The Challenge
A newly established heritage commission set out to transform a vast desert region, rich with sandstone mountains, ancient tombs and millennia-old trade routes, into a world-class cultural destination.
The task was to design a luxury visitor experience that connects people deeply to place, while protecting fragile heritage sites and staying true to strict conservation principles. At the same time, the commission needed a repeatable way to generate, evaluate and deliver ideas, so its teams could build a consistent pipeline of visitor experience projects over multiple years.
Balancing luxury and legacy
The ambition was to meet international expectations of luxury tourism while staying authentic to the region’s unique cultural identity and principles of conservation. Success meant creating a visitor experience strategy that could deliver moments of awe and wonder, while remaining light-touch and respectful of the environment. The vision needed to provide a framework that could guide investment and innovation consistently over the years of development.
Sprinting towards innovation
Over eight months, we partnered with leadership and innovation teams to run a series of Visitor Experience sprints. Each month-long sprint explored a different stage of the journey; from anticipation of arrival, to discovery on the ground, to the memories carried home.
Every sprint followed the same rhythm: discovery to uncover opportunities and insights, co-creation with local teams to generate ideas, and evaluation to refine and select the strongest. By working in short, focused cycles, we created a bank of concepts that were both visionary and ready for piloting.
Designing for emotion, not just infrastructure
The pivotal shift came when the focus moved from what should we build? to how do we want people to feel? Anchoring the visitor journey in an emotional arc - awe, curiosity, tranquillity and lasting memory - ensured the experience felt consistent, human and unforgettable.
This approach placed the landscape and heritage at the centre of design. Instead of adding more, the work became about amplifying what was already there: the silence of the desert, the grandeur of carved tombs, the intimacy of local stories.
Making the vision actionable
The outcome was a unified visitor experience vision, anchored in guiding principles and emotional outcomes. A pipeline of differentiated, pilot-ready concepts gave the commission clear next steps, while an evaluation framework helped prioritise investment against strategic goals. Together, this created a practical roadmap that could shape visitor experience innovation for years to come.
