The tension is rising: storytelling as an Intervention

Destinations increasingly compete for tourist markets, identity, and solidarity among residents. An intervention touted as having promise for improving both visitor and resident experiences is storytelling. Storytelling is the application of emotionally touching narrative progressions to the communication of (historical) facts and fictions, in this case about a destination. Storytelling can be implemented in destination marketing, visitor management, interventions on resident attitudes to tourism, and the design of leisure experiences for visitors and residents alike. The present contribution assesses an example of the latter – a museum experience aimed at both tourists and residents enhanced by storytelling at the Markiezenhof, a medieval palace in Bergen op Zoom, Netherlands.

Though widely applied by destinations, storytelling methods in experience design are under-researched and not universally validated to provide benefit. In the present chapter, we describe how a museum exhibit is redesigned according to storytelling principles, then track the emotions of visitors to the exhibit using physiological and self-report methods. Their emotions are compared to emotional models of storytelling to assess the effectiveness on the intervention in creating a quality experience that fosters positive evaluation, intent to recommend, and actual recommendation behavior. We found that visitor emotions were characterized by rising emotional tension, confirming that the experience follows the intended emotional profile of effective storytelling.