Creating New Services (original) (raw)

Event Design: Social perspectives and practices (Routledge Advances in Event Research Series)Edition: 1 st., 2014

This paper explores how to engage service design and event design in fruitful dialogue. It introduces the service design approach and secondly, it exemplifies the use of this approach by way of making references to existing studies. Then, it offers a case study conducted at Ranua Zoo . Ranua Zoo is an outdoors zoo situated in Finnish Lapland that specialises in Arctic wildlife. It aims at creating a new service concept for families visiting the zoo during the Christmas season. The case contains many typical features of tourist attractions such as seasonality and attendance. Unmanageable weather conditions challenge the design and management of the service. Moreover, in this case, the core products, animals, pose a further challenge in the sense that their behaviour cannot be fully planned beforehand. The design of interactive encounters, which lies at the heart of both service and event design, is therefore particularly interesting. The paper shows how a set of service design methods enables the zoo to create a series of small events to attract more visitors outside the main season. As an outcome, the research paper proposes service design methods that can be used in the event design.