10: Vacation 🏖 User Experience - Tourists
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- So Aaron is out ideating with a client this week, but he did send us a message from the air. - Hey guys, it's me, Aaron.

I don't know if you can tell, but I am on a plane right now. And I've been thinking about how travel is just all decisions. And that reminded me of choose your own adventure books. Do you guys remember those? Well, because I'm so committed to this podcast, I'm going to let you decide. Option one, I get my rental car, I go to my hotel, I go to the Chili's nearby, and I go to bed early. No! Option two...

I get a rental car and I go and explore San Francisco. All right. I'm going to pause for your answer. Oh, you know, it's got to be option two. I'm just going to assume that you chose option two. I'm not going to get my awesome blossom. I'm going on a little San Franciscan adventure. So I'm going to check in periodically. I'll let you know how it's going. And I'll try to join you all later.

San Francisco, here I come. Is that a cappuccino machine or?

Well, friends, summer is in full swing. And if you haven't guessed already, this episode is dedicated to the UX of tourism. How do people discover their favorite destinations and what makes the best experience? Today, we're going to speak with the men and women behind the curtain of state tourism to help build a journey map for the leisure traveler. And you might be surprised to know what goes into the making of the perfect vacation.

But first things first, we have a new addition to the IDA team. Would you like to introduce yourself, Nikita? Hi there. My name is Nikita. I'm from New Jersey, the best state in the world. You're making Jersey just sound like a fantastic place to visit. It really is. We have great pies, lots of farms. I love that pause. It's a great place. We have all kinds of great...

So do you guys have any trips planned this summer? Nope. Yeah, Paul's such a hard worker. This podcast is vacation enough for him. But Rob, you're heading out, yeah? Yeah. Actually, tomorrow I'm going to Italy with some family. And yeah, we're doing a little Florence, Rome, and Venice thing. Tomorrow? Tomorrow.

Nice. So you feel ready? Yeah. I actually just got in the mail today my Moment case for my phone. Nice. So I got a case for the lenses I already have, and you get a photo that doesn't look like it came from a camera phone. It looks more like a DSLR-type photo. Oh, cool.

Yeah, and this is not product placement, but Rob has been a fan of these lenses. And since photos are a big part of the vacation experience, we reached out to Moment. Yeah, great to meet you guys. My name is Mark Burrows, entrepreneur. So I'm on my second company now. And, you know, we're using our cameras less than our phones more. And we were playing around with the idea of some features from our traditional camera. We were back to your phone. A couple of us just got together and started tinkering with it and put it up on Kickstarter. And so we started the company Moment.com.

And really, it's all about mobile photography. Statistically, I'm just looking at this anecdotal graph here. It says 660 billion digital photos were taken in 2013. By 2017, that number doubled. And of that, it was estimated that 85% of those photos came from smartphones. Just crazy.

a huge number of photos. And Moment seized that opportunity and says, "Hey, like, let's make these photos better." They made the lenses, then they started making other gear. And then it's like, how else can we make photos from a phone better? - The number one reason people buying our stuff is they're gonna take a trip.

In their mind, it was like, oh, my gosh, I'm taking the trip of a lifetime and I need the right gear for it. And so through that, we've learned that travel is really important to people. So they started Moment Trips. They get these social influencers involved and people can take a trip with these social influencers that they identify with. They teach them how to take the photos, where to go, good lighting spots and stuff like that.

And they walk away with some great photos and some great memories and experiences, right? The tool we use a lot, it's called the customer journey. Literally, it's a map you put on the wall. You list out like what are the core things people go through. That's how we think about it. So in that customer journey, that's how we kind of discovered travel and how people were getting to where they were shooting and what inspired them. So that's what this journey map is all about. Have you ever done a journey map before? Nope. Ha ha ha ha.

Awesome. Well, maybe Aaron can clear this up for us. I think he's on the ground now. Let's give him a call. This is Aaron. Hey, man. Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you. OK, where are you at?

I am at the airport. I just landed in sunny San Francisco. That's good. Glad you made it there in one piece. Hey, we were talking about journey maps. Have you ever done a journey map before? Yeah. Yeah, they're a lot of fun. Okay. Paul's never done one before. Can you explain just at a high level what they are?

Thank you for that explanation. Anytime. Okay, so what are you up to right now? And...

check out San Francisco. I'm going to see where the wind blows and where I'll end up. Well, perfect. Then we'll let you go get your rental car and we'll check in with you in a little bit.

All right. Talk to you soon. Well, Moment drew a connection between travel and social influencers and their journey map. So we thought we'd reach out to a social influencer to help us with ours. My name is Cuman Celik. I'm a photographer from Turkey. If you haven't seen his work before, just pull him up on Instagram right now because he is a fantastic landscape photographer. Incredible. Wow. Really?

Really beautiful stuff. We asked him, like, how do you discover new locations to travel to? I just inspired from other landscape photographers I love from Instagram. I tapped on the location. Then I will make a plan. Then I will make a booking. Then I will travel. This is basically how I find this location. So he's doing a ton of research before he goes on these trips. Yeah. I love that introduction.

Instagram is kind of his primary way of finding new places because I do the exact same thing. When I'm planning on going on a vacation, I'll try to look up hashtags that are related to the place that I'm going. Yeah, exactly. We spoke with several state tourism boards for this episode. And universally, people mentioned Instagram as a key part of that discovery process.

like Jessica from Travel Iowa. My name is Jessica O'Reilly. I'm the communications manager for the Iowa Tourism Office. And you know, I really like talking to Jessica because there was no pretense with Jessica. She knows that Iowa is not

the first place you think of. You know what we find is that people don't have a negative impression of Iowa. They just initially don't have one at all. We in the Midwest are known as the flyover states because people just go from coast to coast and they're missing so much. And so they use this hashtag, this is Iowa. Because it can be interpreted multiple ways, like this is

So it's a really great avenue for us to show off what the state has and sort of surprise people along the way. It's interesting how Instagram plays into this discovery of

since people are using it as a way to discover new places in an area, Iowa has a caucus there every four years. And when people come through in droves for this event, they're experiencing Iowa maybe for the first time. And if they start using that hashtag, then their friends can go,

"This is Iowa?" - It's interesting to me how immediate you can reach out to people in very, very remote places to you. - This is Sherry Atkin, the Director of Tourism in Sitka, Alaska. - So for instance, I'm friends with a lot of shore excursion people from these large cruise lines. I post a picture and somebody in New Zealand is commenting on it instantaneously. So Africa is talking to me about how beautiful it is and how much they miss being here.

