you'll have five or six things to take them to that are developed experiences that they can talk about the beginning of that idea how they built it what it does yes exactly okay so but but I can tell you why Scottdale needs it like any place needs it you could say August has been here for you know centuries literally but there's a story that's missing from Augusta and that's what we're going to that's what I want to talk about now Bish is the stories that are missing the Scottdale story it's it's a magnificent place in its current moment I don't get a whole lot of its history when I'm there and I really do want to understand it you know the Frank lyd Wright buildings that are so proximate the the history of the desert I I often end up in Arizona I say to myself how did this place exist Phoenix before electricity but it did it did you know this is the fascinating part so let's come back to the authentic part Benish I saw you do a little bit of an intro the day the just kicked off the lab you couldn't be there and you wrote you did this cool little video for the participants you were off in I think the state capital or somewhere and you talked about being selected as one of the 10 for the intake for for for the experience lab how did you do that how did you sort of engage your your community of of stakeholders and supporting businesses and and nfps and interest groups and movements then how did you Whittle it down what did that process look like yeah um we uh again had been attending the lab so we had a sense of who were who's coming to the labs and having success we saw in other communities and it ranged from you know museums to uh you know activities outdoor activities but we internally talked about the things that both needed help to help grow and some of the activities that were already really producing really well and that could certainly still tie to these experiences so internally you know we we definitely wanted to help our ongoing uh Partners our museums our Arts and Cultural activities I guess I would say because that was pointed out very heavily in that original destination master plan it said you know to elevate your community and to elevate the experiences help your arts and culture uh assets to be more than showand tell so we we thought about them do we work with all of them and they as we work with those products it gave us maybe seven or eight of our members we wanted to round it out at 10 and we that's when we we switched to some for-profits that already had some things uh working but the we knew who we wanted to participate we didn't know exactly what was the depth of the story that each of these would tell and that's when we knew we needed some of the expertise of Joe because David there you know obviously some of these assets some of these uh uh entities were doing the same things for years and years they were very set and a lot of cases and we know this exists across uh across the breath of of our tourism industry where sometimes all that matters is that the turn styles are turning and we don't care a lot more than that but we really need to dive a lot more be authentic as Joe said be a lot more competitive and if you look at the top trends 50 Trends in this year's D next number two is customers increasingly are seeking unique authentic travel experiences we began to drill that home and we had Joe to come to do a secret shopping and Joe was very careful but very honest with what looked good and just what needed to have that shot in the arm um and it just required a lot of work but things that are are worth having are worth working for and we identified the top 10 and I tell you there are few in the in our 10 that I just didn't expect and we can talk about it later one is a water our water treatment area uh facility it's fennessy Nature Park nobody had ever seen fennessy Through The Eyes of this makes a great experience for people to not only learn about how Augustus Water is processed but you get a lot of handson with doing um You activities that you go back home and you'll never forget it so Jo un cover I think a lot of those and that I don't think there's an opportunity probably in any other city in our region I won't say there's not so a lot of the things we're doing I think truly do make us competitive particularly in our regional footprint our competitive footprint there a lot of things that make us competitive across this country and maybe even globally and we can talk later about the story of the black caddies that probably is our Crown Jewel well and and that's I'm glad you brought that up because there is also the idea of telling stories that haven't been told for a long time Joe you've got a Keen Eye for this if you spend two decades literally in experiential development you start start to see the Little Gems that you say oh my gosh this is so incredibly important but it's not being shared and it's not crafted so one of the things I know from working myself in experiential development for a couple decades is the nurture after the fact is so important when you work with a stakeholder an operator to develop something it's like skateboarding they're going to get better at it you know incrementally at first and then there's going to be a steep slope but if you're not there to support them sometimes they run out of steam month number three and they oh no one's coming to my Bootlegger experience and we put so