creative storytelling for tourism audience development sep 2016 by economia creativa consultancy
TRANSCRIPT
Creative Storytelling for Tourism
Audience Development
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Creative Storytelling for tourism audience development
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Creative Storytelling for tourism audience development
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About the Authors
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Antonio Carlos Ruiz Soria
Economist, Principal Researcher
Antonio Carlos is Economia Creativa's co-founder
and CEO. He is an international consultant and
speaker expert on creative tourism, digital and
creative economy.
He advises companies, public institutions and
non-for profit sector on innovation, marketing,
investment and positioning. He has been Policy
Expert at the European Commission European
Crowdfunding Stakeholders Forum and at the
European Network for Rural Development. Prior
founding Economia Creativa, Antonio has been
busyness analyst at the NPD Group, leading
market research consultancy and data & market
analyst at Brindisa Ltd., both in London, UK.
He holds an advanced degree in Economics from
Seville University (Spain), has studied
International Economics at London School of
Economics, Political Science and International
Relations at Tours University (France), Tourism
SME Management at EOI Business School and
EU, Regions and Policy making at the EU
Committee of the Regions. He is fluent in Spanish
and English, with good level in French and basic
Polish
Justyna Molendowska-Ruiz
Researcher
Justyna is Economia Creativa's co-founder. She
is project leader and responsible for the social
media strategy, event management and
production.
Her work at Economia Creativa focuses on
digital marketing, research (creative economy,
tourism and hospitality), photography and
editing, She has facilitated and produced
numerous workshops andevents at international
level, including III Greater Europe Meetings
Paris under the patronage of UNESCO.
Prior founding Economia Creativa, Justyna has
been responsible for the Model Fruit Garden at
Royal Horticultural Society in the UK
delivering trainings, workshops and coaching
students on fruit culture.
She holds a MSc in Horticulture from Life
Sciences University in Lublin (Poland), has
studied Social Media and Digital Marketing at
Salford Business School, and EU, Policy making
at the EU Committee of the Regions. She is
fluent in English and Polish with good level in
Spanish
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Abstract
The objective of this paper is to present the opportunity of creative storytelling in the
context of the creative and digital economy that has brought a new paradigm on tourism
development and marketing: the creative tourism.
Drawing on the literature on storytelling as well as theory on creative economy, platform and
transformation economy, the study develops a model for applying creative storytelling to
tourism audience development improving the sustainability and competitiveness of the
destination.
This model is based on establishing a Destination Storytelling Stakeholders Network (DSSN)
in which stakeholders from tourism, both private and public, are to be represented together
with actors from creative industries, ICT, researchers, scientific, artists and local inhabitants.
The DSSN will consists of a web 3.0 platform and will combined both offline workshops,
trainings and symposiums and online webinars, contests and social media campaigns in order
to explore the identity of the destination and identify themes to create the storyline through
an iterative process. The second part of the model is the Destination Storytelling Process that
guides the DSSN through several iterative stages to build a robust storyline for the
destination: SWOT analysis, audience research, creative thinking and open innovation,
narrative conceptualization, commercialization, transmedia dissemination, audience
engagement and evaluation.
Creative storytelling offers multiple benefits for tourism destination development, such
improving the destination image, competitiveness and sustainability by contributing to
reduce seasonality; it is also a factor for job creation and of higher quality and stability,
promoting training, attracting creative talent and harnessing entrepreneurship.
Key Words: web 3.0, online network platform, creative tourism, creative storytelling, social media, audience
development, transmedia marketing
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Index
1. Introduction. Tourism, creative and digital economy / 6
2. Creative Tourism, the new paradigm / 6
3. Creative Storytelling and ways of developing tourism audience / 8
a. The process of designing the storytelling /11
b. Benefits of creative storytelling for the destination and the
private businesses /15
4. Recommendations and concluding remarks /15
5. References /17
6. List of figures /20
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1. Introduction. Tourism, creative and digital economy
According to UNESCO (2013) ‘the creative economy has become a powerful transformative
force in the world today. Its potential for development is vast and waiting to be unlocked. It
is one of the most rapidly growing sectors of the world economy, not just in terms of income
generation but also for job creation and export earnings’1. Although unlocking the full
potential of the creative economy requires the development of the creativity of the whole
society, the so called creative industries play a great role in the development of the creative
economy.
