Immersive Influence is our newly published white paper exploring the unique position occupied by experiential destinations: at the meeting point of the highest forms of economic value, the deepest leverage for systemic change, and the primary mechanisms through which culture spreads.
The argument draws together three independent bodies of thinking, each approaching the subject from a completely different direction, yet arriving at a strikingly similar description of what experiential destinations fundamentally are.
Pine and Gilmore identify experiences—and the transformations they can produce—as the highest forms of economic value. Donella Meadows identified paradigm shift—changing what people believe is normal—as the deepest leverage point in any complex system. Evolutionary anthropology identifies emotionally resonant, shared and embodied experience as a primary mechanism through which ideas and behaviours spread through human populations.
Experiential destinations deliver all three—simultaneously, and at scale.
And we call them entertainment.
The paper argues that the sector has been operating at this convergence for decades without ever fully recognising the implications. LBE alone is projected to grow from $4.5 billion in 2023 to more than $73 billion by 2034—nearly ten times faster than the global economy.
A sector scaling at this pace is not merely reflecting culture. It is actively shaping it.
What gets designed into these experiences is therefore not simply an aesthetic decision. It is a strategic one with systemic consequences.
Above: The ‘Immersive Influence’ framework, visualising the convergence of systems thinking leverage points (adapted from Donella Meadows), economic value progression (Pine & Gilmore), and mechanisms of cultural evolution (building on work by Dawkins, Boyd, and Richerson)
Destinations already change people. Every theme park, zoo, museum, and stadium shapes what guests feel, remember, value, and carry home — through story, space, emotion, and shared experience. That influence is not hypothetical. It is operational, continuous, and real.
The paper argues that the sector has already demonstrated this capability repeatedly — but has rarely framed or applied it consciously.
The question Immersive Influence asks is what becomes possible once it does. The paper moves from proposition to practice — introducing a design sequence and change model tested against real destinations that have already demonstrated the mechanism without ever formally naming it. The climate crisis is the primary proof of concept. Not because this is a sustainability paper. Because no other challenge better demonstrates both the failure of information alone to change behaviour — and the scale of influence possible when immersive environments step consciously into that gap.
The response since launch has been immediate, wide-ranging, and — notably — cross-sector.
An established London experience design studio has made the framework a strategic foundation for how they position what they build. A Berlin startup creating screen-free, sensory-rich social spaces has adopted it as the intellectual basis for their entire venture. A senior brand programme manager at one of the world’s most respected technology brand experience environments shared the proposition publicly with her professional network within days. A professor of organisational sociology made contact regarding research alignment with his work on immersive persuasion. As did a UK government department.
The breadth of that response — across design, technology, academia, and government — reflects something the paper itself argues: that the convergence it describes is not sector-specific. It is structural.
James Wallman, CEO of the World Experience Organization, which hosted the paper’s launch at London Experience Week in April 2026, says:
“I founded the WXO not just to connect experience makers, but because I believe experiences can help create a better world — to make good experiences popular, and popular experiences good.
Richard Maddock’s Immersive Influence puts the intellectual architecture around that instinct. Theme parks, attractions, and immersive destinations are already enormously popular. If they can also become forces for positive transformation, they won’t just entertain millions — they’ll help fulfil the deeper promise of the experience economy, and perhaps even the original dream of one of its pioneers, Walt Disney.”
B. Joseph Pine II, author of The Experience Economy and The Transformation Economy, says:
“As the world shifts from the Experience Economy into the Transformation Economy, Richard Maddock identifies a key element that businesses need to embrace: intention. Experiences already have tremendous influence on people, and that transformative power can be used for good or ill depending on exactly what intention — or lack of one — is brought to the experience.
May your intention always be related to fostering human flourishing in the world.”
Richard Maddock says:
“Destinations don’t need to learn how to move people. That capability already exists, built and operating at scale across every theme park, zoo, museum and cultural attraction on the planet. What has been largely missing is the intention. Growth isn’t the problem. Growth without intention is.”
The whitepaper is the third in a sequence of published work establishing the intellectual foundations of this proposition. Kay Elliott is currently piloting a diagnostic methodology with select operators, building directly on the Immersive Influence proposition. Further details will be shared later in 2026.
Download
The Immersive Influence whitepaper is available to download at https://kayelliott.co.uk/immersive-influence
An earlier version of this article was first published by Blooloop.