Building the instinct to host

Why AI, XR and Metaverse Training is the New Foundation for the Visitor Experience Excellence in MENA

As the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia aims to welcome 150 million visitors annually by 2030 and the UAE developing major tourist programs with Abu Dhabi alone attracting 39.3 million visitors annually, the pressure to shift from a service-based economy in the MENA region to an experience-based one is profound.

New destinations are rising fast. Historic sites are reopening. Events are becoming the new competitive ground.

“The hype around the ‘metaverse’ for gaming and entertainment has waned, but the new ‘experience economy’ is growing exponentially - translating the impact of 3D immersive worlds and gamification from industry into training in this new realm has huge value potential.”

Pete Gardom, Founder Director at This Great Adventure

Design creates the environment, but people create the memory. While visitors appreciate the space, they truly remember how they were treated. That experience comes down to a single variable: whether the employee felt ready to meet the moment.

The challenge nobody talks about

Our experience shows that across all facets of visitor experience, from airports, hotels, and heritage sites to large-scale events, teams are facing the same reality.

People are hired quickly - sometimes thousands at once - and asked to handle emotionally complex situations immediately:

• A confused tourist who doesn’t speak the language

• A frustrated guest in the heat

• A cultural misunderstanding

• A safety concern in a crowd

Training usually explains what to do, but classroom training doesn’t happen in the context. Real life doesn’t give you time to think, let alone relate or experience the impact of your decisions. In those moments, employees don’t recall slides, they rely on instinct. So, the real question becomes: How do you build instinct before the situation happens?

Rethinking training entirely

This is where This Great Adventure and European Customer Consultancy (ECC) approached the problem differently.

Instead of improving training materials, they changed the nature of training itself. New age calls for progress, because:

• cultural hospitality especially in the MENA region is not just knowledge. It is feeling subtle nuances, behaviour under pressure, tone of voice, timing, confidence.

• fast growing, young, transient and diverse workforce is used to faster, immersive information consumption and traditional training does not engage them. 

“We’ve been working with storytelling technologies for over 30 years. Immersive and interactive environments create totally new opportunities to turn information into experiences that really can change perceptions and behaviors.”

Pete Gardom, Founder Director at This Great Adventure

Image courtesy of This Great Adventure

Imagine a typical moment at a busy entrance. A visitor approaches visibly frustrated - their family has been in the heat, and the ticket scan has failed. An employee, first day on this new site and only a few months in the country, has seconds to compose themselves, remember the procedures, and react calmly and kindly. There is no energy left to show true hospitality.

So the real question is not what should they know? It is have they already lived this moment before?

Confidence comes from experience. Not theoretical practice. Experienced practice and embodied knowledge.

From learning to immersion

Instead of explaining procedures and hoping they will be interpreted correctly in the moment, employees are placed inside the interactions they will actually face using VR — before the first visitor arrives.

“A visitor experience is a ‘narrative environment’ and the visitor is a ‘character’ in the unfolding story of their journey through it – who they interact with and how they are treated is as significant as what they’ve come to see.”

Pete Gardom, Founder Director at This Great Adventure

Image courtesy of This Great Adventure

Inside the simulation, the host must choose how to respond:

• Focus only on the system 

• Acknowledge the frustration and apologise 

• Escalate immediately

Each decision changes the scenario and visitor’s reaction. The employee experiences the outcome. Receives coaching. Tries again. By the time the real situation happens, it is no longer the first time they have handled it.

What makes this training different

Unlike classroom training - which transfers information - immersive training builds instinct. Employees interact with realistic visitor personas in live action scenarios.

• They make decisions under pressure.

•  They experience consequences in real time.

•  They receive behavioural coaching.

• And they repeat the interaction until the response becomes natural.

The goal is not memorisation. The goal is internalisation and readiness. Confidence is not built by knowing what to do. It is integrated by having already done it.

How immersion can be delivered

Interactive environments Employees explore the site in virtual reality, even before its opening, if necessary, thus understanding context and requirements, stories, and visitor expectations instead of memorising instructions.

Scenario simulations As virtual hosts, the employees handle realistic decision making where outcomes depend on visitor personas and their own behaviours, including handling misunderstandings, complaints, cultural nuances, and service recovery.

In-situ guidance Support continues as AR/XR digital coaches step in to assist decision-making and handle mistakes, including real time AI support.

Once created, the training becomes repeatable and scalable, independent of trainer availability.

It also aligns with modern learning behaviour - shorter attention spans, theory delivered in context, more interaction.

People do not wait for experience to teach them. They begin work having already practiced it.

What changes when people feel prepared

Something subtle happens. Employees stop behaving like temporary staff. They begin acting like hosts.

Ministries and organisations improve their ability to achieve Vision 2030 targets and sustain visitor experience excellence. They achieve:

• Higher visitor satisfaction and reputational gains

• Faster employee onboarding

• Fewer service breakdowns and lower operational costs

• Consistent standards across entities and sites

• More confident teams and higher employee retention

But the real difference is emotional: Employees internalise their role and acquire an instinct to host - and the visitors feel it.

The future of destination experiences

As destinations compete globally, differentiation for MENA will not be secured from what visitors come to see, but from the feelings and memories created while they are there.

Across the region, travel motivations vary - pilgrimage, heritage, nature, events, family visits - yet the lasting memory is rarely the site itself. It is the hospitality and interaction.

The places that stand out will be those where every encounter feels natural rather than performed, where employees as true intuitive hosts respond with confidence instead of searching for the right line.

Reaching that point requires a shift in mindset. Training cannot only transfer information; it must create readiness.

The collaboration between ECC and This Great Adventure is built on a simple belief: employees should not deliver their first experience to a real visitor - they should live it first.

When they do, visitors don’t just observe a destination. They feel welcomed into it with kindness and generosity, happily return for more and recommend it to others.

Curious whether this approach fits your environment? Let’s talk - book a call and we’ll walk through real scenarios and practical applications together.