14 years ago, I designed my first luxury guest experience. It was my first job, I was 23 years old, and I was just settling into my life in the UAE.
I wasn't hired to do that, in fact I didn't have any experience, but one thing led to the other and I was assigned this project at the hotel.
The hotel wanted to create a full experience for children. Meaning the kids should basically have an incredible journey just like the parents; and not by just randomly doing activities, but by intentionally designing and curating an experience with meaningful and innovative touchpoints.
It was extremely challenging to say the least, the guests were very demanding, after all it was the best hotel in the world. But we discovered it wasn't really about doing outrageous, expensive, or even complicated things.... it was about doing the right things. Those that make kids feel special and seen.
My idea was to take the entire adult experience and doing it in kids' version. How would it look like if it was for kids? So, to give 2 examples, we were sending pre-arrival emails to the guests, just to get to know them better and better prepare for their stay, so we thought, what if we send a pre-arrival email to the kids? It was a playful email asking them things that were meaningful for them and all those things they shared were used to personalize their stay from A-Z. We even had a check in experience for the children, they loved it.
One key thing we designed was an amazing tour of the hotel. This hotel was a palace, so adults loved to have a tour, and we were offering it to all our guests, but for the kids it was boring... so we designed our own version of the tour for kids only (both front and back of the house)... where they were meeting the chefs and making cookies all in a chef's uniform in the kitchen... then they could visit the flower shop which was an incredible place at the hotel... afterwards we were taking them to perform in the magnificent auditorium and the kids were all able to do an act in front of the rest, you'll be surprised to see all those hidden talents the kids had. And then we were dressing them in local clothes and taking them for a camel ride at the beach. All the activities were recorded and photographed, and we were giving each kid a book of pictures with all the memories of the tour.
The experience was beautiful, and it was all personalized, it had many things to it. The parents couldn't believe it. They were surprised and totally touched by the level of thoughtfulness.
Few things I learned and that I still apply today:
✔Designing an experience is different than 'intentionally' designing an experience.
✔''What if'' is the best start to any journey design. How would that look like here.
✔Craft the journey from the guest perspective, not from yours.
✔Participation and immersion have higher impact, and this applies to adults too.
✔Allow people to be themselves
✔Find ways to add tangible elements to the experience
✔Be thoughtful and truly CARE
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