Business opportunities for sustainability transformation experiences in the travel industry

A unique transformation changing the person involved towards a better self is the most significant part of the experience. The basis for an extraordinary and unforgettable experience is a transformation in the traveller, no matter how small. However, there is very little discussion and research of these memorable, transforming experiences in Finland, how they are created and designed, and their impact on profitability. In this project, we aim to clarify these topics and develop an understanding and an operational model to enable these experiences.

The project aims to increase understanding of the business opportunities of transformational experiences in the tourism industry. This project aims to understand how sustainability (economic, socio-cultural and ecological) can be enhanced by building transformative tourism experiences along the whole customer journey and by taking the possibilities of digitalisation into account both in the creation and research processes.

As a result of the research, a toolbox is created to help tourism businesses create responsible, possibly digitally aided and followed, transformative experiences and execute the transformation process.

With the activities in the project, we aim to answer the following research questions.

• What is enabling the transformative experiences to the customer, and what kind of demand has the transformation experiences in the different target markets

• What is the current situation of the transformative experiences in Finnish tourism, and have the tourism companies and other organisations understood the meaning of transformative tourism?

• What resources and service processes are needed to enable responsible and digitally aided transformative experiences that create added value to the customer?

• What possibilities do the transformative experiences create to enhance the responsibility, digitalisation, new target groups and year-round business?