It's amazing to me. I am still amazed by stuff like that. It's not just a one-way push like you would on a website where you don't get feedback. And so in a way, those are much more interactive in that sort of static website. Regardless of age, our observations of them is they're using their smartphones to access information about the place they are, but also to communicate with the place that they left behind. Whoa, that's deep.

and a very important part of their travel experience. There's something, she had a certain unbridled enthusiasm about mobile devices that I found kind of infectious.

She got me like excited about my phone again. It was kind of neat. I think that's also awesome because especially when you think about traveling, it's like getting away and many people feel that our devices can be a distraction, but I think that

similar to what she said, if you use it in the right way, it could be a way to, you know, remember things that have happened. And I feel like this sort of protectiveness, like I have to kick back against that old was so much better when kids didn't have electronics. And I'm like, are you high? No, it wasn't. So the tools exist for people to find great destinations. And,

But as user advocates, we still want to know if there's room for improvement. We don't have a product problem. This is Susie Lawrence from New Mexico. New Mexico is everything and anything anyone could want. But we did have a perception problem, just kind of promoting those same things, the Rockies or White Sands or those heavy hitters with none of the deep cuts.

It was funny, each of these marketers had their own term for these unique experiences that you kind of have to dig for.

Susie called them deep cuts. What is really New Mexico? Those very enchanting, transformational experiences. I like the term deep cuts because I think it's traditionally used as a DJ term. Whenever you're a real fan of a band, you know the tracks that aren't popular, right? Like, oh, my favorite Beatles song is the... Dear Prudence. Dear Prudence. There it is. Yeah.

It's a good song. Yeah, you're right. We want people to come for what? Come together. Come together. Come together. Let's stay for... Dear Prudence. Dear Prudence. Well, yeah, and you know, sometimes your hits don't really represent your deep cuts. So let me ask you this. What do you picture when you think of Idaho? Potatoes.

Just come on, like one of those like Chuck E. Cheese ball pens full of potatoes? No, no, an open field with potatoes. Okay. That's what I think. So you think of just like this big old flat farmland. Yeah. But if you go to Idaho, the first thing you'll notice is that the landscape is super diverse. They have huge mountains. Skiing is some of the best in the world. You hear people who are visiting here for the first time and the most comfortable.

Common refrain is, oh my God, I had no idea. So this is Matt Borod from the Idaho Department of Commerce. And, you know, you just kind of hear that over and over, but we don't have that anchor national park. And so how do we stand out? How do we leverage our resources in a way that we can get more of the right people involved?

interested in us. I was thinking kind of about what Aaron was saying about decision making, because I think he's right, especially with travel. There's so many decisions that you have to make. And so there isn't this sort of theme. It can make decision making really difficult. Another aspect of choices is that there's too many. We do get them mixed up. We get everything mixed up.

Yeah. We get mixed up with Idaho a lot and Ohio. And in fact, there's a T-shirt company here in Des Moines that sells the Idaho high end T-shirt. I think you just got to have fun with it. Yeah. You know, it's like people need something to grab onto. Right. Like an anchor in their mind.

but these anchors, they can easily turn into stereotypes. So maybe you think about California and you think, oh, beaches and surfing and movie stars. And you think about the East Coast, solid urban. So a lot of people think that Alaska is full of ice and snow all the time. So...

And Southeast is a very temperate place. We don't get freezing very often. So it's a very, very green place. - So crazy. - Yeah, right? - It's like changing my worldview, right? So it's a rainforest in Alaska. So crazy. - Yeah.

So Sherry mentioned California. Nikita, I know I've been giving you a hard time about Jersey, but I'm curious what comes to mind when you think of California? The Hollywood sign. Yeah. Vegans. Vegans. Did you say vegans? You think Jersey is bad? No.

Okay, fine. I'll think of like Jersey Shore and you can think of vegans. That's totally fair. Well, Visit California is based right here in Sacramento. So I was able to go speak with Carolyn Bateta in person. I'm Carolyn Bateta and I'm the CEO of Visit California. And even California, which probably has the largest budget of all these states, has

Yeah.

I mean, seriously, I often go back to this, but recently we drove down Highway 1 north of Sacramento. It was just incredible. That whole trip, just every time we turned a corner, it was like it's changed my perception of what's what's here. Yeah. So, I mean, how do you promote that experience in any state? Yeah.

to get people to expand their comfort zones and explore. More than anything, I think it's creating those partnerships and that reputation within your region, within those gateway communities. This is where you're no longer competitive with your neighboring states, your partners.

This is Diane Schober, Executive Director of the Wyoming Office of Tourism. In North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho are all part of the Great American West Consortium. And we believe in the rising tide lifts all boats, that the more people get out and travel,

the more we all benefit from that. - Yeah, you know, I didn't realize how many major US cities don't have a major airport. - A lot of folks fly into Salt Lake and then they drive north and so they spend a little bit of time in southeastern Idaho on their way to Yellowstone. So how do we get them to venture off for a couple of days and check out Craters of the Moon National Monument or

Hagerman Fossil Beds or Shoshone Falls or, you know, maybe jump up to Sun Valley or to Boise or to, you know, some of those other areas. I think it's kind of interesting that a large percentage of the people that are visiting are those visiting like family. You know, visiting friends and relatives, you know,

For most destinations, that's the number one driver of that destination. And the social influencing component of this is for us at an all time high. It seems like an obvious audience to appeal to. Like, how do you get those people that are going to visit family or friends to try a new thing?

