Storytelling

Storytelling is a phenomenon that applies to both fiction and non-fiction. An important objective of telling stories is to entertain or engage people, by sparking emotions. Stories can help visitors/users attach meaning to places, images or objects. Stories can transmit emotional and symbolic values. Designing a memorable and meaningful experience requires the use of storytelling principles. By doing so, people can create a coherent image of the experience and connect it to their values and lives. Designing meaningful touchpoints in a customer journey requires a narrative concept that creates internal alignment in that journey. In experience design through storytelling, we follow Lukas (2013) by focusing on “evoking emotions, memories, feelings and sentiments that all people can enjoy regardless of their specific backgrounds.”

Storytelling includes:

• on-site and/or online storytelling in/for museums, attractions, theme parks, cities, nature areas, resorts
• (joint) marketing/branding efforts for regions and cities
• co-creative storytelling tangible and digital storytelling products

The purpose of this professorship is:

1. to unravel the connections between implicit, explicit and interpretative storytelling as applied by suppliers in leisure, tourism and hospitality (LTH) contexts and the emotions/experience of visitors;
2. to create narrative concepts, storylines and storytelling products for the industry (e.g. stories around cycling routes, scripts for AR applications, story design for interactive museum experiences). Our approach involves taking the content of LTH experiences and loading it with storytelling in a way that engages people’s emotions. These design projects are accomplished together with selected, interdisciplinary teams of BUas researchers, storytelling experts, and students. Co-creation with clients and other external stakeholders is key.

This professorship of Storytelling is closely linked to the professorships of Leisure and Tourism Experiences.

The research team:

• Moniek Hover
• Juriaan Waalwijk
• Frank Ouwens
• Bertine Bargeman
• Else Krijgsheld
• Bart Stadhouders
• Niels Wittkampf
• Wesley Put
• Licia Calvi
• Ondrej Mitas