What is it that actually creates an experience travelers don’t forget once the moment ends? This is the question that brought Katrina Demers, VP of Brand at Pursuit, and her team to the science of memory — and a fresh approach to experience design.
Pursuit is a Colorado-based hospitality and experience company with a growing portfolio of attractions including the Columbia Icefield Adventure in Jasper, Canada and the Sky Lagoon in Rejkyavik, Iceland. Most recently they acquired Eagle Wing Tours, a whale watching operator based in Victoria, Canada.
Over the past several years, Demers’ team has been developing what they call their experience creation principles: a five-part framework for what actually makes a guest experience unforgettable, built on a discovery about how memory works.
Demers walked us through the framework in an interview ahead of her Arival 360 | Spokane session.
Pursuit’s Four Experience Creation Principles
0. Start With “The Before”
Before any of the four principles come into play, Demers says there is a prerequisite step her team calls “the before.”
“The principles hinge on one really important prerequisite, and it’s to know what your guest is looking for before they arrive,” Demers says. Crucially, this isn’t about guest segments or income levels, she says, “It’s about pinpointing the void you’re trying to fill with your experience.”
1. Boundary: Crossing Into a New World
The first of the four principles is “boundary” — the moment a guest leaves their ordinary world behind and enters yours.
“You have to take your guests into a completely new world,” Demers says. ”So there has to be the before that you’re understanding, and then you’re taking them into a new space.”
For Pursuit’s in-progress redevelopment of the Jasper SkyTram, that has meant asking exactly where that crossing happens. Is it the parking lot? The road up the mountain?
2. Elevation: More Than a Wow Factor
The second principle, elevation, is often mistaken for a single showstopping moment. “A lot of us think about elevation as that wow factor,” Demers says. “It’s so much more. It’s actually an entire rising up of the experience.”
Pursuit’s team now audits every touchpoint of an experience and asks how it can be elevated, rather than relying on a handful of peak moments to carry the rest.
This is where Demers and her team get into the science of memory: people don’t remember things as a series of little moments, she explains, but rather as narrative.
“We have to think about building for that narrative and not just for the moment,” says Demers. “And that’s a big transformation that we’re seeing within the industry right now.
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3. Connection: To People and Place
The third principle is connection, which Demers is intentional about noting is not limited to connection between people.
“Connection is not just between people, but it’s to place,” she says, explaining there are different ways to facilitate that sense of connection.
At the Jasper SkyTram, for example, one of the ways Pursuit is designing for connection is by incorporating First Nations storytelling and communal gathering spaces.
“Can we have a little bit of a campfire setting, so the connection is in there?” Demers says of the space her team is designing.
4. Integration: Making the Experience Stick
The final principle, integration, is where a guest leaves with something that sticks with them, resolving the tension identified back in “The Before.”
This isn’t something operators can manufacture directly, Demers points out. “You can’t do integration for your guest,” she says. “We can’t say, ‘okay, this is the moment you’re going to feel awe.’”
Instead, Pursuit builds in quiet, guest-led moments: a pensive stretch of trail, a glass of wine with a view, a different soundscape on the way back down. “We can leave little moments,” she says, “so we can create that space for you to sit and enjoy.”
Bringing it All Together: The Unforgettable Experience
When these four principles are done well, it taps into how memory actually works, and how people remember things as narrative.
“It creates a ‘chapter’ in the libraries of our guests’ minds,” explains Demers, “and that’s what creates unforgettable experiences. We remember our lives in narrative, and so if we’re able to add chapters to that narrative, what we have seen at Pursuit is you are actually able to deliver unforgettable experiences.”
“And more than ever, I think this is what our guests are looking for.”
Dig Deeper into The Science of Memory & Experience Design at Arival 360 | Spokane
Join us at our upcoming Arival 360 | Spokane event to learn more about experience design from Katrina Demers and other tours, activities and attractions operators and industry leaders at the event of the year for the in-destination experiences community.
Header image: Columbia Icefield Skywalk by Pursuit
