Staging the Visitor Experience at Culloden Battlefield using the Key Design Principles of the Experience Economy Model and Technology
AUTHORS
Paul Willard,La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia
Elspeth Frew,La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia
Clare Lade,La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia
Paul Strickland,La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia
ABSTRACT
To become a successful tourism enterprise, understanding the visitor experience at heritage (and battle) sites is crucial to facilitate better strategic and managerial practices and avoid the potential differences between visitor and management perceptions. Implementing the key design principles devised by Pine and Gilmore (1998, 1999) includes a compelling and memorable theme. This paper broadly applies the key design principles at Culloden Battlefield, near Inverness in Scotland, and the consequential experiential outcomes for visitors at the site and the heritage (and battlefield) tourism sector. This research adds to the body of dark tourism knowledge by reinforcing seminal work from the 1990s, showcasing Culloden Battlefield as a successful case study of the Experience Economy Model and technology, and adding another aspect of story-telling later.
KEYWORDS
Culloden battlefield, Experience economy, Visitor experience, Key design principles, Dark tourism, Storytelling, Technology
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