Service STRATEGY
Ecosystem DESIGN
Re-architecting destination
discovery into a connected
visitor ecosystem for the
Department of Culture and
Tourism, Abu Dhabi.
A behavioural brand system designed to turn membership into status, belonging, and long-term retention.
The challenge was never the destination itself.
Abu Dhabi already had world-class hospitality, culture, experiences, and infrastructure. The real
issue sat in the layer between visitor intent and in-city behaviour.
Discovery was fragmented. Planning was inconsistent. On-ground decisions were often
disconnected from the moments that actually drive dwell time, satisfaction, and spend.
What should have felt like a connected city experience was instead a series of isolated touchpoints:
search, recommendations, transport, itinerary, bookings, payments, and partner experiences all
operating in separate systems.
The opportunity was to redesign this into something far more valuable:
a destination-scale digital operating system that could guide visitor behaviour from inspiration to in-
city orchestration.
The experience gap
Through direct working sessions, the consulting challenge quickly moved beyond channel issues into
diagnostic clarity.
The core friction points were not surface usability issues. They were systemic experience gaps
shaping how visitors perceived, planned, and moved through Abu Dhabi.
The research surfaced recurring problems across:
limited awareness of the full breadth of things to do
outdated assumptions around nightlife and entertainment
distorted perceptions of cost
transport uncertainty
fragmented trip planning behaviour
weak continuity between discovery and action
These issues were commercially significant because they directly influenced:
trip confidence
itinerary depth
partner spend
repeat exploration
length of stay
advocacy behaviour
This shifted the work from channel optimisation into visitor journey architecture.
The real question became:
how do we design a system that helps every visitor make better decisions before, during, and after
arrival?
The strategic architecture
Once the friction was clear, the work moved into experience systems design.
The transformation was built around a connected architecture designed to repeatedly improve visitor
confidence, decision quality, and ecosystem engagement.
The strategic system centred on four layers:
1) Discovery architecture — make the breadth of the city legible and desirable
2) Journey continuity — ensure planning follows visitors seamlessly across devices and trip
stages
3) Decision intelligence — reduce uncertainty through personalised context, recommendations, and next-best actions
4) Ecosystem orchestration — connect partners, payments, bookings, and services into one
behavioural flow
This was not a feature roadmap.
It was a destination behaviour framework.
Each layer was designed to strengthen the next, creating a compounding system where discovery
naturally progressed into planning, movement, spend, and repeat use.
The orchestration mechanism
The real transformation happened in the orchestration layer.
The platform was redesigned as a modular journey engine, where every touchpoint reduced friction
and increased forward momentum.
This came to life through several interconnected systems:
1) Discovery layer
An interactive city map transformed the destination from a static content experience into a live
exploration system.
Visitors could move fluidly between districts, attractions, events, hospitality, and local
recommendations, turning passive browsing into spatial decision-making.
2) Planning layer
A persistent itinerary system allowed users to collect, refine, and sequence experiences across
multiple sessions and devices.
This continuity layer was critical. It reduced planning drop-off and created a bridge between pre-trip
inspiration and in-city execution.
3) Decision layer
Personalised recommendations, contextual suggestions, and dynamic next steps created a form of
decision support that continuously nudged visitors toward higher-confidence actions.
This improved not just usability, but behavioural momentum.
4) Service layer
Wallet, booking continuity, and partner integrations transformed the platform into a connected
service ecosystem rather than a content destination.
This is where customer experience became service orchestration logic.
Ecosystem value
The most powerful outcome of the transformation was not the interface.
It was the creation of a connected destination ecosystem.
The platform now had the potential to create simultaneous value across three layers:
visitor value through confidence, convenience, and richer itineraries
partner value through discovery, conversion, and ecosystem participation
destination value through first-party behavioural insight and journey intelligence
This moved Visit Abu Dhabi beyond tourism content into city-as-platform logic.
In the room with the Department of Culture and Tourism, the moment that shifted the conversation
was not the logic alone, but the shared ambition to build a more connected feeling of Abu Dhabi
across the entire visitor journey.
That was the leap from platform thinking into ecosystem belief.
Real-world impact
The real value of this work was in converting destination complexity into a system that could scale.
Not simply a better interface.
A more intelligent journey engine.
The transformation created:
stronger visitor confidence
improved trip planning continuity
more connected service touchpoints
clearer pathways to partner spend
scalable first-party data infrastructure
a future-ready platform model for ecosystem growth
Most importantly, it gave the Department of Culture and Tourism a scalable digital foundation for
representing Abu Dhabi not just as a destination, but as a connected visitor operating system.
The final visual expression brought that future to life in a way that made the opportunity instantly
tangible: not just a smarter tourism platform, but Abu Dhabi itself made explorable, purchasable, and
emotionally present in the palm of the visitor's hand.
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