John Speers, Joint Managing Director Middle East at MSQ, believes in tapping into the human essence of a destination to unlock its unique personality and build lasting brand affinity. In a world where every destination can be previewed online — it is the lived human dimension that sparks curiosity, creates emotional resonance, and ensures differentiation.
I’ve never really considered destinations as just “places.” Over the years, working with national tourism authorities, airlines, and hotels across the Middle East, Japan, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the US, I’ve seen that the single most powerful driver of engagement and visitation isn’t the place — it’s the people.
Of course, geography is an essential ingredient, but people bring it to life. More often than not, they are what truly differentiate one destination from another.
Think about your own travels: when you return home, what do you share first? The buildings and landscapes — or the people you encountered along the way? More often, it’s the human interactions that shape your most vivid stories, the ones your family and friends want to hear.
That’s why, for me, hospitality has always been as much about the “H” for human as it is about service, and why “social” in social media must always mean human connection, not just digital distribution.
This is the critical distinction.
Places are functional; people are emotional. By tapping into the human essence of a destination, we can unlock its unique personality and build lasting brand affinity.
In a world where every destination can be previewed online — where sunsets, skyscrapers, and beaches increasingly blur into one another — it is the lived human dimension that sparks curiosity, creates resonance, and ensures differentiation.
True affinity emerges when travellers feel a destination touch their soul. It’s not about concrete, steel, and glass; nor just about forests, rivers, or coastlines. It’s about capturing and sharing the stories, traditions, and lived experiences that reveal the deeper essence of a place.
That is where the emotional bond is formed — the kind of bond that makes someone return, recommend, and advocate.
We call this Destination DNA.
It’s a strategic framework that uncovers the life and soul of a destination. Through deep quantitative and qualitative research, we go beyond demographics to understand audiences inside out — their perceptions, motivations, emotional needs, and, critically, their barriers. This knowledge not only guides communication but also shapes the product — in tourism, the experiences themselves.
Product, in this context, means the curated experiences that bring a destination’s DNA to life. When we know the audience in detail, we can identify the specific passions — food, wellness, nature, craft, or culture, for example — that inspire different segments across different source markets.
By tailoring and clustering experiences around these “passion points,” we see not only higher engagement but deeper emotional impact. For example, in work we’ve done for Japan, Saudi Arabia, Ireland, the Caribbean, Australia, and multiple island destinations, aligning products with passions has driven engagement and conversion uplifts of over 600%.
The reason is simple: when people see their own interests reflected, the experience becomes personally relevant. Passion-led content transports the audience — they can imagine themselves there, tasting, exploring, or connecting. It allows us to design itineraries that weave passions together (say, food and wellness, or culture and nature), and price and position them in ways that are proven to convert.
This is how affinity takes hold.
You’re not speaking in generic terms about “sun, sea, and sand.” You’re speaking in the traveller’s own language, addressing what they genuinely care about, and showing them a journey that feels made for them.
That is what transforms destinations from being transactional “places” to becoming emotional journeys that travellers carry with them long after they return.
And increasingly, this process is enhanced by data, analytics, and AI. At MSQ, we integrate research with AI-driven audience modelling, hyper-localised content adaptation, and precision targeting. This allows us to deliver not only short-term spikes in engagement and bookings but also to build long-term brand equity, rooted in authentic human stories.
That is the pivot the industry is making today: from promoting places to curating emotionally resonant journeys. Destinations that embrace this shift will be the ones travellers don’t just visit — they fall in love with.
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