Guest Experience Model
The phenomenon ‘experience’ has increased enormously within the leisure and tourism sector.
Businesses are increasing their efforts directed at creating the optimal guest experience. The
customer experience starts playing a role in numerous industries. Organisations can no longer rely
on just a strategy of product leadership or operational excellence.
A model that is very useful in realizing an optimal guest experience is the Guest Experience Model by
Van Wijngaarden (2006). This can be included in the formulation of the Value Proposition of the
Business Model Canvas.
1. The Guest Experience Model
The Guest Experience Model explains the manner in which the customer experience of a product or
service originates and what resources a specific supplier has on hand to orchestrate the ultimate
experience.
The model is built up like a house, where the foundation is formed by the vision, mission, values and
experience concept as envisioned by the organisation.
The cornerstones the organisation has available are ‘people’, ‘setting’ and ‘process’. ‘People’ refers
to all of the employees of the organisation that clients will be in direct contact with. Under the
heading ‘setting’ are all of the physical and virtual locations where the client meets the organisation.
‘Process’ stands for all of the supporting processes that the client must go through in order to
acquire the central product or central service. These cornerstones contain all the possible
touchpoints between the client and supplier. The combination of all these touchpoints create the
final guest experience.
The foundation of the house and the experience cornerstones are developed by a formal or informal
leadership. It is also of critical importance that the employees within an organisation continuously
inspire one another to exhibit behaviour that will realize the desired client experience.
2. Vision, mission and values
To create insight to their goals on strategic level, organisation speak of their ‘vision’ and ‘mission’.
The Guest Experience model acknowledges these as essential parts of the foundation. The definition
by Geursen will be used for this model. He defines ‘vision’ as a bundle of subjective perception. A
vision can be formulated on two levels. The first level is macro level, which refers to a perception
over the entire world. The other level is meso-or micro level, which is the perception that is of the
product or product category. Geursen considers the ‘vision’ as the basic philosophy of an
organisation, formed by a subjective view of things. A vision does not contain goals, but a mission
does. The mission is the legitimacy of the organisation; the reason to take action based on the vision.
The mission is the ultimate task the organisation has set for themselves.
Ideally, core values control the attitude and behaviour of the employees. They provide support for
making choices on strategic, tactical and operational levels. It is best to limit the number of core
values to three to five, in order to optimize the inspirational and directional power.
An important condition for successful use of core values is a high degree of affinity of the individual
employee with the concerned core values. At the same time, it is essential that space exists internally
to discuss the core values and to define a supported process on a behavioural level.
The phenomenon ‘experience’ has increased enormously within the leisure and tourism sector.
Businesses are increasing their efforts directed at creating the optimal guest experience. The
customer experience starts playing a role in numerous industries. Organisations can no longer rely
on just a strategy of product leadership or operational excellence.
A model that is very useful in realizing an optimal guest experience is the Guest Experience Model by
Van Wijngaarden (2006). This can be included in the formulation of the Value Proposition of the
Business Model Canvas.
1. The Guest Experience Model
The Guest Experience Model explains the manner in which the customer experience of a product or
service originates and what resources a specific supplier has on hand to orchestrate the ultimate
experience.
The model is built up like a house, where the foundation is formed by the vision, mission, values and
experience concept as envisioned by the organisation.
The cornerstones the organisation has available are ‘people’, ‘setting’ and ‘process’. ‘People’ refers
to all of the employees of the organisation that clients will be in direct contact with. Under the
heading ‘setting’ are all of the physical and virtual locations where the client meets the organisation.
‘Process’ stands for all of the supporting processes that the client must go through in order to
acquire the central product or central service. These cornerstones contain all the possible
touchpoints between the client and supplier. The combination of all these touchpoints create the
final guest experience.
The foundation of the house and the experience cornerstones are developed by a formal or informal
leadership. It is also of critical importance that the employees within an organisation continuously
inspire one another to exhibit behaviour that will realize the desired client experience.
2. Vision, mission and values
To create insight to their goals on strategic level, organisation speak of their ‘vision’ and ‘mission’.
The Guest Experience model acknowledges these as essential parts of the foundation. The definition
by Geursen will be used for this model. He defines ‘vision’ as a bundle of subjective perception. A
vision can be formulated on two levels. The first level is macro level, which refers to a perception
over the entire world. The other level is meso-or micro level, which is the perception that is of the
product or product category. Geursen considers the ‘vision’ as the basic philosophy of an
organisation, formed by a subjective view of things. A vision does not contain goals, but a mission
does. The mission is the legitimacy of the organisation; the reason to take action based on the vision.
The mission is the ultimate task the organisation has set for themselves.
Ideally, core values control the attitude and behaviour of the employees. They provide support for
making choices on strategic, tactical and operational levels. It is best to limit the number of core
values to three to five, in order to optimize the inspirational and directional power.
An important condition for successful use of core values is a high degree of affinity of the individual
employee with the concerned core values. At the same time, it is essential that space exists internally
to discuss the core values and to define a supported process on a behavioural level.
