What Is Destination Performance, and Why Does It Matter for Your Attraction?

What Is Destination Performance™?

In an era defined by screen-driven social isolation, the desire for genuine human experiences has soared to unprecedented heights with close to 0.25 billion visits to theme parks around the world in 2023. 

This longing to ditch the sweatpants and dive into unforgettable adventures with friends and family has evolved the landscape of destination attractions, encompassing multibillion-dollar theme park resorts, guerrilla immersive theater pop-ups and everything in between. 

To achieve long-term success in this increasingly competitive, highly volatile environment, operators must continually reevaluate and optimize the guest experience. It turns out that a thoughtful portfolio approach is the key to keeping the experience fresh and the P&L strong.

At IDEAS, we approach these goals by building experience design plans through a reverse-engineering process originating with essential metrics. We call it “Destination Performance.” 

In our recent webinar — Achieving Destination Performance: How To Step off the CapEx Rollercoaster! — we shed light on how small to medium-sized attractions can thrive without taking on excessive capital cost risk.

Let’s dive into what Destination Performance means and how you (and we) can drive its metrics forward.

The Essence of Destination Performance

Destination Performance is about applying design and operating solutions that systematically improve metrics that collectively improve your attraction’s overall performance. 

We focus on improving six key indicators. Measuring these metrics’ improvement provides actionable insights that drive strategic decision-making to ensure sustainable growth. They can vary by specific venue type and market, but all adhere to the “three Ms”: measurable, manageable and meaningful. 

Destination Performance Metrics

Your metrics typically include the following: 

1. Attendance. Increased visitation over time is a primary success driver. Higher attendance, spread to optimize capacity, leads to top-line revenue growth and consistent operating margin improvement. 
2. Length of stay. Longer length of stay increases the likelihood of higher spending on food and beverage, merchandise and premium in-park experiences. It also helps level out in-park peaks to allow for labor scheduling efficiency.
3. Per capita spend. Growing the average spend-per-guest visit is another critical lever for improved profitability. Tuning your mix of offerings by day-part, seasonality and demographic subset is the solution. 
4. Guest satisfaction. Ensuring a high level of overall guest happiness through properly applied research and response is a proven mechanism to assure you allocate resources to their best use. Satisfied guests are more likely to return and recommend. 
5. Intent to recommend. Guests’ likelihood to recommend a destination to others is a powerful metric today — more powerful than almost all other forms of marketing. Positive word of mouth can significantly boost new visitor numbers and increase average party size. 
6. Shorter return cycle. Reducing the time between visits fosters frequent attendance. Moving average annual visits per guest from 1 to even 1.7 is a huge value creator and allows for better operational planning over time. 

If we imagine these as gauges on an incredible steampunk-looking device, “The Performanceometer,” all six of the needles would be moving up.

The premise is that if each of these factors improves over time, regardless of industry trends, any kind of branded destination will be engaging its guests, delivering business goals and positioning itself for healthy, sustained growth.

How It Works

About those guests… Your frontline staff have a pretty good idea about them:

• Who they are
• Why they might be attracted to the stories you tell
• How you might reasonably expect to deliver those tales as experiences

You can dial this in by assessing market conditions in your likely attendance region using primary research. Pair that with targeted conversations with guests and other stakeholders to harvest their stories. We call these perceptions “The Actuals.” 

Next, IDEAS uses a proprietary, collaborative story-development technique called StoryJam® to cocreate a collection of narrative assets to fuel the guest experience: “The Optimals.” 

Bridging from The Actuals to The Optimals produces definite results: 

• A fully detailed imagined guest experience narrative
• A brand voice
• A clear portfolio of assets that could deliver that experience at the quality level required

In turn, this Experience Design Plan allows us to take tailored steps:

• Attract your audience’s attention
• Engage their curiosity
• Appeal to their interests
• Activate their enjoyment
• Deliver a memorable experience they’ll cherish
• Solidify their ongoing affinity for your branded destination 

Finally, using primary research, we can get into nitty-gritty details:

• Predict reliable annual attendance and willingness to pay
• Align capacity with demand
• Optimize pricing 
• Build a detailed financial proforma to confidently look at all the ride, show and entertainment delivery options available to make your guest experience distinctive
• Drive your Destination Performance metrics

Now, let’s look at real (and practical) ways you can give those six Destination Performance metrics a boost.

Actionable Methods

Looking at each modality, here are some actionable ways to drive an increase in performance.

1. Attendance

• Marketing and promotions. Using targeted, segment-specific marketing campaigns or deals on admission or F&B can attract first-time visitors and retain existing ones.
• Events and festivals. Hosting special events, seasonal festivals and limited-time entertainment drives repeat visitation and creates the opportunity for separately ticketed offerings.
• Partnerships. Collaborating with local businesses and community organizations through sponsorships and promoted events generates goodwill and elevates brand equity. 

2. Length of Stay

• Interactivity. Experiences with guest-driven outcomes, such as escape rooms or immersive theatrical productions, are highly repeatable and drive longer guest dwell times.
• Comfort and amenities. Ensuring facilities such as rest areas, restaurants and restrooms are comfortable and convenient makes your guests more likely to stay longer.
• Multi-attraction passes. Offering passes that provide access to multiple attractions within your destination encourages exploration.

3. Per Capita Spend

• Upselling and cross-selling. A well-trained staff can suggest higher-value items and/or additional services.
• Exclusive experiences. Unique, premium experiences (such as behind-the-scenes tours and VIP packages) create additional revenue opportunities. 
• Retail and dining. A diverse range of retail and dining options caters to different tastes and preferences.

4. Guest Satisfaction

• Guest service. Training your staff to provide exceptional service and create a friendly, welcoming atmosphere is imperative.
• Feedback systems. Implementing systems to collect and analyze guest feedback allows for continuous, intelligent improvement.
• Consistent quality. Establishing steadfast safety, service and operational efficiency protocols creates an ideal toward which your destination must always strive. 

5. Shorter Return Cycle

• Membership programs. Offering memberships or annual passes incentivizes more frequent visits.
• Seasonal attractions. Regularly refreshing attractions, events and experiences encourages guests to return.
• Loyalty programs. Loyalty programs reward repeat visits with discounts, exclusive access or special perks.

6. Intent To Recommend

• Individualized moments. Finding ways to connect with your guests on a personal level through smaller, memorable interactions creates lasting affinity. 
• Social media engagement. Encouraging guests to share their experiences on social media platforms via contests, hashtags and shareable content generates buzz around your destination. 
• Referral programs. Offering referral programs that reward guests for bringing new visitors to your attraction engenders powerful brand stewardship. 

Looking Ahead

We build Destination Performance through a comprehensive methodology focusing on key performance metrics to create engaging, memorable and profitable destinations. By systematically measuring and improving these metrics, your attraction can gain valuable insights, drive strategic decision-making and achieve sustainable growth. 

Leveraging guest insights, innovative strategies and practical applications, you can take advantage of the growing value and appeal of destination entertainment. Meanwhile, you balance comparatively high-dollar capital asset cost with other value-creating investments. 

Three actions are integral to driving revenue and ensuring long-term success:

• Balancing financial and brand risk
• Refreshing continuously
• Prioritizing guest satisfaction 

This approach enhances the guest experience, assures bottom-line and ROI value, and builds a loyal brand following.

Achieve Destination Performance 

Sound like a plan? Let’s go! 

Contact us, and we’ll craft one-of-a-kind strategies for your attraction. You can check out some of our past projects, if you’re curious.