Bran Castle in Romania: a moderate disappointment in a country of delights.

Sometimes a more ‘objectively’ attractive place can provide an inferior experience. This is often down to expectations, and whether they are met or exceeded.

Case in point: my friend Barry Verbeek, who lectures in communications at The Hague University, travelled this past summer to Romania and later to Iceland. “My two trips,” he wrote me in an email, “formed an interesting case on how expectations work.”

First I went to Romania and my expectations were low; all I had in mind was the Dracula stories and gypsies. This trip turned out to be great, because it is a beautiful, authentic, historical country with very nice people. My expectations were exceeded and the thing that disappointed me the most — the only thing I had higher expectations of — was the Dracula castle in Bran. Nice, but nothing really special.

My expectations on my trip to Iceland, however, were really high, and they were not met, even though it was a beautiful country. One friend, who had visited some years ago, said it was the most beautiful country he had ever seen. I’d heard other enthusiastic stories also, so I was really excited. It was beautiful, but not what I had expected.

The marketers behind a place don’t control or influence visitors’ expectations to the extent they’d like to. At least, though, they can try to know what those expectations are — and how high. Best of all, if you’re a great place which people have low expectations of, you can really turn this to your advantage.