Following OECD (2014) we consider creative industries as ‘knowledge based creative
activities that link producers, consumers and places by utilizing technology, talent or skill to
generate meaningful intangible cultural products, creative content and experiences. They
comprise many different sectors, including: advertising, animation, architecture, design,
filming, gaming, gastronomy, music, performing arts, software and interactive games, and
TV and Radio’.
The creative economy and creative industries have numerous linkages and synergies with
tourism, offering considerable potential for demand growth and value creation, accessing new
target groups, improving destination image and competitiveness. This represents a new
conception for tourism development and marketing as a whole: the creative tourism.
2. Creative Tourism, the new paradigm
Creative tourism is “travel directed toward an engaged and authentic experience, with
participative learning in the arts, heritage, or special character of a place, and it provides a
connection with those who reside in this place and create this living culture” (UNESCO,
2006).
1 The impact of the Creative Economy on economic development and job creation is analyzed on EY (2015), Cultural
Times, The first global map of cultural and creative industries http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/ey-cultural-
times-2015/$FILE/ey-cultural-times-2015.pdf and Oxford Economics. (2014), The Economic Impact of the Creative
Industries in the Americas. Report prepared by Oxford Economics for the British Council, IDB, OAS.
Creative Storytelling for tourism audience development
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Creative tourism is often understood as a form of cultural tourism. However they are
essentially different -fig. 1: From cultural tourism to creative tourism, (OECD 2014). Cultural
tourism deals mainly with ‘viewing’, ‘contemplating’ or ‘seeing’ (eg. historic building city
tours, museum visits, dance performances, etc.) and it is generally linked to physical places;
whereas creative tourism is based in ‘experiencing’, ‘learning’ and ‘participating’ involving
the satisfaction of a higher need of self-actualization and skill development and involves
resources that are processes (immaterial) like dances, recipes, festivals, traditions, legends,
routes, etc, (Ruiz Soria, 2014).
Fig. 1. From Cultural tourism to Creative Tourism
The value creation on creative tourism requires more actors than the lineal value chain
typical of the traditional tourism model. Creative tourism value (fig. 2. Creative tourism
value chain) is created by multiple stakeholders involved in the destination narrative
development in an open network-based structure.
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Fig 2. Creative Tourism Value Chain
Nowadays travelers seek much more than what the traditional tourism model offers:
coordination of transportation, accommodation, dining, and activities. They seek a
meaningful and memorable experience that can transform them. They are looking for stories
to tell. The ICT, especially social media, are a factor for the development of creative tourism,
creativity and transformative experiences allowing users to share what they are doing,
learning, creating with friends, networks or a global audience. Social media platforms, and
particularly the visual orientated such as Facebook, Instagram and You Tube, have set the
ground for storytelling as a key concept for destination and tourism business development. In
this line, Cork, a coastal town in Ireland, tourism strategy states that ‘storytelling is a key
element of the Ireland’s Ancient East brand and important in telling the story of Ireland’s
Atlantic Culture along the Wild Atlantic Way’, (Visit Cork, 2016).
3. Creative Storytelling and ways of developing tourism audience
In order to approach the concept of creative storytelling, first it will be outlined some of the
typical cases of what is not storytelling (Ruiz Soria, 2016):
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- Posts mono-thematics
- The content has not relation to the followers / target audience
- Posts do not generate any interaction
- Overbranding
These marketing practices are very common within the traditional tourism model such, for
example, hotels that only showcase on their social media platforms the pictures of the rooms
or food and beverage products without any further narrative.