much work into it it's it's there's nothing wrong with the experience it's the other part of that the back fi the social media sharing tell me about that side of it how how do you prepare them for that reality so for us we we have a a seven-month process which is uh which is really Hands-On and it's really unique to what we do so we come into a destination work with the team uh the executive team or the management team in in this case two amazing women on Ben's team Jennifer Bowen and Sarah Childers and all of the partners and what I like to say is the first five months of the project is really all about developing the the experience which is the the stories and the design and the storyboarding and the scripting and then the last two months we focus on sales and marketing and you know the the sales and marketing pieces some organizations are already doing it well but we want to make sure that every organization that all boats are rising and that everybody has the same capacity and capability and so what happens at this at this point is the bureaus come in and Augusta's marketing team is amazing and what they'll do is they work to help create you know assets digital assets but the partners do the same thing so it's a it's a shared process at that point when everything is is launched and then the team works together to schedule these experiences so for us the experiences are on board for on board and available they're at least twice a month for leisure visitors and locals and then over and above that they're also available for any type of group that comes in so uh if you've got a convention a meeting a family reunion a destination wedding any of those those are also uh you know perfect opportunities for these experiences and so you know in terms of Benish and his team they not only have 10 great new Unforgettable experiences but they've got a new story to tell because they've elevated the experiences and they've really uncovered these experiences and their stories um ultimately the goal when you create these experience experiences is to convert your customer whoever that may be into a brand ambassador you know the key with a story is that I'm G to remember it and recount it to somebody else it's not and then don't sell it short though because it's not just a story it becomes as as Benish said if you if you teach me I'll it'll become part of me and I'll never forget it's beyond the story isn't it yes and that's that's why we talk about experiences in terms of engaging and immersive so real quick Snapshot not to say that you can nail all 10 Joe but give me a quick snapshot of the experience lab stuff in um in Augusta so so in Augusta I mean I we looked at the essence of Augusta right you you talk about destination DNA I look at Essence and when we think about essence of a place I mean I I look at sort of the broad categories I look at Arts I look at history right I look at uh you know the culinary scene um I also look at U you know one of Augusta's uh favorite Sons right uh James Brown so you look at that and and and you get what I call categories of experiences right and then from there you can sort of drill down uh but if we look at some of these experiences you know finey Nature Park um amazing and you become a citizen scientist you know you put waiters on you do water sample testing and you meet the scientist I mean this was something that people were just kind of walking around the park and oh they were doing some things to keep the water safe but I mean this is an immersive experience which is amazing the other one uh that I'll talk about is is The Morris Museum of Art so mystery at the Morris so The Morris Museum amazing collection of Southern art and we went in and we looked at this art but we looked at it through a different lens because Mr Morris who donated the art was a newspaper guy and so what we did we overlaid you know this experience with story and using sort of uh a technique from improv like you walk into the museum to learn about the highlights of The Morris Museum and all of a sudden as ad doen is explaining the first painting there's a guy in the corner who says wait a minute she's not telling you the whole story and and what they do is they they they this guy hijacks the tour from the tour guide and you're learning all of these like it's the most amazing experience in an art museum sounds F I'll add with that the nod to Mr Mars and his background in the media is that this interruptor is a reporter right it's it's his style okay um we're getting a little longer on time here Benish in what's the word in Market from from your stakeholders you know you've rallied them around these 10 things and what's the word from the visitors tell tell us how it works it is a source of Pride absolutely I will start even with my board my board chair works for Techron they make probably half the uh golf carts across the country and all other specialty vehicles but he was hosting some team members from Techron uh again from across their footprint and he made sure they engaged in three of our um immersive experiences a lot of them had never been to Augusta before they came back to him and reported that these were some of the three most remarkable opportunities they've ever had they absolutely loved Augusta because of that he is now a an amazing Champion had my board meeting this morning ask about the priorities as we go into 2024 