Our world is always in motion. The tools we use, the ways we connect and share (and like, and comment, and repost and follow ) are constantly shifting. We’ve learned to navigate a culture that moves faster with every passing week, driven by emerging technologies like AI, a global economy that standardizes many touchpoints into a sort of experiential generica, and the relentless churn of digital life.

But beneath that rapid pace, we are changing, too. We search for something deeper, with meaning, intention, and impact. We want more than a checklist of experiences; we seek to participate in something that changes us. This longing is an inflection point in our economy and what we increasingly assign value to. Increasingly, we covet transformation over transaction.

Birth of the Experience Economy (and How Social Media Killed It)

In 1999, our friend Joe Pine and James Gilmore published The Experience Economy, which explained why companies needed to move beyond simply providing goods and services to staging experiences, and that memories, not monuments, are the true souvenirs of travel. Their insight reframed the role of destinations: stop selling sights and start creating experiences worth remembering.

This shift unfolded alongside the meteoric rise of social media, which gave people new ways to capture, broadcast, and brand their personal lives. In the 2000s and early 2010s, social sharing felt fresh and connective. By the mid 2010s, it had evolved into a global stage, with brands and destinations competing to create “Instagram-ready” moments like scenic viewpoints, playful installations, and curated backdrops designed to trigger emotion and social proof (and the earned media and influencer validation that it fueled).

The problem? In the rush to create shareable moments, everyone started staging the same ones. People queued up for identical shots, at identical angles, wearing nearly identical expressions. The result was a flood of homogenized content that felt polished but hollow.

Oliver Kmia’s now-viral 2018 satire video, Instravel — A Photogenic Mass Tourism Experience, is the perfect illustration. In it, he edits together hundreds of travel images, each technically beautiful but so similar they blur into one surreal loop.

“During my trip, I felt that many people didn’t really enjoy the moment and were hooked to their smartphones,” Kmia said. “As if the ultimate goal of travel was to brag about it online and run after the likes and followers.”

The video is both funny and sobering: a mirror held up to our image-obsessed culture. It’s proof that the Experience Economy, while groundbreaking in its day, had reached a saturation point. To stand out, companies and destinations alike would need to create more than just memorable moments; they would need to create meaningful change.

From Me to We: The Rise of the Transformation Economy

The Transformation Economy is the natural next step: an economy where businesses focus on experiences that catalyze deep personal, social, or environmental change.

Experience Economy

Focused on the “Me”

A need to be seen

Passive observation

Transformation Economy

Immersed in the “We”

A need to self-actualize

Active transformation

In this new paradigm, experiences are no longer the end goal; they are the medium. The real outcome is who the customer becomes and how their world view is changed in the process. Research by Stone Mantel pegs the U.S. Transformation Economy at $208 billion in 2025 and growing faster than goods, services, or even experiences. And few industries are better positioned to lead this shift than hotels, resorts, and destinations.

What Tomorrow’s Travelers are Seeking

• Personal renewal after life pivots or burnout
• Purpose alignment around climate action, social justice, or spiritual growth
• Deep connection with self, others, nature, and culture
  

When travelers talk about their trips now, it’s not just where they went, it’s how they’ve changed. A transformational journey might turn a parent into a more present caregiver, an executive into a mindful leader, or a curious traveler into a citizen scientist.

Examples of Transformational Travel in Action

• Regenerative Tourism – Guests take part in restoring ecosystems, rewilding landscapes, or revitalizing communities
• Wellness Retreats – Programs that integrate mental, physical, and spiritual wellbeing
• Learning Journeys – Skill-building through cultural immersion, indigenous knowledge, traditional crafts, or local agriculture
• Impact Travel – Itineraries designed around a cause, where the traveler’s purpose and the destination’s needs intersect

Destinations embracing this approach move from storytelling to story-enabling, handing the narrative over to the traveler. At Resonance, we have seen firsthand how these places foster lasting loyalty and drive visitation in both peak and low seasons and are applying this approach in our work as we create both long-term development strategies for destinations and concepts for new hotels and resorts alike.

What Makes an Experience Transformative?

A truly transformative experience is:

• Meaningful – Rooted in local place, people, and culture
• Relatable – Resonates personally with the guest
• Designed – Crafted with intention, often including signature moments
• Layered – Offers multiple ways to engage and discover
• Personal – Reflects and supports an individual’s unique journey
• Shared – Builds connection through collective experience

But could a touch of discomfort be the key to unlocking deeper connection and change? 