However, creative storytelling is defined as the development of unique narratives able to
- create a sense of community and belonging,
- engagement and interaction with the audience,
- transform followers in promoters,
- to inspire, showing the creative process, ideas, inviting the audience to be creative, …
As we have seen, the creative tourism value creation requires the participation of multiple
and diverse stakeholders (Fig. 2) in value networks. In the same way, creative storytelling
necessary
Fig. 3. Destination Storytelling Stakeholders Network
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has to involved a holistic collaboration among the different actors in the destination in order
to create narratives able to engage the audiences, being able to coordinate the process of
making the stories happen and disseminating them through transmedia content and social
media platforms stimulating the audience to share their experiences, create their own content
and tales within the propose storyline tagging with the official hashtag or key word.
Therefore, skillful storytelling practices are not sufficient for storytelling to function as a
means of destination development (Mossberg, 2010). Destination development requires fa
creative tourism business model (Ohridska-Olson, 2010); Ruiz Soria, 2014) in which the
destination creates its narrative through an open innovation process built with the active
participation of multiple stakeholders (destination management organisations, public
administration at municipality or regional level, public and private attractions, various types
of tourism-related service providers and actual storytellers) in a Destination Storytelling
Stakeholders Network, a web 3.0 based platform, through workshops, focus groups and
expert meetings, together with the engagement of the tourism audience (visitors, travelers
and destination followers). The case of South East Tourism Society (USA) exemplifies this
kind of value network and iterative process as it is underlined on their web (fig. 4) with a
meeting-program section containing several meetings during the different seasons of the year
(spring, fall, etc.) and a mixture of offline events, such congressional meeting or symposiums
with online activities such webinars. They also include a marketing college or training classes.
Fig. 4. South East Tourism Society – Destination Storytelling Stakeholders Network
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When the narrative is created following a dynamic of collaboration the themes are easier to
be incorporated by private tourism providers (hotels, restaurants, guides, etc.) and to be
integrated in their product, services and experiences, (Mossberg, 2016).
All who engage with visitors need to be trained on how to deliver a best-in-class storytelling
experience (Visit Cork, 2016) as education together with user engagement, audience
segmentation and partnerships development are the key factors for audience development
success (Bamford et at., 2012).
a. The process of designing the storytelling:
Moving into the more concrete design phase, the organization behind the storytelling
initiative may be formalized into a steering committee or network-forum, the Destination
Storytelling Stakeholders Network (fig.3) in which the different stakeholders are to be
represented. The process of designing the storytelling implies the following stages (as shown
on fig. 5):
Fig. 5. Destination Storytelling Process
1) SWOT (Strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis of the
destination must be the starting point in order to identify areas to improve,
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new target groups to address, etc. Below fig. 6 shows the SWOT analysis for
Cork (Ireland) destination development strategy, (Visit Cork, 2016)
Fig. 6. Cork Destination SWOT Analysis
2) Audience study. The audience to which the storytelling will be targeted has to
be researched, particularly to understand their aspirations, cultural awareness,
travel behaviour, key demographic characteristics (age, gender,
socioeconomic), relation with the destination and/or competing destinations,
social media habits, etc.
3) Conceptualization, Substantiation, Commercialization: Applying creative
thinking techniques (brainstorming, lateral thinking, iterative processes) on
workshops, online contests or surveys, social media campaigns with the
participation of the stakeholders in which the identity of the destination will be
explored and themes to be identified and developed to compose the storytelling
narrative to engage with the target audience. Each destination can develop
multiple themes within their storytelling, however a branding identity for the
destination storytelling will provide unity, visibility and a sense of ownership,
like, for example, on the fig. 7, below, for the case Wild Atlantic Way
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(http://www.wildatlanticway.com/) that has a logo and brand identity as an
umbrella for the different themes to be explored in the route (fig. 8).
Fig. 7. Wild Atlantic Way
4) Once the conceptualization is completed, then the storyline has to be
substantiate, that is, transformed into actual happenings and events through
an activity program that can be commercialized (for example, festivals,
lectures, exhibitions, showrooms, courses, guided tours, drama, role play,
treasure hunt, safaris, and barbeques, to mention just a few) as it is shown on
the fig. for the case of the Wild Atlantic Way.