I think one of our areas of opportunity is our college students. They're spending nine months out of the year here in Iowa and, you know, their parents are coming to visit them every so often. And how do we encourage them to explore areas right outside their campus? That could take us into the next part of this journey map. Once you've discovered something cool, how do you decide whether it's right for you or not?

I would do extensive research. Yes. Okay. So this might be a good time for us to check in with Aaron and see where his research has taken him. Hey, Aaron. Hey there. Hey, Rami. Hey, man. So what's up? Where are you at? I am stuck in California traffic. Welcome to California. The big bird of California is traffic.

So where are you headed? What are you going to do? Well, I haven't quite figured out what I'm going to do. So I'm just trying to get through this traffic. I shouldn't be talking on the phone right now because I just might die. So...

I'll talk to you later. Okay, fair enough. I'll talk to you later. Thanks. You know, a lot of destinations seem to convey this idea that, you know, we've got something for everybody and, you know, that's nice. But the reality is that some destinations are really best suited for a pretty specific audience. Wyoming is not for sissies. This is a vacation where people plan to come. It's not just, oh, we're going to run there for the weekend.

Because it isn't the vacation for everyone. If you want to have a shopping vacation, you know, you want an urban vacation, you want a beach vacation, Wyoming's not the place for you. But we do know that people who come here are seeking some level of adventure. She's like, this place is not for sissies. If you're going to come here, buckle up because it's going to be a serious ride. But it's going to be worth it. Yeah. I think the best tourism websites that we've seen are...

are the ones that actually sell a specific experience. They tell a story. - Right? - Yeah. - If you haven't seen Wyoming's brand, you gotta check out. - That's why? - Yeah, isn't that brilliant? - Why does his face tell a story that never gets old? Because the West is still filled with adventure. And it's time to find out if you are too. That's why.

That's awesome. I can't go to Wyoming because I'm a sissy. Hashtag that's why. Hashtag that's why. Yeah, exactly. I'm totally channeling Liz Lemon from 30 Rock right now.

I want to go to there. You know, I just, I don't know how. So, so like my wife is amazing research oriented person. She's my personal travel agent. Research is to marketing what,

location is to real estate. Research is key. Research, research, research. You then have to go in and say, this is the experience that we have to offer. This is what we are best at. Now let's take a look and see who would want to consume this product. So how do we tell that story? How do we inspire you to...

learn more about that. Each state had their own way of trying to help people to do their research. And we were kind of surprised by how many states still rely on print materials. You know, they've been saying print is dead since, I don't know, 1992. And we're still here creating printed collaterals. So I think brochures and that kind of material is still very relevant. Interesting.

Like literally the trifold that you find in the rest stops. Why is that? You know, you're in pretty rural areas and so you may not have access to your phone or service. So no question that's a component. I think some folks still like having something in their hand. You know, a beautiful magazine or a beautiful printed piece is really powerful.

I remember when I went to Yellowstone, I downloaded their app. So even when I didn't have connectivity, I had that on me and all those things that you could do with the pamphlet you can do with the app. Yeah. But I mean, the takeaway for me here is that even though print is still a thing, people are using this digital devices more and more. And the more that anybody can do to get in front of the human beings eyes is the way that

They're all doing it. I mean, now we've got this digital window to the world where we can share these incredible experiences. Video is the most popular, compelling vehicle for tourists to be learning about vacation experiences. So we do a lot of that. We have a global network that we've partnered with YouTube and Google called Dream 365. And then tourists obviously are on vacation.

a variety of platforms, whether it's Facebook or Instagram or Snapchat. We also have a podcast. I think the next frontier, though, that we're experimenting with is like virtual reality. And so I'm really excited about that phase. So California obviously is more ambitious because of their huge scope and budget, I'm sure. But, you know, the increasingly digital approach that Arkansas is having, I think, is...

is interesting. My name is Cain Webb and I'm the executive director of the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism. And I'm an old journalist. I came up in the business, I was a newspaper guy and a magazine guy, I was a print guy. So I say this with a heavy heart, but...

Things have shifted so heavily to digital. That's become increasingly the way to get our message out. You can spend a little and get a lot of bang for your buck. You can do a 15-second video and send it everywhere. But you have to follow where the eyeballs are going.

Right. And that was what we used to say in print. And the eyeballs are increasingly on our computer screens and our phones. And we're kind of following that. Yeah. And that's really the key, right? It doesn't really matter if it's digital or physical or whatever, as long as the right people can find it and connect with it. And we say the right people because like Diane said earlier, you can't appeal to everyone. So one thing we asked our panel was to describe the personality of their state. If their state was a person, right?

What would this person be like? You know, this person named Alaska is, it's a blank slate for a lot of people. You know, it's terra incognita. It's the undiscovered country, the last frontier. And so because of that, people can overlay whatever they want on top of Alaska. This is Peter Christian from the National Park Service. And that's what you find in Alaska. A lot of people are either running from something...

or running towards something. They're chasing a dream or they're running away from something that happened to them. And they come here, they come to Alaska for a fresh start.

I was really geared toward families and thinking about the amount of time you have with your kids while they're kids. New Mexico is that kind of spiritual experience. They have all these amazing artisans. It's the adventuresome traveler. You know, Iowa is really known for its hospitality. Everyone is very warm and welcoming, so I think that they would be a very approachable person, one that you would want to hang out with.

All right, we would be someone who would be on the cover of Outside Magazine. Kind of an outdoorsy adventure type. Someone who can canoe or fly water raft or fish or swim. Someone who gets out. Wyoming is rugged, intense,

and romantic and free and adventurous. For California, the person's an innovator, they're an entrepreneur, and they kind of don't care about traditional protocols. I guess another way to say that is they're a disruptor. Okay. That sounds like California. Yeah. Yes.