The Secret Ingredient: Friction

While we often think of friction as an obstacle, in transformational travel it can be the spark that ignites change.

In behavioral science, friction is usually designed out of the customer journey. But in transformation design, the right kind of friction heightens awareness, signals importance, and invites engagement.

Anthropologist Victor Turner called these in-between states liminal spaces, threshold moments when old identities are suspended and new ones can emerge. In these moments, norms loosen, perspectives shift, and true connection becomes possible.

teamLab: A Living Case Study

The Japanese art collective teamLab uses friction masterfully. Their Borderless and Planets exhibitions dissolve the boundaries between art, architecture, and body. Visitors navigate barefoot, sometimes wading through water or walking across yielding, unstable surfaces. In Planets, the “Soft Black Hole” installation forces guests to renegotiate balance and movement.

The intent is not comfort, it is sensory recalibration. As the environment destabilizes, the mind becomes more receptive to new ways of thinking. This is the fertile ground where transformation takes root. How could these principles be applied to yield transformation in the hospitality sector?

How applying friction can help create transformative experiences in hospitality

1. Transitional Arrival and Departure Experiences

Instead of the standard lobby check-in, guests could pass through an immersive threshold that slows them down and signals they’re entering a different “world.” 

• Sound tunnels with evolving ambient soundscapes and aromas that change throughout the day and night
• Narrow-to-wide passageways that compress and then release space, creating a shift in perception
• Guided barefoot arrival paths across different textures (wood, stone, sand) to heighten sensory awareness
• Departure rituals (e.g., writing a wish and placing it in a vessel) to bookend a stay or leaving a permanent mark on a central piece of art that evolves as more guests visit the hotel. This reinforces the emotional arc of a visit and creates narrative coherence and closure

2. Deliberate Sensory Disruption

Borrowing from teamLab’s playbook, you can create environments that gently destabilize balance, light, and sound to engage guests more fully. 

• Light corridors with changing hue and brightness, altering depth perception.
• Floating platforms, suspension bridges, or subtly undulating floors in spa or wellness spaces.
• Mist-filled gardens where visibility and orientation shift as guests walk.

3. In-Between Zones in the Guest Journey

Liminal design can exist between major “destinations” on property to invite contemplation, conversation or creative thought. 

• Hallways designed as art installations, so movement between rooms and amenities becomes part of the experience
• Garden paths with gentle twists, unexpected seating niches, or art that changes with light and weather
• Transitional lounges that encourage reflection, rather than direct point-to-point movement
• Elevators are by nature transitionary tools, and those enclosed spaces can be used to storytell, through a shift of light, a change in music, artwork or projections that evolve depending on your floor

4. Culturally Rooted Programming

Liminal spaces can also be created through meaningful, co-created cultural exchange, where guests are not just observers but active participants in local traditions and stories.

• Hosting rotating residencies for local artists who both showcase their work and invite guests into collaborative creation—be it weaving, carving, painting, or storytelling
• Designing culinary liminal zones where a rotating roster of local chefs lead small-group cooking classes, share the origins of their recipes, and invite guests to partake in the full meal together

From an elevator ride to an Indigenous cooking class, these moments turn hospitality into a catalyst for personal change.

Creating Transformation that Resonates

Our journey into the Transformation Economy has just begun, but nothing gets our team at Resonance more excited than creating transformative travel experiences that redefine how people connect with the world.

In the Middle East, we have crafted concepts for unique activations that elevate and maximize the potential of natural sites. In Costa Rica, we have shaped the vision for a new destination rooted in wellbeing, outdoor adventure, and cultural engagement, all inspired by the surrounding landscape and local context.

In Canada, we are collaborating with National Parks to develop tourism strategies that invite visitors to immerse themselves in Indigenous communities in authentic, respectful ways. While across North America we have partnered with hoteliers to design meaningful touchpoints – from the first welcome to the final late-night ritual—that weave a cohesive narrative and create both distinctive, and potentially transformative, stays. 

For us, travel is no longer about what visitors see, but who they become. Our role is to build the stage, light it beautifully, and invite the world to step into its next, best self – empowering every place to realize its full potential.

If you’d like to learn more and join us on this journey, we’d love to hear from you.

Want to join us for our Transformation Economy for Destinations Master Class on Sept. 10, 2025? Register here.