Module 2: Empathise – Understanding the Tourist

Empathising with tourists by understanding their needs, motivations, and challenges.

Learning Outcomes:
After completing this module, you will be able to:
  • Knowledge:
    • Understand the role of empathy in tourism design.
    • Identify methods for gathering insights into tourist behaviours, needs, and preferences.
    • Grasp the significance of creating tourist personas and journey maps in designing sustainable and immersive experiences.
  • Skills:
    • Conduct research and interviews to collect data on tourists.
    • Develop detailed tourist personas based on data and insights.
    • Create tourist journey maps to visualise touchpoints and opportunities for enhancing experiences.
  • Competences:
    • Apply empathy-driven approaches to identify and address tourist needs.
    • Use data to inform design decisions and create tailored, responsible tourism experiences.
    • Collaborate with stakeholders to integrate tourist and community needs into experience design.
Module Overview:

Empathising with tourists is a fundamental part of the design thinking process. By understanding the emotions, motivations, and challenges of tourists, tourism SMEs can create experiences that resonate with their target audience. This module focuses on the importance of empathy in tourism design and provides tools and techniques to gather insights into tourist behaviours and needs. Learners will explore how to create tourist personas and journey maps, which are crucial for designing immersive and sustainable tourism experiences.

1: The Role of Empathy in Tourism Experience Design

What is Empathy in Design Thinking?

In tourism, empathy means understanding the diverse motivations that drive tourists to choose certain experiences.

2: Techniques for Researching Tourist Behaviour

Why Researching Tourist Behaviour is Important:

Understanding tourist behaviour is key to creating experiences that cater to their needs and expectations.

3: Creating Tourist Personas and Journey Maps

What are Tourist Personas?

Tourist personas are fictional representations of your target audience based on real data and insights gathered from research.

Practical Activity

Creating a Tourist Persona, Empathy Map and Journey Map

References:

End-of-Module Quiz: Empathise – Understanding the Tourist

This quiz will test your understanding of the Empathise stage in design thinking and its application in sustainable tourism.

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1: The Role of Empathy in Tourism Experience Design
2: Techniques for Researching Tourist Behaviour
3: Creating Tourist Personas and Journey Maps
Practical Activity
References:
End-of-Module Quiz: Empathise – Understanding the Tourist
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