continuing to nurture our authentic Augusta experiences is a priority of my board that's how much they love it wow and and that's what I say when I say when you talk to Benish about strategy you know don't take your sneakers off cu the next thing is to put it into action so I am I am so excited to hear that from the visitor side what's the feedback visitor side the experience is so much better I will pick on and I'll just say this one up we have the home of the boyhood home of woodro Wilson very much show and tell now the interaction is wood roll's mom is meets you at the door and you know she talks about her son and then she also introduces her neighbor who's the mother of assumed to be Supreme Court Justice of the time and but all of these they bring you in with a little snack maybe something to drink but the change in the way people are uh introduced to the WRA Wilson home uh gets a lot of conversation so it's the it has been transformational for us I'll tell that proud uh we're very proud and I appreciate your question that Joe you can't just push these out and not support them we are in this for the long haul these Partners still need us we are going to be here to help those Partners uh get through this this initial period of these uh of these experiences well you know you you said something and it just triggered something me I've been working with with people like Joe and Edge of the wedge and tourism Cafe for a number of years and destination thing and it just hit me that it becomes an experience when it's granular when I have an inter interaction with another human being that's on a one onone one on two you know the old you know take us through the fort and one person Le lectures 20 people that's not experiential that's a walking lecture so it's this granularity again because you talked about the exchange you know coming you have a little snack and every experiential thing I've ever been to kind of starts with that something to break the ice and make it personal um Joe any thoughts on that yeah I mean again you you you want to create that connection with the customer and sometimes that's done over breaking bread sometimes it's done over a compelling story um you know sometimes it's done over a story that's been never told and that's the case with Augusta's black caddies um I will say that you know the Lucy craf Laney Museum uh African-American Museum in Augusta what the chair of the board was at the Louisville lab two or three years ago and he saw the experience of the black jockeys that were connected to the Kentucky Derby and at the end of that he stood up he turned to me and he said oh but I have a story for you and and I said okay I mean I wasn't knowing this and I'm I'm gonna defer this to Benish to talk about the black caddies that is probably the most emotional story I have I'll make this quick I know we're short on time but Augusta has this rich I call the caddies the invisible uh Force that's been on that Golf Course for 30 years uh qu gentleman at the end of the week try on this green jacket but you don't know the backstory of who guided them with every putt they made names like Jack Nicholas you know uh Tiger Woods actually and these caddies with creative names Burnt Biscuit cigarette Cemetery um and the what we do have we still have some living caddies who there are stories that are uh you know we have actors that relay some firsthand stories but the value to the attendees is at the end of the presentation they actually get to converse with a caddy that lived the experience wow I mean that that's so powerful and we have those kind of people up here I think of the fishing guides I know who who were born you know in in the 1930s and there's the last of them and they take you on that trip that that's super okay we're GNA we're going to wrap it up Joe you're talking to probably you're talking about 3,000 people in 900 destinations worldwide any thoughts or advice as we roll into the fall in 2023 yeah I would say that the the D next future study really uh confirms that destination development is key and what I would say is many times EX Ives and CEOs are thinking about destination development at 40,000 feet you know they get a master plan and and they're thinking infrastructure and strategic plan and all that but what I want to invite people to think about is I want you to come down to 10,000 feet with me because at 10,000 feet there is such an opportunity for destinations to create these unique experiences collaboratively with the DMO and to do it in such a way that it really really impacts both the visitor and the organization and the businesses and I will tell you it's done without drilling holes mixing cement or 20 years of Debt Service oh well well putut okay last word to you bsh brown thank you I just simply say I know every destination wants to consistently raise the bar we knew we needed to raise the bar in Augusta we didn't know how to do it we knew what we wanted to do we didn't know the how when those two came together when we knew the what Joe came in to show us how this authentic Augusta experience has truly raised the bar and we'll keep building and building from this it has made a huge difference for us David well I'll tell you it's a real pleasure to get to work with both you thanks for being here and best of luck on your Journeys ciao

2023-10-25 18:14

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