Experience – Economy

Experience economy is believed to be the next economy after agrarian, industrial and service economy. The main characteristic of the ‘experience economy’ is that in this economy, ‘experience’ will be sold as a commodity instead of as a value addition to service or goods/product economy. Now many brands provide experience of the brand for free to customers so that they buy the product or take the service. For example, in Music World stores, you can experience music using headphones for free before you proceed to buy CDs. So as of now experience is provided as a value addition. But now the time has come to commoditize and sell the “experience” to buyers or guests for a price. For example, people go to Disney Land and spend hundreds of dollars just for the experience. Similarly, Hard Rock Café is a theme restaurant where people do not go to dine but to gather ‘memorable’ experiences.

In the experience economy, a place may be developed using infrastructure and props to enhance certain kinds of experiences. It is staged. People enter an experience zone having certain expectations. The developers have to ensure that these expectations of the guests are fulfilled and they get their money’s worth.

In the experience economy, people pay for sensations. The components of experience can be anything and everything under the sun. It depends on human nature and what they wish to experience: physical, emotional, intellectual or spiritual. Moreover, as experience is subjective and personal and differs from person to person depending on attitudes, mindsets and culture, people will have different kinds of experience from the same place.