Inside the Leisure Industry
Mark Shaw, founder of SHAW THING CX, on Creating Memorable Experiences and Leading High-Performing Teams
“Great experiences are rarely about the product alone, they’re about the connections you create with people”
Episode 2: Mark - SHAW THING CX
30th SEP
Blog
7 min read
Inside the Leisure Industry, a series where we sit down with the people who make experiences unforgettable, diving into their stories, strategies, and insights that shape the way guests enjoy their time.
In this second edition, we’re chatting with Mark, a customer experience and leadership specialist whose career spans theme parks, zoos, wineries, and premium hospitality. Today, he works as a leadership-CX specialist, keynote speaker, and business success coach at SHAW THING CX. Mark has helped some of the biggest names in the industry elevate guest interactions, operational strategy, and team performance. He shares his philosophy on what truly drives memorable experiences, the leadership focus required to get it right, and the lessons he’s learned from delivering exceptional experiences across multiple sectors.
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1. Do you remember a moment early in your career when you first thought, “This is what leadership is about” ?
I have often debated with friends whether leadership is something you are born with or something you develop. Personally, I think it is a mix of both.
I started my career in hospitality, first as a waiter, then head waiter, then managing restaurants as they became bigger and more complex. At that stage, I do not think I ever had a moment where I thought, I am good at leadership. Back then, I saw it more as management, and there is a real distinction between the two.
Leadership really began to reveal itself in my late 20s and early 30s, when I transitioned from hospitality into leisure. First at Dave & Buster’s, then into theme parks. At that scale, when you are responsible for hundreds of employees, you realise quickly that systems and processes alone are not enough.
"You cannot manage your way to success at scale. Leadership is about inspiring people to perform at their best, even when you are not in the room"
That is where the “hearts and minds” piece comes in. Leadership is about connecting employees emotionally to the business and their role in it. It is about pulling every lever available, whether that is recognition, vision, narrative, or focus, to create that connection. That was something I really learned during my early years at Merlin, working under Glenn Earlam and Nick Varney. Their relentless focus on the guest experience as the number one priority showed me how powerful clear communication and alignment can be.
Another element I had to develop over time was communication. Leadership is not just about having a vision; it is about articulating it in a way that excites people and makes them want to be part of it. That is a skill I have consciously worked on and continue to refine.
I also think leaders need an internal drive. For me that showed up early. Growing up in England, at this time I was about 11, playing soccer with my local. We were a team that won everything. I remember walking into every match with the mentality that it was a final. That mindset of elevating every performance, not saving it for big moments, has stayed with me.
It reminds me of Sir Alex Ferguson, who always said the focus was on the next game. Not the championship, not the season, just the next match. That relentlessness drives consistency, and consistency is what others notice.
People have described me as relentless, and I think that comes through in leadership. It is about leading by example, operating at a level of 11 out of 10, an amplifier that goes one notch higher. If you show up at 11, others will come in at 8 or 9, and that lifts the overall standard. People look to leaders for cues: what is important, where the focus is, what success looks like. Your behaviour sets the tone, and if you can do that with clarity and consistency, that is leadership.
“Everyone has their own motivation and way of working. As a leader or manager, you need to be a bit of a chameleon to tap into that” – John
2. You often link employee experience directly to customer experience and profits. Was there a defining moment when that connection became crystal clear for you?
Yes, absolutely. The work I do now as a coach and consultant is framed as CEX, “customer and employee experience”. There is a causal link between how happy and engaged employees are and the effort they put in beyond their basic role. We call that discretionary effort. It is the extra contribution people make individually and collectively above the normal requirements.
In a theme park, at times you could have between 500 and 2000 employees, you rely on them at the front line to deliver the experience. You need them to love the organisation, the business, and their leaders. This attachment, which goes beyond simple engagement, has been proven to increase discretionary effort.
Early in my role at Adventure World, I did not have that level of trust in the team I had inherited. I worked most weekends for the first two years, because I did not feel confident that they could deliver the standards I expected. But by year 3, we were getting there, and by years 4 to 6, I could enjoy holidays and know the teams would still deliver 5-star experiences every day.
"You need employees to love the organisation, the business, and their leaders. That attachment drives the discretionary effort that powers customer experience and profits"
The link between employee experience and customer experience goes back even further. Before I came to Australia, I explored it in my MBA dissertation using the Service Profit Chain model. It shows that employee loyalty, satisfaction, and engagement directly affect customer loyalty and profits. The more experiential the business, the stronger the link. In a supermarket, price and convenience matter more than customer experience, but in a hotel, restaurant, resort, or theme park, employee engagement is critical.