Okay, that's fair. So why do you think it's important for a destination to have a personality, to be personable? People are interested in people at the end of the day. And we're not trying to sell people on California. We're just trying to share stories about the lives of Californians and how they experience California. People are more interested in the cultural aspects or the lifestyle aspects and all that.

is there for them to discover. It's a moment travel is known for travel and people trust us. The biggest thing we've learned is that people really care about the guide. Like who is the guide more than, oh, Southwest? Like, all right, who's taking me to the Southwest? Seems to be the number one question they're asking. So people trust the guide. They follow the guide. Yeah. I like that because it kind of levels the playing field.

Right? You can go to the Southwest or Paris. You pick. And he's finding that people are saying, I don't really care. As long as like the people I'm going with are awesome. Right? Who's the guide? Yeah. Yeah. Before I make my decision, who's the guide? Why is that? Why is that? Do you think? That's...

I think it's the gateway, right? It's like the place where you're from, the place where you've grown up, the place where you've lived for a certain amount of time does affect your personality, does affect the way you live your life and the way you do things. It's an amazing thing that every person on the earth has a unique experience with the place that they live.

And I think that's what we're interested in. We're interested in having experiences with new people. Yeah. Yeah. And I also think that although all of these places have beautiful landscapes and things like that, like memories that you create with other people while you are in these places are the things that we remember and the things that resonate with us. And so they understand that the memories that you create are going to change.

relate back to the kind of person that you are and who's with you. Yeah. Researching a vacation, it almost seems like similar to browsing a dating site, right? Like you might be drawn into a profile by something visual, but then you have to browse these profiles and see if the qualities of each are a match for you. Tourism and the vacation is really the first date. We're almost the matchmakers between the consumer and the Wyoming product.

And then try to do that when you're trying to market an entire state. You know, we have to do a little bit of everything for everybody. Arkansas is a state of three million people, small state. It's not like Texas where you've got all these places that are self-promoting. But it's a competitive, competitive business. You know, Missouri, Louisiana, Mississippi, we're all trying to get that tourism dollar. And the pie can only be divided so many ways.

So just like with creating a dating profile, you'd have to make a decision about like what aspects of your personality you want to accentuate and which aspects you might want to downplay a little bit. And we spend about 15 million dollars a year marketing Arkansas. I wish we could track who is consuming your ad.

and whether or not they are acting on it. How did that translate into whether people come to the state to visit? - And I'm sure that even if you created the perfect dating profile, you might wish that people could just get to know the real you before they make a decision. - Can we teleport people here?

That would be amazing. Because when I'm talking to travel writers and reporters and editors, one thing for me to explain, like, here's this really cool hotel in Mason City. It's the last hotel designed by Frank Lloyd Wright that remains in the world. It's a completely different thing for them to come and experience it. And of course, you might do all this research and find the perfect profile and go in that first date only to find out that something is terribly wrong, right? Yes.

Sometimes searching is a location from Instagram is when you tap location. Some photographers using the wrong location. They using this is because they don't want to show you this location.

Oh, that's not right. Yes. They say live location is the wrong location because the old one is much people is taking same photographer or similar photographer from the location. So because he can't rely on just one service, he has to use all these other apps to help vet his destination. Yeah. I'm working like this before when I'm going a country or a location, I

I think

Google in a lot of ways, I mean, it might not visually look nice, but they do a good job about taking all this information and condensing it and showing you what might be important to you. For sure. I think the weakness of that is it just requires so much work on the part of the user. It's just a giant horse trough of information. You have to like go through on your own and sift out the stuff that isn't relevant and get to the stuff that is.

And to do it right, it requires all this tribal knowledge of all these disparate apps. It's kind of a...

hacky workflow. It is. Like, you know, I got to use this app for this and that app for that and figure out how to piecemeal it all together. And then the ironic part about this is that that same friction from fragmentation that we experience as tourists. Yeah. The destination seemed to feel that too. I mean, they want to show us things that they think that we'd be interested in. They want to have a cohesive experience too. We identified that we had a gap

and our programming. We really didn't have any tools or resources for our underrepresented communities to create product.

And so we did some research outside our state and through those experiences, we came up with the Rural Pathway Project. It's kind of like crowdsourcing their marketing assets and helping like the communities to build marketing products, even on a small budget. So when I say product, I mean an experience that is marketable and that has a tangible value.

There's something cool about that because I feel like if the marketing material comes from the source, it might be a little bit more genuine. Maybe that's something that's kind of missing sometimes. Yeah, yeah, I agree. From the products that you get, right? I think there can be a disconnect between maybe like...

the face of a state, which is like this tourism center, and then the people that actually live there, you know, so they know the experiences that other people would want because people connect to people. So there needs to be some sort of discussion between those two parties and a way for people who live there to produce content and share it. That's what's so great about this Rural Pathway Project, I think.

Again, the realization is that people want to experience people.

And they're going to these little small communities and making these like really intimate experiences of cooking with local indigenous people. And that, forget about social sharing. Think about like real face-to-face sharing. When you're at dinner with a friend and you want to tell them about what you did, it's those kinds of experiences that you tell people about. You want an authentic experience. Because we're like, people like to eat where the locals eat, but you don't always know where those places are. And when you're traveling, you don't know. Yeah.

what one restaurant is from the other and you're you know a little unsure and you've got this new generation of travelers primarily the millennials now 85 million strong who want to experience the local flavor and want an authentic experience so they can't get elsewhere they'll spend 15 percent more their disposable income on experiences like travel

instead of stuff. True. So, you know, the commodity that we're selling, which is an experience, is in demand right now. You heard Nikita's approval of that sentiment? Yeah, she does. As a resident millennial. She loves that authenticity. And frankly, millennials, they don't want highly produced content. They just make it real and make it accessible. I really do think that is absolutely what people want in experiences today.

