Keywords

1 Introduction

In Gunn 1972 Clare Gunn first published Vacationscape which represented a significant change in thinking how to address tourism planning, development and design. Clare brought an interesting experiential background to the tourism conversation. He was trained as a landscape architect, having received the first Ph.D. from the U. of Michigan in Landscape Architecture and had worked many years at Michigan State University as an Extension Specialist dealing with tourism and communities, planning, development and public and private organizations. In the first edition of Vacationscape he laid out a set of issues that he saw in need of attention and which would change how we would think about tourism development in terms of content and process. At conferences he spoke about the differences in the polar opposite positions of environmentalists and developers in moving forward to put in place tourism opportunities. He argued for a more balanced conservation perspective and some of the elements necessary to move in that direction. Another area he identified was the failure of organizations to look and think beyond their individual organization boundaries to envision what their role might be in terms of tourism. In essence, he saw a strong “silo effect” which posed significant problems to successful tourism planning and in response, Gunn broadened his planning perspective to consider a regional focus. Linked to this perspective was the inclusion much of the idea of the tourism experience which had not been given much attention but was central in addressing opportunities being sought by travellers through the concept of ‘vacationscape.’

Subsequent chapters dealt with “Regional Myopia,” “Attractions: First Power” (“Varied Euphoria” is especially “experiential”), “The Community-Attraction Complex,” “Design for a Purpose,” “From people to Resources,” “Design principles,” “Design Process: Goals and Research,” “Design process: Synthesis and Concepts,” and “Postscript: The Consequences.” And in the end Gunn defines Vacationscape (1972:218):

Vacationscape thus turns out to be the art of creating environments for travelers, tourists, and recreationists…this art has attained little more than sporadic and embryonic expression.

Subsequent editions of the book continued to reflect change. Chapter 1 in Edition 3 (1987) still was addressing tourism development, but the new title “Tourism: Positive and Negative” began to be more explicit about challenges and impacts that had become more apparent since the first publication in 1972. The core elements identified in the first edition—conservation, avoiding silos, regional consideration and experience—still permeated the discussion. But other considerations also began to emerge. Subsequent chapter titles also pointed toward a change—“Politics and Ethics,” Tourism Function: Demand,” “Tourism Function: Supply,” “Attractions: First power,” Destination Development,” “Spatial Patterns,” Techniques, Processes and Guides,” and “Conclusions and Principles.” In the last chapter, a strong position is taken about “Innovation and Creativity” arguing that this is an essential element and seems to be of greatest important in thinking about the broad set of elements necessary for successful development, avoiding cookie cutter outcomes, and opening up opportunities for sustainability. While not explicit, the points made about creativity seem to emphasize the first edition emphasis about the process being an “art of creating environments.” Clare’s work was groundbreaking—they represent the skills and insights of a practitioner, intellectually cutting edge, a new way to approach development, the importance of tourism, the key role of experience and the process as an art of creation.

2 Vacationscape and Design Science in Tourism

As innovative as Gunn’s work was the additions made to the various editions over time demonstrated that he knew different ideas related to his working thesis were necessary and important to include. Design and implementation should not and would not stand still. Gunn outlined a more macro approach to development and design in his work generally because he was painting a picture of a landscape and regional vision. But as we think about the future and design science, potential change and innovation will blend both macro (e.g., the role of considering a social system; storytelling) and micro levels (the incorporation of emotions into understanding and constructing experiences) of thinking. The evolution of this can be seen in Table 1, a comparison of the chapters from two versions of Vacationscape and the material in this publication focused almost exclusively on experience. Virtually the whole shift is into experience design and new elements tied to that including emotions, framing experiences, a system perspective, technology and services and diagnostics.

Table 1 Comparison of vacationscape chapters and design science themes
Full size table

When Butler (1980) outlined his life cycle model stages of tourism destinations it was several years after Vacationscape had been published. The framework of that model outlined many of the challenges that included initial design and development but also the need to consider the evolution and changes that occur over time and how planning and design must rise to the occasion to facilitate innovation tied to the maturing of a destination. In Gunn’s 1997 edition he references Butler’s model yet argues it is not particularly useful for local planning. However, if placed in the context of thinking about change, it is especially useful to recognize the importance of invention and innovation directed toward the future. Similarly, it can provide an incentive for looking at what factors may influence change in the tourism environment recognizing that these continue to occur over time. By the time Gunn was writing about tourism planning (2002) he identified more problems (i.e., components of the tourism system) that were necessary to understand and take into consideration—host–guest relationships, the variety of settings including urban, rural and small towns, consequences of development, the impact on the physical environment, the effects on social and cultural resources, economic costs, dysfunctional development, the challenges tied to communities making choices, and sustainability—to name but a few. As Clare argued time and again, putting the pieces together pointed toward hard choices—“…not an easy task.”

