Interpretive Master Planning

Do you need expert help with interpretive master planning your exhibit, tourist trail or heritage destination?

HDC Interpretive Master Planning

Heritage Destination Consulting are the market leaders in field of heritage interpretation and one of the only UK companies that are NAI qualified to deliver interpretive master planning.

HDC's interpretive master planning service is led by the renowned international experts Crispian Emberson & John Veverka. John Veverka is author of "Interpretive Master Planning", the leading book on interpretive master planning which is used in universities and colleges around the world and has recently been adopted by the Chinese Government as the standard interpretive master planning training resource.

Most interpretation consultants read the leading book on interpretive master planning....We actually wrote it!

HDC interpretive master planning strategies can be used as a fundamental business planning tool at interpretation centres, museums, historic sites, parks, nature centres, zoos, aquaria, botanical gardens and so on. They can also be scaled up and used as an interpretive master planning strategy at a regional or even national level. The basic principles interpretive master planning remain the same regardless of the size of the subject area.

HDC developed most of the techniques and principles commonly used in interpretive master planning today. We have undertaken thousands of interpretive master planning projects, for hundreds of clients in over 30 countries around the globe, making us the world leaders in the specialist field of interpretive master planning!

Contact Us if you have interpretive master planning needs or would like to learn more about the HDC approach to interpretive master planning.

The HDC Approach to Objective Based Interpretive Master Planning

In the past most interpretive master planning involved a simple process. The interpretive consultant looked at the resources or landscape, the main interpretive message, and then "planned" what interpretive services or media would go where to best illustrate the story.

The resultant interpretive master plan was focused on two main elements:

The story or main interpretive theme or message; and then ultimately
Which media or service to employ at particular locations within site

Big, big mistake!

The outcome unfortunately, was that final interpretive master plan was focused on the "place" rather than on the visitor and was invariably a failure.

Objective Based Interpretive Master Planning

In our experience the best way to approach interpretive master planning is to look at the "outcomes" from the interpretive master planning efforts. Our approach is to focus on learning, behavioural and emotional objectives for all of our interpretive master planning strategies.

We use this objective approach not just because it is a good idea, but because our clients want some proof that the interpretive master plans and the media and services they are paying for actually work!

For example, if you are going to pay thousands of £/$/€ for interpretive panels, wouldn’t you be interested in knowing if the visitors actually "get the message" from the panel?

It is hard to evaluate any interpretive program, service or media if you don’t know "what it was supposed to accomplish" in the first place – that’s where objectives come in.

If an interpretive panel is designed to have "the majority of the visitors able to describe the three ways trees benefit people", we can pre-test visitors to see if they know the answers – and then post test visitors after they saw/read the interpretive panel to see if there was a real increase in knowledge.

Benefit Based Interpretive Master Planning

This level of interpretive master planning leads us to an even more advanced level of objective based interpretive master planning we call benefit based interpretive master planning.

Many of our clients are not just interested in "does the visitors remember the information", they want to know if they are getting a return on their interpretive media or service investment. After all, why should you spend money on interpretation if "nothing actually happens"?

HDC benefits based interpretive master planning is designed not only to focus on the visitor experience but also to predict how cost effective each proposed interpretive program, service, or media will be.

HDC benefits based interpretive master planning approach is not just about an information transfer, but "what do we get in return for our investment of $/£/€ 10,000.00 in interpretive panels"?

Contact Us if for all your interpretive master planning needs.

Contact us to see how we can help you!

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Heritage Destination Consulting Ltd.
heritage interpretation & tourism consultants
www.heritagedestination.com
www.heritagedestination.co.uk