Whether you're traveling or not, everyone is interested in the regionalized experience, the experience that you can only get locally. I agree with that. Right. We've been in this mass-produced age for so long where the Coke that you drink in the U.S. is the same Coke they drink in China. And while that's fascinating, it doesn't make for an enjoyable experience all the time because we're sick of that.

the same thing all the time. Yeah. From a communication standpoint too, right? Yeah. The way that you communicate to a Chinese audience should be different. Yeah. I think China is a great example. We have six different offices there. So we're serving up content and experiences that they're interested in, in their native language.

At the same time, we work with our industry to do a series of seminars that we call China Ready. Word of mouth is super important for the Chinese, so when they come and they have a good experience, they're going to share it to hither and yon with all their friends, and we'll

really sensitive to that. I was thinking about how Airbnb is kind of following this localized experience sort of thing. So not only can you rent an apartment, but you can also purchase an experience. And a lot of them are drive around town with a local or have dinner with a local. And so I think in order to have that kind of relationship, you need to build a community of people that

are willing to do that. Yeah, absolutely. Our own Wyoming stakeholders have to be prepared to share these with visitors. You know, we want to treat strangers like friends. We want to be able to engage with them at every touch point. So going so far as creating frontline training programs for, you know, your restaurants and cafes,

so that when people come through and say what is there to do here, you don't have some 16 year old kid saying, oh my God, this place sucks. You need to go do something else to get out of here. - People want authentic experiences because it's better for them and it changes them in one way or another.

And it turns out that it's also better for the culture. It's not always about money. A lot of times it's about preserving culture. You know, we talk about cultural preservation as opposed to cultural exploitation. We typically haven't been in the business of advertising, you know, come to the park. Because we don't necessarily want to like bring the masses in, you know, see how many people we can get through the door.

Americans love their national parks and we're loving them to death. Yeah, I think their primary concern is more conservation, whereas the other individuals that we talk to, there is like an aspect of business there. There's a saying, leave only footprints, take only photos. We don't discourage anyone. We want people to come see the parks because the best advocates for parks are people who love them and visit them. Leave only footprints, take only photos. I like that.

So let's check back in with Aaron and see if he's found anything worth taking yet. Hey, Aaron, are you there? Hey.

Hey, yes. Okay, good. So where'd you end up? Well, despite my best efforts, I did get lost. I took a wrong turn. So I found this spot called the Wave Organ. It's on the bay. It's very beautiful here, but there's not much Oregon going on. What can you do? What are you going to do now? Well, I talked to a fisherman fishing off the pier here.

And I asked him what I should do and he said I should check out this spot called the Musée Mécanique on Fisherman's Wharf. Awesome. So I'm going to head out there and check out this museum. Awesome. Well, could you send me some soundbite from there when you get there? Absolutely. Talk to you soon. Bye bye. So Aaron's being decisive with his time. Good for him. So far we've talked about the things that go into finding and researching a destination.

But what makes someone pull the trigger? What do you guys think? I think a lot of factors go into that. Like we all have limitations like time and money. You know when you go in a store and you're afraid to talk to their clerk because you think they might try to sell you something? People have that reaction when they come into your community. Everything feels very transactional. And so the people that I love engaging with, they get past that point. That engages people. Yeah.

in the UX world, people put a lot of weight on the idea of personas and thinking and guessing that they know who somebody is. Right. Um,

The problem with that is that you start making assumptions and fictionalizing a person that you think is going to be engaging with your experience, that you miss the real person. Most of the people that come to Sitka arrive via cruise ship. About 82% of the people that visit

about 17% arrive via air. A large portion of our independent travelers come here to fish. That makes up about 91% of that air traffic that we get. - Yeah, I think it all comes down to like each person's experience when they travel is unique. Each individual's experience becomes a singular product. - Travel is very different than a product. A product is much easier because it's binary. It's, you know, what's the problem it solves and do I like it and is it the right price, right?

And that setup, to get that right, works across lots of people. There's one iPhone X versus a trip. There's just a lot more factors. So refining from a user research and customer point of view, it's way harder. Travel's way harder. That's interesting you say you use the iPhone X as an example because they only have that. These destinations...

They have experiences available in their communities, their history, their cultures. Yeah, totally. It's certainly harder for the product maker or the destination to communicate what the product is. But then, you know, it's also just as hard for the product consumer or the tourist to

to know how to use the thing once they buy it, right? So Aaron sent us a sound bite of himself user testing this destination he heard about from a random fisherman. So let's hear what he said, guys.

So I'm at the Musee Mechanique with a bunch of old penny arcades. I don't know if you can even hear me. So in order for me to play this, I actually have to get changed. I only have a $10 bill. I'm about to get $10 in quarter.

That has a lot of quarters. I'm about to play the Inquest. It's like a Native American who's about to be trampled by a bunch of buffalo? I don't know. I have good news. He's not being trampled by buffalo. They're just looking at him and they're moving their heads. But he's definitely dead. That's macabre. It's a penny arcade with someone being hung.

I've learned a lot about old entertainment. I guess it's not much different from new entertainment. Not only did I just get $10.25, but I'm also paying $3 per 15 minutes of parking on Fisherman's Wharf. So I think I'm just going to close out on Stars and Stripes Forever.

So again, the whole point of this exercise is for us to empathize with the tourist. So once they reach a destination, what do you think a tourist needs? Food.

Food. Definitely food. What's the comedian that talks about that? Yeah. Is it Gaffigan? A lot of people's vacation is just like, where are we eating breakfast? And then at breakfast, you're figuring out where you're going to eat lunch, right? Got to have a tasty beverage and then got to have a place to let the tasty beverage out. I want to know if you have public restrooms. I want to know if you have sidewalks. I want to know if we bring people into your community, are they going to have a place where they can get rest?

water, where they can change a diaper, is there a visitor's center, that kind of stuff. I feel like the most tourist heavy destinations are the worst for that kind of infrastructure. If you're like in San Francisco, Chicago, New York City. And you want to use the bathroom, oh, you better be wearing Depends, right? It's almost like they're trying to keep people out by making it unpleasant for them. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't want to digress too far, but Aaron and I used to work at this agency, you know, and we had this client called Go Girl, which made a feminine urinary cup. It looks kind of like an oil change funnel, you know, and just made out of like a pleasant silicone. And it's pink. But why is this solely like a female product? Like everybody has to pee.

