Immersive Tourism Experiences : How Moment Factory Connects with Families

With 86% of travelers today now opting for immersive experiences over traditional sightseeing, we are seeing a shift in the tourism landscape from passively watching to actively doing. From mind-bending themed attractions to nighttime trails that concentrate nature’s magic, we’ve honed our craft creating them all over the globe, learning what makes an immersive experience hit home for parents, kids, and everyone in between.

Here are seven ways we’re designing tourism experiences that resonate with families.

TURNING ICONIC SIGHTS INTO MUSTS FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY

Families travel in packs, but we can't forget that they're made up of individuals, each with their own — often wildly different — interests. That makes every trip a delicate choreography of competing bucket lists. So while an iconic cultural heritage landmark may already top a parent’s travel itinerary, little ones may need some extra persuasion.

From San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral to Montreal's Notre-Dame Basilica, Moment Factory has created awe-inspiring immersive tourism experiences for all ages at some of the world’s most renowned heritage sites. At the successful AURA experience at Paris's Dôme des Invalides, a poignant retelling of the site's history meets the “wow” of 3,500 square metres of projections, proving that a 17th-century masterpiece of Baroque architecture can still play host to a spectacular night out today.

Elsewhere in France, the latest instalment of Moment Factory’s Lumina Enchanted Night Walk series has landed at Domaine d'Harcourt. Arbora Lumina invites visitors to discover the 1,000-year-old estate on a sensory journey that skips the history lesson and speaks to the emotions, making it something literally anyone can enjoy. In its first months, nearly 50,000 visitors did just that — proof that when you create something people can get excited about, they will happily find their way there.

BUILDING WORLDS OF WONDER

Whether we’re whisking visitors into faraway kingdoms or launching them onto starships light-years from home, our work on themed attractions with collaborators like Disney and Universal Studios, has sharpened our expertise in transporting people somewhere else entirely. Sometimes the worlds we build bring beloved IPs to life for fans to inhabit; other times, we get to dream up entirely new ones, complete with their own characters, landscapes, and logic.

At Aquascope, Moment Factory plunges visitors into the mysterious, otherworldly universe of Les Abysses de Lumière. An original creation, its central character, Kraki, has struck such a chord with the water park’s guests that it’s driving loyalty, inspiring repeat visits, and even traveling home as a cuddly keepsake.

Continuing our collaboration with Futuroscope Xperiences in 2026, we launched La Serre des Mondes, an interactive walk-through that proves high-adrenaline rides aren't the only way to thrill theme park guests. Visitors wander through the greenhouse of fictional botanist Isaac Verdelius, using all their senses to discover fantastical plant life before joining a mission to help protect it.

Time and time again, we've found this kind of participatory interaction to be what tips a tourism experience from momentary fun into something that will live on in family lore.

MAKING PLAY A MAIN EVENT

Sitting, waiting, trying to stave off boredom, and — let’s be honest — likely waiting some more are all inevitable parts of the travel journey. So when families finally reach their destinations, we want to offer them a tourism experience that's playful enough for kids to release their restless energy, but also special enough to spark a memory they'll talk about for years to come.

At Singapore's Curiosity Cove, a huge indoor playscape filled with nature-inspired zones, kids are invited to explore through touch, movement, and collaborative play. We know every child plays differently, so we conducted extensive user testing and applied inclusive experience design to make the space fun for all abilities and sensory sensitivities. Now, kids can play freely and parents can rest easy, sharing in the joy.

Meanwhile, at Playbox Centre in Montreal, Moment Factory’s signature multiplayer Augmented Games use motion-tracking technology to get the whole family moving. Here, play is intuitive and full-body, so both kids and grown-ups can jump in, engage in a little friendly competition, and make memories in motion.

And on non-match days at Bernabéu Stadium, Realmadrid Games invites fans to join the squad. As they move through the stadium corridors, they progress from rookie to elite player, practising drills and completing challenges tracked in real time through a web app that keeps them engaged, moving across experience touchpoints, and one step closer to perhaps someday donning their own jersey.

LETTING NATURE TAKE THE STAGE

When people hear “immersive experience” they often picture blacked-out rooms with floor-to-ceiling projections, and that’s certainly one popular expression of immersion. At Moment Factory, we also think of nature — raw, sensorial, alive — as the original immersive experience, and we pride ourselves in creating projects that lead families back to it.

