Skip to main content
beSmart
Contact →

Behavioral Decision Intelligence for destinations

Better destination outcomes begin with better human decisions.

Visitors, residents, businesses and public services make connected decisions every day that shape how a place feels, functions and benefits from tourism.

beSMART Destinations helps destination leaders identify the decisions that matter most, understand what is shaping them and design practical interventions that improve visitor experience, local value, mobility, livability and resource use.

Explore a Destination PilotSee Relevant Results

One place. Many people. Connected decisions.

Destinations measure what happens. Behavioral Decision Intelligence helps explain why.

Destination leaders already have strategies, campaigns, visitor research, mobility data, spending data, resident sentiment, reviews and operational evidence.

These signals can show where visitors concentrate, how they move, what they spend, how residents feel and whether people engage with a destination initiative. But they do not always explain the human decisions behind the outcome.

  • Why do visitors keep following the same crowded route?
  • Why are nearby places and local businesses overlooked?
  • Why does information fail to translate into action?
  • Why do people default to a less suitable transport option?
  • Why do well-designed local experiences remain undiscovered?
  • Why do responsible choices feel difficult, irrelevant or invisible?

Behavioral Decision Intelligence connects the signals with behavioral diagnosis to identify what people notice, expect and choose, where friction or opportunity exists and what can be changed in the real destination environment.

Most destination systems measure what happened. Behavioral Decision Intelligence explains why and what to test next.

One destination. Many decision moments.

A place is experienced through a connected sequence of choices.

Only a few decision moments may have disproportionate influence on the outcome a destination wants to improve.

  1. 01

    Choose

    Shape which places, experiences, times and transport options enter consideration before and during a visit.

  2. 02

    Arrive

    Help people understand the place, what is expected and what options are available from the beginning.

  3. 03

    Move

    Make suitable routes, public transport and lower-impact mobility easier to notice, understand and use.

  4. 04

    Discover

    Help visitors look beyond the obvious and find local places, stories, businesses and experiences.

  5. 05

    Participate

    Turn destination messages and invitations into actions that support the place and improve the visit.

  6. 06

    Remember and Share

    Understand which moments create connection, memory, recommendation and the desire to return.

The journey crosses websites, booking platforms, arrival points, streets, transport, accommodation, attractions, local businesses and public spaces. The decisions are connected even when the systems behind them are not.

Different decisions shape different destination outcomes.

  1. Visitor Distribution

    Help visitors discover suitable places, routes and times beyond the most obvious choices, where this supports destination priorities.

  2. Local Value

    Increase meaningful engagement with local businesses, food, culture and experiences so more visitor value remains in the place.

  3. Mobility and Flow

    Improve how people understand and choose routes, public transport and other mobility options while reducing avoidable friction and concentration.

  4. Resident Experience and Livability

    Address visitor decisions that affect shared spaces, local norms and everyday resident experience without making the visit feel punitive.

  5. Visitor Experience and Connection

    Make the destination easier to navigate, more rewarding to discover and more memorable through stronger participation and sense of place.

  6. Resources and Responsible Choices

    Improve decisions around water, waste, energy, nature and heritage while protecting, and where possible enhancing, the visitor experience.

Destination outcomes rarely sit within one organization.

A visitor may encounter a destination through a travel platform, arrive through an airport or station, stay in a hotel, move through public infrastructure, choose a local business and respond to messages from several organizations in the same day.

Each organization sees part of the journey. The visitor experiences one place.

beSMART Destinations helps partners align around the priority behavior and outcome, while allowing each organization to act through the touchpoints it can influence.

  • Destination leadership
  • Residents and communities
  • Travel and booking platforms
  • Mobility and arrival partners
  • Hotels and tourism businesses
  • Attractions, culture and public spaces

One shared outcome. Different touchpoints. Coordinated behavioral learning.

From fragmented signals to coordinated action

Find the decisions that matter. Test what changes them. Learn what can scale.