Translating or interpreting Vacationscape into a Design Science perspective suggests change and innovation that needs to occur wherein the initial focus is on the tourism experience. Similar to Clare Gunn, Everett Rogers was an important pioneer in looking at innovation and diffusion with more than 6000 studies that employ some aspect of the Diffusion of Innovation model that he developed. He defined innovation as “…an idea, practice or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption.” (Rogers 2003:12) and describes four key aspects tied to diffusion: (1) the Innovation; (2) Communication channels; (3) Time; and (4) the Social System. He adds that we need to consider how the innovation or change attributes are perceived (Rogers 2003:15–16 within the context of five key characteristics:

  1. 1.

    Relative advantage—is it better than the idea it will replace?

  2. 2.

    Compatibility—how well does it match the current values, prior experiences and needs of the adopter

  3. 3.

    Complexity—how difficult and complex is it perceived to be for use and understanding?

  4. 4.

    Trialability—how difficult is it to experiment with on a small scale?

  5. 5.

    Observability—to what degree are the results of an innovation visible to others?

Thinking about the emergence of design science as an idea and about innovations emerging from this new knowledge development that might influence experience creation or enhancement all might be considered in light of this model.

3 Bigger Picture of Change

In the opening chapter of this book there is an outline which discusses some changes that need to be considered. Fesenmaier and Xiang argue that Vacationscape changed our thinking and opened the door to move forward on several fronts. A considerable body of research from a number of areas (e.g., psychology, social psychology, environmental psychology, geography, landscape architecture, urban and regional planning, economics, marketing and communications) emerged with new ideas that related to every theme or topic Gunn had identified in designing and developing tourism opportunities but especially experience. Of course more of this activity emerged as tourism was identified as one of the most important economic activities in the world. And experience may have even become more prominent as a result of the commercial success of publications like ‘The Experience Economy” (Pine and Gilmore 1999). But as Tussayadiah points out earlier in this book, an approach to experience in design science in tourism also takes us toward design thinking,

Design thinking is considered an exciting new paradigm for problem solving for organizations facing increasingly complex and open ended challenges, often referred to as wicked problems.

In some of the literature on wicked problems, the influx of many stakeholders makes the issue or problem likely more complex and hence “wicked.” (Camillus 2008). With the emergence of the many disciplines (e.g. information technology, computer science) engaged in addressing tourism and the associated experience(s), the sense that many stakeholders have interest to be considered underscores the complexity of planning, developing and managing the “experiencescape”. Gunn made this point about multiple participants in the first edition of Vacationscapes at two different levels. First was looking at the various organizations in the community that needed to work together because they had a role in tourism development. The second was thinking about the different visitor groups and the experiences associated with their visit. This point was emphasized even more as subsequent editions emerged. The argument made is that dealing with the variety of players tend to force thinking about innovation because traditional approaches don’t work. Add to this the rise of many disciplinary interests and the chapter by Peters discussing a ‘social systems’ approach to tourism design further underscores the search for new knowledge to inform this issue in communities and regions.

In the later editions of Vacationscape, Gunn elaborated on the importance of gathering supply and demand data to assist in the decision making directed at development and design. In both of these arenas, the argument was made to continue to improve the data and knowledge that could be developed to aid in planning and development. The emphasis on a regional perspective was both important and challenging in terms of gathering these types of data. To this day, information about demand in many areas is still limited and planning may be less effective. Yet destinations and regions know it is important, although it may take a different and more complex form than in the past. In the recent analysis of future need assessment the International Destination Management Association emphasized the emergence of a different and larger data environment to be considered, the technologies emerging and identified several data related needs to address—Big Data, Social media prominence, mobile platforms and apps primary engagement, smart technology opportunities and tourism integrated with economic development. (DMAI 2014; Fuchs et al. 2014; Chareyron et al. 2014; Gretzel et al. 2015; Hofacker et al. 2016). Already, organizations (e.g., CTC 2015) are changing their approaches to advertising through data gathering that relies less on traditional survey approaches and more on the use of social media exploration. An underlying argument in doing this is to save money. But the bigger question and challenge is to identify what the right combination of these resources should be and how to interpret them to help make decisions. This need for assessment and interpretation will grow much more in the years ahead and represent a new and significant change and challenge for organizations.