But boys have a special way of peeing standing up. See, I live in Jersey. We have bathrooms everywhere. This is not really a concern for me. Another pro in the Jersey column. But so like Aaron and I would frequently have to go into the creative director's office for approvals or whatever. And the creative director had this Go Girl Femme cup on his desk. Oh.

And he would play with it like a, like a stress ball. And then if we, if we would ask him a question, who'd the sir, like be beating it against his head to serve, like pondering, you know, the answer. Oh,

Oh my God. Oh my God. We couldn't keep a straight face, you know? Oh man. Go girl. You go girl. Oh man, that's awesome. That's the secret to a lack of infrastructure and tourism right there. Yeah. Where can you go girl? Um,

So those are some of the tasks that you have to get food, you have to expel food. But we know that we kind of want people to explore more. As a tourist, like what are you interacting with? The big events, the big landmarks, the things that you've seen, they are the touch points, like literally. Right. Our well-known destinations like Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park and Devil's Tower National Monument.

If you only came to Wyoming once, that's really what you should experience. But then on your way to and from those beautiful, well-known places, if folks would slow down and just say, I'm going to spend one extra day here, one half a day right where I am, and I'm going to ask a local and find out what I can do, they would experience something really spectacular.

The Field of Dreams, the bridges of Madison County, John Wayne Birthplace. A lot of people come through one way or the other, but we say the best way to see Iowa is to explore those small towns. That's really where you see the true authentic Iowa. You know, if they want to see wildlife, you know, Denali is the American safari. If you want to see bears, big, huge bears, you know, very close range, Kenway is a fantastic place to do that. If you're interested in wilderness, it's a place

places, you know, essentially untouched really by anybody, then you want to focus on those parks above the Arctic Circle, Gates of the Arctic National Park, or the Western Arctic Parklands, which still have native communities that are completely intact. That's what I'd recommend. Going up and spending some time in those villages, you can have a real authentic experience if you're willing to

put in the time, you know, it's not as easy. - I mean, just like right off the top, I think it's kind of interesting that even though there was some amount of challenge involved in exploring a little bit more,

the payoff was well worth the effort. Yeah, the easiest option is not always going to give you the best payoff, right? That's true of anything. And it's clear that with travel, that's true as well, right? Yeah. But that certainly is true of some destinations more than others. I mean, have you ever Googled Alaska's scale in comparison to the lower 48 before? It is huge. Well, we would love to see people just come up here and have authentic experiences, like

Getting there is hard and it takes a lot of planning and money and expertise. It can be done. Just to put it in perspective, some of these parts, it'd be like getting in a plane and flying from New York City to Cleveland. They're that big. Sitka is on an island called Baranoff Island. It's about 100 miles by 50 miles wide. So we have two ways to get here, by plane or by boat.

About seven miles of road each direction from the center roundabout. So as we think about these kinds of geographic considerations, what do you think is a potential pain point? I tend to get lost. I know that's a thing. And at that point, you kind of just have to ask maybe like a local, you know, your communication with that organization that helped you plan that trip is important.

is done. So just yesterday in my visitor center, I had a lady talking to me about another town just south of us. And she was really interested in hiking in that town. And she wanted me to give her a printed guide. And so I had a printed guide in that town. I gave it to her. She said, no, that's not really what I want. I want this detail. I said, you can access all that information through your phone. So there's also the thought of how do we train the

the people that are coming to us, but also the people that are in our community to use the tool that they're carrying in their hands. So that's why, you know, Rob had a great question. He was asking a lot of our interviewees about like, okay, if every traveler gets this magical personal assistant, what were they like? They would have to be, this would be a great communicator. They would have to have a very innate communication.

love affair with Wyoming. I'd want them to be knowledgeable because I would want them to be truthful. But I also like to know the little side stories, you know. So I would want them to have definitely a sense of humor and just the ability to speak to people of all ages and backgrounds. I think you have to know your audience, whoever that is. And that docent then says, I have all of these...

different arrows in my quiver and I will pull up this because that's what's going to resonate the most with you. That's cool. Right. We want people to have a great experience in part because of the impression that that experience will have on them when they return home. And speaking of which, it looks like Aaron, he's not home, but he is in his hotel and he's got Wi-Fi. So, Clyde? Did you have an authentic experience?

I guess so. I got a little lost and then I did not end up at Fisherman's Wharf. I ended up at this thing called the Wave Organ and there was no organ. You were the organ. I was the organ. Maybe that's the point. It's like an art house piece. Right. The organ is observing you. The Emperor's Organ. Oh, I heard it. Oh, I heard it. You guys hear that? Oh, yeah. Oh, you can hear it too? Yeah, of course I can.

And then I didn't realize it was like right in the heart of Fisherman's Wharf. But the musée mechanic, seeing those penny arcades from the 1800s was like awesome to see the twisted nature of man. What? These are crazy. One of these is called The Flasher. It says, this used to be a commercial in a storefront window of an antique store. His head turns from side to side. His eyes...

eyes and eyebrows and lips move. His arms lift his jacket from his stomach to reveal a rotating sign that mentioned the specials that were for Zayn. Oh my goodness. Oh man. I was like going around and having these, having this adventure. And, um, the alternative was going to my hotel room, which is awful by the way. I'm staying at an extended stay and,

And it's like, it's, it's evident that people have extended their stay there. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think I might die here. The ultimate stay. So I think it was worth it. It was absolutely worth it. Yeah. That's fantastic. I mean, I think we've all experienced that on some level that we don't want to do something and we do it anyway and it ends up paying off.

