The Moen Experience

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The Moen Experience
Tourism Research Unit

• Experiementing with experiences

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Experiencing Moen
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Introducing the small island of Moen, Denmark
Area 238 km2 49 persons per km2 (country
123) 11,743 inhabitants as per 1.1.05 500,000
overnight stays in 2004 300,000 one day visitors
to the cliffs of Moen 1,791 second homes
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Research purposes

• The overall purpose was to form a platform for
  developing socio-culturally sustainable
  experiences.
• Develop an experience profile in order for
  tourism development to build on concrete
  knowledge of locals and tourists wants
  concerning experiences.
• Test the empirical usefulness of the Pine
  Gilmore experience model

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Gap analysis based on service management theory
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Methods
Data has been entered into and analysed in SPSS
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Theoretical experience framework and connection
to questionnaires
Based on the Pine Gil-more (1999) approach to
experiences
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Profile of the local population in the survey

• People between 18 and 76 years, Danish citizens,
  a balanced number of men and women, and with no
  protection of address. This makes up a group of
  approximately 8,000 people.
• 1,200 people were randomly chosen and
  question-naires were sent out with free return
  envelopes included. This is 15 of the sample
  population.
• 344 questionnaires were received. This
  corresponds to 28.7. All in all 4.5 of the
  sample population chose to answer.

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Profile of the local population in the survey

• Respondents typically 50 years old, women
  slightly over represented.
• Answers from all over the island, but a small
  majority from the main town, Stege.
• Come heres are slightly over represented.
• Family is important to the respondents.
• Income between 25,000 and 62,000 EUROs per year.
• Most have professional educations. Some but not
  many have higher education.
• Main part of the respondents are active in the
  labour market. Less than ¼ indicates dependency
  on tourism.

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Profile of the tourists in the survey

• Respondents typically from Denmark and Germany
  and between 35 and 67 years of age.
• A small majority of women.
• A majority of families with children and couples
  without children.
• A majority of first time visitors to Moen
  (including day trippers).

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Profile of the tourists in the survey

• A clear majority with accommodation in holiday
  homes and camping.
• The respondents typically stayed on the island
  for shorter periods of time.
• The car is clearly the most used means of
  transportation to the island.

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Gap 1 tourists ideal and actual experiences on
Moen
Surplus
Six cate-gories with deficits
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Gap 5 locals perceptions of and tourists
actual experiences
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Gap 6 future experiences on the island of Moen
according to locals and tourists
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In conclusion

• Gap 1 disappointment in one and/or more
  categories may affect the overall experience of
  the stay at the destination. This may cause the
  tourist (and family/friends) not to choose the
  destination the following year.
• On the other hand, it depends on what value the
  specific experience has for the individual
  tourist compared to the overall experience.

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In conclusion

• Gap 5 in almost all the categories, the locals
  are very much mistaken concerning what tourist
  actually experience on the destination.
• The locals either over- or underestimate the
  value of different experiences.
• The locals gravely underestimate the value of the
  experience of enjoying views and contemplating
  life.
• Also the gravely overestimate the value of
  entertainment and activity experiences.

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In conclusion

• Gap 6 it would seem that it could be very
  dangerous indeed to rely on locals perceptions
  on what the tourists value in terms of future
  experiences when developing the destination.
• It would also seem that there are rather big
  differences between locals wants, tourists
  wants and locals perceptions of tourists wants
  concerning experiences.

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In conclusion

• The implications of these differences are very
  important in developing this particular
  destination.
• Socio-culturally sustainable experiences must
  necessarily build on a balanced composition of
  local wants and tourist wants combining the
  producer and the consumer perspectives.

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The experience profile of Moen
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From survey results to strategy
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Customer driven innovationCustomer-made
Planetfeedback.com

• The new trend Customer-made
• The phenomenon of corporations creating goods,
  services and experiences in close cooperation
  with consumers, tapping into their intellectual
  capital, and in exchange giving them a direct say
  in what acutally gets produced, manufactured,
  developed, designed, serviced, or processed.
  TRENDWATCHINS.COM 2006

About.com
Thecomplaintstation.com
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Customer driven innovationCustomer-made
Ipodlounge.com (5 million hits a day!!)

• Customer-made is about the truly empowered
  consumer and it is apparently a new mega trend.
• It is powered by the Generation C the creative
  generation and the internet, new technology made
  available to people around the world
• Customer-made is taking consumers seriously and
  accepting that they definitely know what kind of
  service they need, and what constitutes a good
  exprience!

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Customer driven innovationCustomer-made
Niketalk.com (200 million visits and 3.5 million
posts!!!)

• In 2005, 120,000 people around the world signed
  up to join Boeings World Design Team, an
  internet-based global forum that encourages
  participation and feedback while the company is
  developing its new airplane.
• Activities include message boards, conversations
  with Boeing design team, and extensive
  discussions on what members like and dont like
  about air travel today, as well as features
  theyd like to see in their dream airplane.
  TRENDWATCHING 2006

Mini2.com - Fuel for your MINI Obsession
Sourceforge.net
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Customer-madeA way of evaluating and designing
experiences in real time

• True customer-made involves co-created goods,
  co-created services, co-created expriences.
• There are hundreds of thousands of experts,
  innovators, inventors and so on outside company
  walls and research labs, and innovation units at
  large corporations are increasingly NOT going it
  alone. TRENDWATCHING 2006

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Transformation of the Relationship between firms
and consumers
From
To

• One-way
• Firm to consumer
• Controlled by firm
• Consumers are prey
• Choice buy/not buy
• Firm segments and target consumers consumers
  must fit into firms offerings

• Two-way
• Consumer to firm
• Consumer to consumer
• Consumer can hunt
• Consumer wants to/can impose her view of choice
• Consumer wants to/is being empowered to
  co-construct a personalized experience around
  herself, with firms experience environment

Prahalad Ramaswamy 200412
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IKEA CONTEST A way of evaluating and designing
experiences in real time

• The IKEA contest fiffigafolket (ingenious
  people) asked amateur outsiders to send in clever
  designs for storing home media in the living
  room.
• Out of 5,000 ideas submitted, fourteen winners
  went to the IKEA headquaters to participate in a
  workshop and receive EUR 2,500, and the designs
  will actually get produced and end up in IKEA
  stores for all to see, buy and assemple.
  TRENDWATCHING 2006