  1. Signals
  2. Diagnose
  3. Prioritize
  4. Intervene
  5. Measure and Learnand back to Signals, as a continuous loop
  1. 01

    Signals

    Bring together relevant destination evidence, such as:

    • visitor research and surveys
    • resident sentiment
    • mobility and flow data
    • booking, spend and participation data
    • reviews, complaints and digital interactions
    • partner knowledge and frontline observation
    • where useful, additional research or sensing

    One view across fragmented evidence.

  2. 02

    Diagnose

    Understand:

    • what people are doing
    • why it may be happening
    • where friction or opportunity exists
    • which decision moments matter most

    Move from what happened to why.

  3. 03

    Prioritize

    Identify where intervention is most likely to create value, considering:

    • visitor and resident experience
    • local economic benefit
    • feasibility
    • resource implications
    • measurement potential

    Focus partners on decisions they can influence.

  4. 04

    Intervene

    Design practical changes across relevant physical and digital touchpoints, such as:

    • information
    • framing
    • choice architecture
    • timing
    • routes
    • incentives
    • service interactions
    • the environment itself

    Turn destination strategy into action.

  5. 05

    Measure and Learn

    Compare the response against an agreed baseline, understand what worked and determine what should be:

    • adapted
    • repeated
    • scaled across partners or places

    Build evidence for the next decision.

The intervention changes with the place and the people. The Behavioral Decision Intelligence method stays consistent.

Different destination ambitions. The same intelligence.

Turn information into participation

A destination has a strong visitor campaign, but awareness does not reliably translate into action.

Adding more information assumes that knowledge is the missing piece. Behavioral Decision Intelligence examines what visitors notice, when the message reaches them, how the action is framed, what feels easy and whether the surrounding environment supports the choice.

The result is a focused intervention designed around the real moment of decision, with participation measured against a baseline.

Distribute visitors and local value

A destination wants visitors to explore beyond its busiest areas and support a wider range of local businesses.

Simply promoting more places does not guarantee that they enter a visitor's consideration. Behavioral Decision Intelligence examines attention, familiarity, perceived effort, route choice, social proof, timing and the way options are presented.

Interventions can then be tested across selected digital and physical touchpoints to understand what changes discovery, movement and spend.

Improve destination mobility

A destination has suitable transport options, but visitors continue to default to less desirable choices.

The barrier may not be motivation. It may be visibility, confidence, timing, perceived complexity or value.

Behavioral diagnosis helps identify what is shaping the choice and where a practical change can make the suitable option easier and more attractive.

Different ambitions. The same starting point: identify the decisions shaping the outcome, then design and test within the real destination journey.

Relevant evidence from real tourism environments

When decisions change, outcomes can change with them.

BehaviorSMART's methodology has been developed through behavioral research, field testing and implementation across tourism destinations and businesses. These examples demonstrate how changing the environment around a decision can produce measurable results.

  1. −23%

    plastic waste

    ≈ €100,000 saved / season

    Campofelice Camping · Ticino, CH

    Made refill stations highly visible and top-of-mind at the point of choice.

    Existing destination or business infrastructure can create greater value when people can easily see and use it.

    BehaviorSMART methodology — Smart Ways Ticino, with Ticino Turismo; Campofelice Camping, Switzerland.

  2. +589%

    public-transport users

    Whale2Sea × Andenes Camping · NO

    Rental bikes plus a PT-user discount that made the easier choice the cheaper one.

    Mobility choices can shift when convenience and value support the intended behavior.

    BehaviorSMART methodology — EU First Mile Project, Whale2Sea × Andenes Camping, Norway.

  3. +383%

    local menus sold

    Snowhotel Kirkenes · NO

    Reframed the menu around place-based storytelling; preorder-only scarcity cue.

    Local experiences can gain commercial value when place, meaning and choice design work together.

    BehaviorSMART methodology — EU First Mile Project, Snowhotel Kirkenes, Norway.

Documented results reflect the validated BehaviorSMART methodology through Smart Ways Ticino and the EU First Mile Project. They were not produced by the current AI platform. The platform is designed to support more consistent and scalable application of the methodology.