Since 2014, our Lumina Night Walk experiences have been sweeping families away from urban settings and into nature’s wonders as they wander along trails snaking through forests, gardens, and beyond. With Aquavia Lumina, they're guided by a mystical deer toward a legendary spring within the Wisconsin Dells. Pairing sustainable tourism design with innovative tech that actually peels kids away from their screens and into the open air, it’s no wonder parents are such fans.

Further south, we’ve debuted Smoky Night Lights, a 360° music-and-light experience that invites guests to join a celebration of nature’s most iconic moments in the Great Smoky Mountains. Following a circular elevated plaform through Zoo Knoxville’s natural amphitheater, their every step offers a unique perspective on the dynamic tableaux unfolding all around them. It’s a shared moment out in nature, in every way.

UNLOCKING PARALLEL REALITIES

Sometimes the best way to capture families' attention is to take a tourism experience they may already know and make it spectacular in ways it's never been before.

Take Village Québécois d’Antan, a living museum depicting 19th-century life in Quebec. We wove multimedia throughout the village with an eye to adding value and giving a new wave of visitors a reason to fall in love with the attraction. During the day, the village hums with a subtle magic: portraits that awaken as you walk by, oil lamps that burst into sudden synchronized performance, and a prevailing sense that surprises are hiding behind every corner.

When the sun goes down, we flip the switch and invite the public into Village Parallèle, an off-kilter, time-warping world that gives families a reason to return for a second visit.

We brought that same magic-minded spirit to Paris when we checked in for the revamp of The Grand Magic Hotel. Now, when guests step through The Great Hall's revolving door they are ushered into an ever-evolving world of wonder and illusion that builds to a nightly crescendo of show-stopping enchantment. And just like that, the lobby has gone from a space families once rushed through to one they gladly choose to linger in.

TURNING "HARD TO GET" INTO "HARD TO FORGET"

Limited-access tourism experiences carry a built-in sense of exclusivity; you can’t just show up on a whim and that's what makes them special. They’re the kind of experiences families plan trips around just for the bragging rights to say, “We were there for this!”

With Forest of Shadows, that exclusivity comes courtesy of seasonal programming — and a chill down your spine. Designed for families with older children, the nighttime experience takes over existing Astra Lumina experiences for a limited Halloween run. Presented in Seattle and Dallas, the spooky storyworld gave tourists that extra now-or-never push to stop by and locals a fresh (if eerie!) reason to return.

Powered by Messi's unstoppable fandom, The Messi Experience invites visitors to step into the shoes of their favourite football hero, but only while the touring experience is in town. From Miami to Buenos Aires, Dubai, and Beijing, it gives families a chance to share in a global cultural moment, where kids get a glimpse of their dream future in action and adults get to finally live out their childhood dream.

TELLING STORIES THAT CAN'T BE TOLD ANYWHERE ELSE

Nobody likes hearing “you had to be there,” but the tourism experiences that prompt these words can be the ones most worth packing a bag for. At Moment Factory, we like to start the creative process by tuning into the location itself — its history, its landscape, and the local community that calls it home. We find its unique spark, and then we build from there.

This was the case in the Amos-Harricana territory, where collaboration with the Pikogan community led to the creation of Anisipi, a cultural tourism experience celebrating the region’s water resources and Anicinape culture. From guiding visitors’ gazes into the glowing depths of a municipal well to surrounding them with Anicinapek stories inside a teepee, the experience fuses story and setting so tightly that families know they’re living something they simply couldn’t anywhere else.

In airports, we lean into storytelling rooted in a sense of place to stretch the opportunities for cultural discovery to before travelers even board. Whether they’re getting lost in dreamy depictions of Korean heritage and nature on massive digital canvases at Incheon International Airport, or are mesmerized by a playful Peranakan love story unfolding across colourful shophouses at Changi Airport in Singapore, we’re fuelling curiosity about what makes this particular corner of the world so special.

WHERE TO NEXT FOR IMMERSIVE TOURISM EXPERIENCES?

As tech advances and culture shifts, the ways families choose to unwind and explore naturally changes, too. But the reasons why they — and most of us — travel remains remarkably consistent: We’re all still looking for shared moments, real connections, a little novelty, and lots of joy.

After 25 years of our own exploring, Moment Factory has learned that the next great tourism experience can be created just about anywhere. It can be part of the revival of a historic landmark or the transformation of a site whose primary function is something else entirely. It can be tucked away in a once-forgotten countryside estate as much as in the overlooked pockets of downtime at world-famous stadiums. 

The opportunities are everywhere. We just have to find them — and then, together, we can start creating. Contact us today!