Design thinking can empower tourism

DESIGN THINKING & TOURISM

Here’s why design can help us unlock responsible tourism

Design thinking is an approach to problem-solving that places issues, and how they are framed and experienced, at the centre of concern. Sometimes it’s called Human Centred Design or even User Experience Design (UX) in tech-specific applications. In tourism management, we need to acknowledge the role of humans and Nature in many of the challenges we face, so I steer towards the term “design thinking” and include both humans and Nature in the way it’s operationalised.

So how does Design Thinking differ from the usual approach we use to identify the problems and challenges in managing tourism within its wider context? Raise your hand if you usually see a problem, disassemble that problem into several smaller problems, and then after thinking about it for a while, you jump straight into identifying a solution. After that, you spend most of your time and resources building that solution, and proving it is relevant and that it does work. This is the scientific method, and there are a few problems with this approach.

Scientific thinking minimises the time spent diagnosing the problem and understanding the causes and consequences from different angles and perspectives. In other words, if we misdiagnose the problem or don’t fully appreciate its complexity, then we are likely to identify inappropriate, ineffective, or even harmful, solutions.

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