Built in tourism. Tested across real destinations.

10+ years of research, field testing and behavioral expertise in tourism and hospitality.

Relevant relationships and collaborations include work connected with tourism organizations and ecosystems in Ticino, the Nordics, the Netherlands, Italy, Jordan and wider European tourism networks.

  • Arctic Europe

    Northern Norway · Arctic Sweden · Finnish Lapland

  • Arctic Sweden

    Care for the Arctic Ambassador Activation Program

  • Nordics

    Nordic Regenerative Tourism

  • Netherlands

    Destination sustainability collaboration

  • Ticino · Switzerland

    Smart Ways Ticino

  • Italy

    Destination mobility and visitor behavior

  • Jordan

    Tourism behavior and sustainability

Selected tourism relationships and collaborations

European Travel Commission · Visit Finland · Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions · Ticino Turismo · Arctic Europe Tourism Cluster · Experience Jordan

Built for the complexity of real places.

  1. Behavioral science, applied in context

    10+ years of research, field testing and behavioral expertise in tourism and hospitality.

  2. One method across connected spaces

    The same Behavioral Decision Intelligence capability can connect decisions across destinations, airports, hotels, mobility, attractions and local businesses.

  3. Designed for measurable outcomes

    Interventions are implemented in real environments and evaluated against agreed operational, commercial, experiential or resource outcomes.

  4. Practical for destination partnerships

    Start with the evidence and touchpoints partners already have, adding research or technology only where it strengthens diagnosis and learning.

  5. Built to learn and scale

    Every measured result can improve the next intervention and build evidence for wider application across places, partners or visitor journeys.

  6. Transparent behavioral design

    We design choices transparently. We influence; we do not manipulate.

Start with one destination outcome.

Focused Destination Pilot

Have a defined visitor, resident, mobility, commercial or resource challenge?

Select one priority outcome, identify the decisions shaping it and test practical interventions through the relevant destination touchpoints.

Explore a Destination Pilot

Behavioral Discovery and Diagnosis

Need to understand where the strongest behavioral opportunities are?

Bring together existing evidence, map the most important decision moments and prioritize where intervention could create the greatest value.

Discuss a Destination Challenge

Destination Behavioral Intelligence

Ready to build an ongoing learning capability?

Connect evidence, behavioral diagnosis, experimentation and measurement across repeated priorities, partners or places.

Talk to Our Team

Different ways to begin. One Behavioral Decision Intelligence capability.

Focused experimentation

Turn one destination priority into measurable learning.

A beSMART Destinations pilot begins with a defined outcome, a real destination environment and partners able to influence the relevant decision moments.

  1. 01

    Define the outcome

    Agree what the destination wants to improve and how progress will be measured.

  2. 02

    Find the decisions

    Identify the visitor and partner decisions most likely to shape that outcome.

  3. 03

    Design and activate

    Develop practical interventions that fit the place, visitor journey and participating organizations.

  4. 04

    Measure and decide

    Compare the response with the baseline and decide what to scale, adapt or stop.

What the destination receives

  • A destination-specific behavioral diagnosis of the selected priority
  • A map of the critical decision moments and partner touchpoints
  • Practical interventions designed for the live destination environment
  • A measurement approach linked to the agreed baseline
  • Results, learning and recommendations for adaptation or scale

What participation requires

  • One clearly defined destination priority
  • A lead organization and named internal owner
  • Access to relevant existing evidence and participating touchpoints
  • Appropriate local partners for implementation and measurement

Start with the outcome

What would you like people to do, feel or experience differently in your destination?

It could be exploring beyond a crowded route, choosing public transport, engaging with local businesses, respecting a shared place, participating in an existing initiative or discovering a more meaningful experience.

BehaviorSMART helps uncover the decisions and moments shaping that outcome, identify where intervention is possible and turn behavioral insight into practical experimentation and measurable learning.

Explore a Destination Pilot

One outcome, one conversation. No newsletter, no sales loop.