In the spring of 2019, Europe’s first underwater restaurant will open in Lindesnes, Norway. In connection to this initiative, research on customer experiences will be conducted. Erik Wästlund, Associate Professor of Psychology at CTF, Service Research Center at Karlstad University, is one of the researchers in the project.
The aim of the initiative is to create an exciting tourist attraction to increase the tourism industry in Sörlandet in Norway, but the facility will also be used for marine research and research on customer experiences. Erik Wästlund will together with researchers from University of Agder and Agder research, study the initiative from a consumer psychological perspective.
– Although the construction doesn’t start until this spring, Norwegian Under, the world’s largest gourmet underwater restaurant, has already received media coverage nationally and internationally, and expectations will be sky high at the premiere. In our project, we will investigate how customer experiences are affected by the extremely high expectations that a unique investment like this entails. How can you create experiences, in this case food experiences, that meet such high expectations of customers, and how can they be further refined? Another interesting question is how people are affected by being six meters below the surface, says Erik Wästlund.
The research is conducted within the Expocean project in 2017-2019, supported by RFF Agder, Norwegian Research Council. Earlier this year a workshop was organized in the project where various parties in the venture, including restaurant owners, architects, chefs, interior and exterior managers and researchers, worked to get different pieces in place for future work. The workshop was led by Erik Wästlund together with his Norwegian research colleagues.
– It is an incredible project and a great environment for research on customer experiences. To be a small part of this is incredibly fun and exciting, says Erik Wästlund.
Read more about the underwater restaurant on under.no.
