August 24, 2008
Sensory Travel -- Simpler Sensuality Sells
Multi-sensory travel is responsible and uniquely satisfying. I often advise clients to run through their travel products and destination development campaigns emphasizing various sensory modalities to see what enhancements or unique new products they can discover.
In general, this under-exploited product development technique results in simple concepts like sensory gardens. Together with the growing sophistication of green design and heritage tourism there is much potential waiting to be captured. Here is reference to serendipity occurring in one of those simpler projects:
When is the last time you had a sensory experience? So many of us go through life taking things for granted that we miss the wonders that surround us. We touch, smell, hear and see, but are we truly aware?The idea that children respond to their environment inspired the creation of a special garden at New Bedford's Buttonwood Park. It is not limited to children's use, but it's proximity to a new handicapped-accessible playground certainly encourages youngsters and those who have limited mobility to use it.
As author Laura McLean wisely notes:
When I think of summer, it's wrapped up in the briny smell of the sea mixed with the faint mildew of a simple cottage; the rhythmic slough of wave against sand; mild discomfort of salt against sunburn; the fearsome jetties (I always worried I'd fall between the boulders) contrasted with the comforting boughs of fragrant Scotch pine.This impression is rooted in summer's past — one week spent on the shore with my family every summer. A little ironic when you consider that I now live here full time with all this at my feet. It is a reality that many of our strongest impressions are hatched when we're young, whether consciously or not, simply because there is more time for exercising the senses. Maybe also, we're smaller and the sources are magnified.
Source: http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080823/LIFE/808230310/-1/ENTERTAIN
Can Inclusive Travel teach is to travel with time as a conscious companion? With respect, pacing, and mindfulness?
Can it teach us to "travel small?"
Maybe the idea fascinates me right now because I did not succeed at mindful travel for the majority of m three weeks in India. Experiencing several of the most luxurious hotels inn the world, a diversity of cuisine, and everything from megalopolis to backwater to pristine hill station there still would have been a place for well-designed multi-sensory venues and structured interludes.
Consider the possibilities of the senses as you develop properties, itineraries, or your own travel plans.
Inevitably you will open the experience, even a tiny bit more, to travelers with differing abilities -- and open yourself to the sorts of alternate perceptions made available through the discipline of disability.
Posted by rollingrains at August 24, 2008 12:42 AM