It is impossible to consider the future of tourism design and development without incorporating many of the technology changes occurring many of which influence the accumulation of data. For example the ability to monitor emotional interactions with travel environments and consider how to factor those data into the design of opportunities is possible. Combined with opportunities to deal with the “Internet of Things” the ability to be connected and collect data on interactions and connections in real time could allow us to leverage this material in new and innovative ways and help identify new experience frameworks, make an entity more competitive, improve ROI, help create new markets or understanding, better plan and manage, etc.

Vacationscape was important in terms of thinking about design and development of tourism areas. In fact, the discussion that Gunn provided in suggesting a regional perspective, the consideration of multiple stakeholders and the central important of experience (at least) took planning, management and policy in new directions. The contributions that emerged from the many disciplines that began to look at tourism expanded the ideas, models and examples that could be considered in design and planning. Gunn’s publications always included a chapter or Appendix that outlined a series of examples that could be reviewed for learning and potential application. The disciplinary work noted above has many of the same characteristics except it is broader in terms of the elements often included. As an example, the role of service and discussions about “servicescape,” while possibly inferred in the Gunn discussions, have become a key element of the contemporary approach to the tourism experience. Similarly, including various ways to improve the tourist experience through storytelling opportunities also adds new dimensions to enhancing the experience. Examples of adding storytelling to the boats taking tourists to the Great Barrier Reef have not only enhanced the enjoyment of the visitor but also acted to protect the resource itself. And while experiences can be improved through service, evaluations of how the delivery is working also becomes important and add new responsibilities for the tourism community.

4 Concluding Remarks: Changing Issues of Tourism Design and the Future

A science approach to tourism design will continue to evolve with knowledge building and experimentation that sharpen and expand understanding of elements that impact experience. For example, where Vacationscape discussed experience, in the future research and planning will explore items like emotion, technology, services, storytelling, authenticity and social system relationships in the development of the “experiencescape.” But integrating these into community and regional planning and management will be tough if for no other reason than they are different and could be interpreted as hard to do, perhaps along the lines of the complexity issue noted earlier in the innovation model Rogers proposed. Gunn took the approach in his various editions to provide case studies and examples of how the ideas laid out were being used in the design of communities and actual places. The “experimentation” phase associated with the developments were part of the years of experience in the field. So experience is be linked to another Innovation model factor, time. It is likely this development of case studies and applications will be an important part of moving forward and enhancing the adoption stages in experience design.

Case (2016) outlines an interesting perspective when he looks forward and one that will have a profound impact on the travel experience: The Third Wave of the Internet will be defined not by the Internet of Things; it will be defined by the Internet of Everything…and new phase of technological evolution, a phase where the Internet will be fully integrated into every part of our lives—how we learn, how we heal, how we manage our finances, how we get around, how we work, even what we eat (Chapter 3, Line 539). He discusses this change in looking forward in a description of the Third Wave. The First Wave was the beginning of the Internet, while the Second Wave was the rapid development of applications and mobile technology. In each instance a core set of requirements included people, products and platforms. In the Third Wave he adds additional requirements that include partnerships, policy and perseverance. And, underlying these changes is the development of new companies or companies that have changed to be driving the development and the innovation.

If the Internet of Things is the direction we expect to see in the future, where people, data, process and things are networked together, where new companies and entrepreneurial opportunities are growing, what might be the implication(s) for the tourism experience and design science? The fact that it is likely to happen is driven by the value added calculations in the trillions of dollars that are tied to connectivity. The argument is also that it will impact both the public and private sectors. For example, what if storytelling is dynamic and becomes more personal as it is linked to location, other prior choices that have been made about a destination, what one or more in your group likes to eat, where you have been before—the nature of how this might be developed is fascinating. How might we think about the tourism social system and the new connectivity that defines this operating framework? How will the service experience provision be shaped and can we improve it because of the changes that are taking place in this emerging technology environment? Thinking about the evolution of Vacationscape in light of design science is exciting, but the translation of these new ideas may be difficult. Yet, this new paradigm is now upon us and will empower us in the years to come with new knowledge and opportunities for transformation.