Right. Yeah. Especially when it comes to travel, it feels like like the worst experiences are almost like the best ones in hindsight. Yeah. We only get one opportunity to sell the consumer something if they don't have a great experience while they're there. You know, it makes total sense if you,

are sold on a destination and you go visit there and you have a terrible experience I mean that experience stays in your head I don't care how great our creative is or how innovative our website is

we're going to have a really, really tough time selling you on coming back to Idaho. So that's, that's an important part of the whole process is like, what are you left with when you go home? Yeah. Pictures. Food poisoning. Yeah.

The stories that you had, right? Like for me and my friends or my family that I travel with, it's usually like something that we made fun of each other about. Some crazy experience that happened where, you know, one of us did something stupid where we made a fool of ourselves. And it's a thing that you remember. My family, we have a growing shot glass collection. Nice.

And I think the souvenirs that you take back, it's just a way for you to look at them and remember those memories. And if other people see your shirt or see your baseball cap that says Idaho, you can tell them how much fun you had there. Oh, yeah, totally. It's a conversation starter, right? Yeah, I like that. People love talking about their trip experiences, especially when they're unique. We've got one really big event called Rag Rye, the world's largest touring bicycle ride. Traditionally, they dip their back tires

in the Missouri River on our west edge. And then if they ride 400 and some miles across the state to the east coast and dip their front tire in the Mississippi River. And along the way, they're biking through small towns. And then you are really immersed in Iowa. And the small towns roll out the red carpet for the groups of riders as they come in. You'll have churches doing spaghetti dinners and people let you pitch a tent on their lawn and stay overnight. And it

really is just a quintessential Iowa experience that I know people have come and they think, you know what, that town we rolled through, that was kind of cool. I want to go back and visit it another time. And then they come back a different time and really explore a little bit more. That's amazing. And this is the first time I've ever heard about it.

I don't know, it's a great idea, isn't it? I love the idea of a bike race that's not a race. What really stands out to me about that is the communities welcoming and reaching out to people, and that's usually my best memories from trips. And it seems like a lot of communities don't like people coming into the area and they're not welcoming. Yeah, it's a mutually beneficial thing, right? And that was one of the things that I realized from this. When

When people help to create a good experience for travelers, they are benefited in multiple ways. Not only money into their local economies, but also it's a preservation of their own culture because people are showing interest in it.

Yeah. How much would people do to get out of a thousand dollars in taxes? Like they would sell their brother to pay a thousand dollars in taxes. But like a stranger comes into their town, they're like, who's that guy? Get out of here. Get out of here. So true. Definitely in destination marketing, we think about that a lot because there's tensions between the people here that are locally and the people that are the travelers.

but yet we're all travelers. And so how do we resolve and release that tension that gets built up? And what are the ways that we integrate both the travelers into our community, but also our community into the world? Beautiful. Beautiful, right? It's...

pretty poignant yeah so there it is we've taken the tour the journey of a tourist from how they discover a location how they research whether they want to go there what makes them follow through on that decision what it's like when they get there and what follows them back home so

From that conversation, you guys had a lot of good ideas and a lot of good insights. What stood out to you? Like one thought that our discussion kind of jogged in me is, you know, there are apps out there that are designed for somebody who's never been to a place to orient themselves and understand. But what about the people who are already there? Having those locals share their stories, share their experiences that only they know that maybe there's some kind of a platform we

we could come up with that would engage locals as much as it engages people who are visiting for the first time or returning. Totally. Maybe we could encourage people to get lost a little bit when you go somewhere you didn't intend to and you experience something totally surprising. I think if there's a way for us to encourage interaction with a place, to get people outside of just where they think

They want to go. I think that's what we need. I was thinking like the other day, I went on a trail and I was like, oh, this is cool. This is safe. I'm being curious. Look at me. And of course, I get lost. And then the anxiety kicks in. And so I like the idea of giving myself enough room to explore, but also knowing...

Well, you're in good hands. You're safe. Yeah, that's a good point. So I was actually thinking about how on that path, the locals can provide you with things along that way that you might enjoy, you know, so you don't really feel like you're totally out of control. Yeah, absolutely. How about just hiding what a location is? It's like, hey, go to this place. It's cool. Go do it. That's cool. Yeah. Maybe you could catch a rare Pokemon there. Yeah, that's...

That's a great example, Aaron, right? Because what that game, I'm not a Pokemon person, but I know that that game encouraged people to explore the places where they live and the areas around where they live more. It takes a page from geocaching. Yes, exactly. You just know it's there. Rob and I for a long time have wanted to make a kind of a geocaching audio video like experience where

where user generated content could be in context. You know, we're thinking about like hiking, for example, you're going along the path and like someone says, oh, this path to the left here, follow it just half mile and you will see the most amazing thing you've ever seen in your life. Can't you see that as like a real feature for some of these quote drive through states, right? Like as I'm driving, I'm told things about the places I'm driving by.

Wouldn't that be a neat experience if the places you're driving through was a part of some sort of storytelling? This field is where Field of Dreams was shot. That's right. And to that point with these movie scenes, like imagine some AR possibilities. You know, Rob and I were at this workshop recently and we were working on this AR experience.

And the developer made a proof of concept, like a working app in just a few hours. It's not that difficult. You know, could we do something like that? Imagine going to the field of dreams and now like you hold up your phone and you can see where certain shots were taken. You can see Kevin Costner running towards you. Yes.

Like consume scenes in the movie from that same vantage point. Like, you know, the director and the cameraman was standing right here when they shot this important scene. Cool. If you build it, he will.

I love that. Very epic. Wouldn't that be super cool? I think that there's some real potential for AR in this travel tourism world. And it could be movie scenes. It could be backstories. It could be some exploration into the geological features of an area. Um,

Or experiences like this is where we light lanterns at this particular time of the year and this is what it would look like. Oh, I love that, Nikita. Yeah. That'd be great. Yeah. Because that gets you to think about coming back another time, right? Like you're like, oh, this is what this looks like in fall? I'm...

