Blooloop V-Expo – Key Trends & Industry Update: COVID and Beyond
Blooloop V-Expo Exhibition Hall - 13-15 October, 2010
The first ever Blooloop V-Expo last week, 13-15 October, had been long in the plans for Charles Read and the team at Blooloop - long before the COVID-19 pandemic was in our wildest of imaginations. Despite the COVID crisis becoming the overriding theme of the V-Expo session, Blooloop delivered supremely at all levels, putting on stage a 3-day symphony of speakers with non-stop valuable insights and crescendos - such as Leisure Development Partners’ insights on Key Trends in the Attractions Industry: COVID and Beyond; Nicolas de Villiers, President of Puy du Fou’s sessions, appropriately titled The Show Goes On. We were briefed from the likes of Tom Mehrmann on Universal Beijing’s progress, to the exclusive update on the ambitious project The London Resort from PY Gerbeau.
The overriding conclusions I walked away with are that there are many projects continuing to move forward, and that although COVID has thrown the industry a massive curveball, there are many learnings and long term affects - and indeed even a few positives - in how our industry has pulled together to continue to deliver outstanding guest experiences in the most difficult of times.
Blooloop is well known for their thought-provoking, insightful and forward-thinking content, and this year’s V-Expo was the industry’s ‘not to be missed’ event of the year. It is a daunting task to summarise three days of sessions, but let me start with LDP’s Key Trends.
KEY TRENDS
Expansion of Intellectual Property (IP). IP isn’t new, but it’s growing and extending into waterparks, entertainment venues, hotels and farm parks. Types of IP’s are expanding from TV, films, movies, and sports, as seen with Real Madrid opening a football themed park in China.
The reinvention of Brand Centres. No longer is the brand centre at the factory, instead they are popping up as outposts and going to where the audience is to strengthen brand awareness and sustain brand relevance.
Attraction hotels. Hotels are reinventing themselves as Accomotainment. The hotel is no longer the place where you go for some entertainment before you go to a theme park. The hotel is the attraction yourself where you are immersed in a new world. Imagine waking up in your room to the site of a polar pear, or a shark peering in your aquarium window.
Artainment is here. New attractions are popping up such as Meow Wolf in the USA, where art is used to transform you into another world. At Meow Wolf guests are transported to another world and the impossible seems impossible. Guests leave in a transformed state looking at the world in new ways.
Socialtainment. High end venues that infuse great food & beverage with socially engaging sports such as Flight Clubs. With high streets and other retail vacancies, the social bars are making a strong comeback.
The next generation of water parks have arrived where a theme is woven into the entirety of the water park such as a pirate’s theme.
Joe Pine and the Experience Economy and COVID
Moving on to the ‘one and only’ Joe Pine and his theories on the Experience Economy. According to Joe, the difference between time well-spent (experiences) and time well-saved (services, goods and commodities) has a new dimension, the transformation economy. According to Joe, we are moving beyond the experience economy to the trans-formation economy which requires us to look at why people are going outside of their environment and what we can to help the guest achieve their goals, such as better relationships with their kids. The consumer is changing, and they want more from us, then COVID hit and everything changed.
Since COVID, there has been a pivot from physical to digital. Joe said that when parks and attractions were or are still closed it is important to refresh your space, redesign your offerings and renew your capabilities and go beyond them. The importance of pivoting to digital provided opportunities for exposure to different people that may not have known about your attraction. Many venues offered on-line glimpses into museums, or theatres ran live streaming events. Zoos turned to the public live streaming animal feedings to help raise money in their communities to keep animals fed.
Although these have been trying times, the impact or acceleration of fusing digital with the real world is here to stay. Guests have become accustomed to online content and purchasing or booking. Attractions need to learn to find a balance to continuing to offer on-line consumption and connection and can build a loyal following, yet attractions need visitors and revenues. The trick will to return to levels of guests, improve the experience and monetise from on-line events, including memberships or annual passes.
Although there is no real positives out of COVID we have as an industry proved our resilience and earned greater political and community appreciation of the size, value and importance of tourism and the impact to our health, lives and economies. We have had an aspiring explosion of sharing and collaboration within our sector and beyond. We have learned that the past ways weren’t the only ways and that we should not try to replicate it. According to Bernard Donaghue, we must recover better.
Most importantly we need to put employees and guests at the center and with empathy. We need to be authentic in everything we do and that culture and tourism isn’t just a place where you grow jobs, it’s where you grow people.
Note: links to V-Expo presentations are still live as of publication. Registration required.