Fig. 8. Substantiation of Wild Atlantic Way
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5) Audience engagement and the use of transmedia for storytelling dissemination.
Once the storyline has been defined, storytellers and stakeholders have to work
on the dissemination process of the narrative. A transmedia approach to the
dissemination offers the potential to reach wider audience and the opportunity
of exploring the narrative throughout different languages (film, text,
photography, art). In the present paper we focus on transmedia narratives
through You Tube, Instagram and Facebook due to their worldwide market
share among social media. A remarkable example of storytelling and
transmedia dissemination is the Meet South Africa campaign (combining a
impactful You Tube video –worth watching it- that in a very subtle fashion it
tells all potential tourists that it is time to ‘see’ the country differently; with an
Instagram campaign suggesting tourists and inhabitants to meet South Africa
(hashtag #MeetSouthAfrica) and share their experiences, co-creating the
campaign content; accessible: https://www.instagram.com/meetsouthafrica/
Fig. 9.1. Meet South Africa transmedia storytelling – You Tube, link here
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Fig. 9.2. Meet South Africa transmedia storytelling – Instagram
b. Benefits of creative storytelling for the destination development
A collective, coordinated and dynamic creative storytelling narrative offers several benefits
for the destination development. By exploring the uniqueness of the place, its history,
cultural heritage, folklore, natural resources, among other value propositions, the destination
can differentiate from the competition. It can also be an innovative strategic approach to
reduce the seasonality challenge that most of the tourism destination faces by creating stories
to be materialized during low seasonal periods, for example for autumn/spring/winter for sun
and beach destinations. In consequence, creative storytelling contributes to the sustainability
of the tourism destination and of improving quality of jobs in two levels: by prolonging the
tourism season and by stimulating trainings and more qualified jobs.
4. Recommendations and concluding remarks
The traditional tourism model based on packaged product and services is not sufficient to
satisfy the ever demanding tourist who can easily switch destinations when looking for
organizing a holiday or travel. Therefore, destinations have to work in order to explore their
Creative Storytelling for tourism audience development
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unique identity and communicated by inspiring stories that can be lived by both locals and
visitors who can learn new dimensions of themselves, co-create their own experience.
In order to develop successful creative storytelling for tourism audience development, it is
recommended:
- to create a Destination Storytelling Stakeholders Network through a web 3.0 based
platform composed by the principal public and private actors within the tourism
industry, creative industries, government bodies, entrepreneurs and local inhabitants
- follow an iterative process to identify the themes to develop and build the narrative
through a combination of online webinars, contests and meetings and offline forum,
symposiums, workshops and focus groups with the participation of different
stakeholders
- define different segments in the audience and target content specific to each of them
- substantiate the stories in a commercial way by transforming them in actual
happenings or concepts that visitors can interiorize
- engage with the target audience through a transmedia strategy and disseminate the
stories through different social media platform, engaging with the target audience and
encouraging them to create their own content within the storyline and share it using
the official hashtag.
- Destinations have to consider strategically the importance of education for the long
term sustainability of the creative storytelling approach and the creative tourism
business model. In this regard, training digital skills are essential however not enough.
The creative tourism and creative storytelling demand a constant sophistication and
evolution of the offering, so destinations have to attract innovators and highly
creative people (artists, creative thinkers, scientific, researchers, historians,
archeologists, etc.) and integrate them into the creative process.
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List of figures
Fig. 1. From Cultural tourism to Creative Tourism / 7
Fig 2. Creative Tourism Value Chain / 8
Fig. 3. Destination Storytelling Stakeholders Network / 9
Fig. 4. South East Tourism Society – Destination Storytelling Stakeholders
Network / 10
Fig. 5. Destination Storytelling Process / 11
Fig. 6. Cork Destination SWOT Analysis / 12
Fig. 7. Wild Atlantic Way / 13
Fig. 8. Substantiation of Wild Atlantic Way / 13
Fig. 9.1. Meet South Africa transmedia storytelling-You Tube / 14
Fig. 9.2. Meet South Africa transmedia storytelling– Instagram / 15
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