I'm coming back. Yes, that's fantastic. Or on landmarks, right? Which president's heads are those on Mount Rushmore, right? That's right. My Kevin Costner cosplay group would really love that. Kevin cosplay? Kevin cosplay. That's fantastic. We'll call that the cosplay group. You can check us out on Reddit.

So, I mean, that's cool because all these people are saying that personal connection transcends physical characteristics of a location. So how could we embellish these physical locations and make that connection, right? We could use the tools that are at our disposal, some AR, some AV. It's all there for the taking and it wouldn't be that costly to produce. If it was user-generated content, it could be

authentic and engaging right yeah and what's great about all this is that the right vehicle for this is an application because it allows for offline content which helps to mitigate the problem of not having service in in 70 miles of highway you don't need an internet connection to connect to a gps satellite and find out where someone is with an application that understands

who you are, where you're at, what some of your interests are. Yeah. Oh, you're interested in kayaking? You know, you're like a mile away from like another great kayaking experience. Yeah. Right. Like and I mean, selfishly, so what would these marketers be able to do with an application that then actually shows that these visitors are following through on those prompts? Right. They know what resonates with people.

when they go there, why they go there, who they go there with. Like it's all there for the taking. Yeah. Did you do it? Take a picture. Yeah. And just when you start seeing trends that people take, right? Like the people that do...

this kayaking trip that we encourage them to do. Then they go on to enjoy some crazy artisanal regionalized ice cream next door. Right? Yeah. We may be able to draw correlations between ice cream and kayaking. Who knows? Right? Like you may start to be able to build those relationships by seeing where people go after they kayak. Phil's ice cream and kayak shack. You know, there are,

these services that we currently use for travel. We use Google for maps, we use Instagram for photos, we have our websites, we have our blogs, we have our YouTube videos for discovery. It's all just scattered across all these different services. Google already has a really cool aggregated app called Google Trips. The problem is we've been talking to all these people and they're saying the most important part of travel

is personal connection and like the uniqueness of your experience. And that's the one thing that this app doesn't have. It's completely generic, right? Like it doesn't matter if you're like in Milwaukee or Mexico, it's the same exact experience. Yeah. And that's what's so great about all these tourism boards that we talked about.

They have the information, the stories, the customizable content to make stuff personal. Yeah, I mean, imagine if you could create something similar, an aggregated, personalized experience, but then make it customizable, branded, like enriched by local communities so that you have these perishable events like your farmer's market or tours or having locations tied to services. If you're in Alaska and you need a bush pilot, could push.

my activity be tied to that? Like, oh, you're going to Katmai? Gonna need a bush pilot. Here's a list of them. Call them, right? Or your translators or rental services, right? This is a tool that's just as useful to people who are visiting as it is to the locals. Huh, that's an interesting point. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I love that. Because you could monetize it. You can't make someone have a personal connection, but you can help them get to the right place by personalizing the content in a way that

that is enriched by local communities. - And I wonder too if there's an opportunity to facilitate stewardship within a community, right? You know, you're like an 80 year old guy, you were born and raised in this small town. Do you want to be asked questions? - If you saved a thousand dollars on your taxes, you would. - Yeah. - Yeah, like install this app on your phone and get a push notification when someone has a question about like, where do I get beer around here?

- Have you seen that app for helping blind people? - Yes, yeah. - I forget what it's called. - Yeah, I know what you're talking about, where they point their camera out at the world and people tell them what's in front of them. Is that the one? - Yeah, yeah, exactly. So you sign up and then you get a notification.

that someone needs help and then you just like describe the thing that they're looking at for them. And that just made me think about that. Like to have people in a local town that are designated to like help out tourists at a given moment would be interesting. Well, we've talked about a lot of stuff here and I wouldn't blame anyone for being a little lost. So, I don't know, Nikita, what would you think about turning this ideation into something that our listeners can visualize? Okay, yeah.

Yeah? Okay, great. So if you'd like to see what we're talking about, head on over to our blog at ide8.team. You might notice that we're putting a little extra effort into this episode. And I think it's because we see the experience of travel as being bigger than just about pleasure. There's something deeper there. Yeah, I've been thinking about this new word that I learned.

It's going to make me sound pretentious, but have you heard the word terroir? I'm probably pronouncing it wrong, but obviously it's a French word and it's, it's used to refer to what makes a glass or bottle of wine unique because you can taste the soil and the environment and the climate of the grapes that make your wine.

And we're really a lot like that. We're a product of our environment and where we grew up, where we live. Yeah, do you remember at the end of our interview with Yuma, what did you ask him again? Yeah, I asked him, how have you been affected by travel? How does it make you view the world differently? You need to see different things. You need to learn different things. So traveling is very good for me because you need more, you know.

Did traveling around the country help you develop yourself? As different people became acquainted, my horizon expanded. I'm not prejudiced against people anymore. Now I love different people more.

Because they are a different culture for me. Seeing different places now makes me think differently. Ever since I started to travel, I have improved myself a lot.

I can now say more tolerance. That's why I like traveling. Yeah. I love different people. I love meeting with the different people. I love my home, but I love traveling. It's because you're making new story. You're making new experience. That's beautiful.

Well, remember that t-shirt company that makes the Idaho Ohio t-shirt in Des Moines? They're called Raygun and they're awesome. And they want to give you one of these fantastic shirts. So all through August, share your travel experience on the social platform of your choice. Mention us and use the hashtag ID8Tourism. You might get a t-shirt out of the deal.

Either way, we really appreciate you joining us. And we so appreciate our fantastic guests for this episode. Mark Browse from Moment. Juma Tjevik at C-U-M-A-C-V-I-K photo on Instagram. Jessica O'Reilly at Travel Iowa. Sherry Aiken in Sitka. Susie Lawrence from New Mexico. Matt Borod from Visit Idaho. Carolyn Boteta of Visit California. Diane Schober of Wyoming. Kane Webb of Arkansas. Peter Christian of the National Park Service.

clearly your tourists are in good hands. So until next time, thanks for ideating.