This became very real for me after Adventure World. I developed a framework called ACE, “Amplified Customer Experiences” to solidify what had worked. When I left Perth and returned to Melbourne, I spent a few months formalising the framework. I had been surprised by the results at Adventure World: moving from the second lowest rated theme park in Australia to the highest rated, with 93% four- and five-star reviews, 73% five-star reviews, while doubling attendance and revenue.
Even I had not set out for that to happen, so I wanted to capture it in a framework I could use in other businesses. That framework eventually evolved into the tools I now use in coaching and consulting, with support from people like Simon McNamara of Bounce Inc and Grill’d, who helped me fine-tune the model and its continuous improvement elements.
Adventure World
3. You spent over six years leading Adventure World Perth, and during that time the park doubled in attendance, revenue, and outranked Disney's 4/5 parks on TripAdvisor, what did you do differently that made guests feel that level of connection?
It was surprising, but there is a caveat. Guest expectations at Disney are very different to those at Adventure World, and satisfaction is determined by expectations versus delivery. That said, we frequently had guests tell us things like, “we’ve been to Disney and Universal, and you are just as good.” They recognised our delivery even if the scale was not Disney-level. That kind of feedback was incredibly heartwarming because it reflected the blood, sweat and dedication of the team.
Research supports this approach. Melbourne University conducted a study around 2008 or 2009 across 5 major attractions and found that visitors value interaction with the people that work at the attraction as much, if not more, than the product itself. It speaks to our social needs and our desire for connection and validation. This holds true in all experiential businesses.
"Hiring the right people is the foundation of exceptional guest experiences. If your team cannot connect, training alone will not create lasting impact"
At Adventure World, we focused heavily on hiring people who could naturally connect with guests. Ride operators and front-line team members were encouraged to start conversations in queues, ask about guests’ favourite rides and where they were from. These small interactions would spread along the queue and create a welcoming environment. Multiply this across 40 to 50 touchpoints in a park each day, and it becomes transformative.
We called this the Boden effect, named after an exceptional employee whose extroverted nature consistently earned mentions in reviews. Research shows 5-star reviews are six times more likely to mention an employee by name, highlighting the difference one engaged employee can make.
By hiring the right people, those who were naturally Attentive, Warm and Engaging (the AWE in awesome), about 70% of our 500 employees at Adventure World were effectively five-star team members. That level of talent made it possible to consistently deliver top-tier guest experiences. The challenge is that recruitment is hard, time-consuming, but it is worth investing extra time and resources to find the right people. If the recruitment piece is right, everything else, inductions, training, recognition, leadership and tools, delivers an exponentially higher return. Hiring is the foundation. Customer service training alone is insufficient if the core team cannot connect genuinely.
Shaw Thing CX
4. Your consulting has spanned Taronga Zoo, Gumbuya World, Discovery Parks, wineries and IT firms. What’s the common thread you see across all of these industries when it comes to customer experience?
There are a couple of things. Recruitment is always a major factor. I have heard it said that organisations spend 3% of their time on recruitment and 97% of their time trying to fix issues caused by poor recruitment. Leadership often gets frustrated, but everything really starts with hiring the right people.
The other theme is that people do not always buy into the return on investment of guest experience. They may intuitively understand that a better experience drives better business performance, but in many organisations, customer experience is treated as a separate department, and often aid lip-service to. For me, customer experience is business. Doing business really well means not only controlling costs, but also driving the experience, increasing volume, increasing yield because people will pay for better experiences, improving revenue and getting marketing right.
"Customer experience starts at the top. Leadership must drive it, and the right employees make it measurable and sustainable"
A lack of leadership focus often prevents this. The drive to elevate the guest experience must come from the top, from the CEO or Managing Director. It cannot come solely from a mid-level manager. If we look at Nick Varney at Merlin, every CEO update or annual report starts with guest experience first, followed by safety and profits. This sets the tone for the whole organisation. Employees know what the focus is and can make decisions, such as reviewing budgets, to improve the guest experience.
Investing in employee experience also reduces costs over time. Reduced absenteeism, improved productivity, and lower turnover all offset any initial expenditure. For example, losing an employee can cost the equivalent of 6 to 18 months of salary, depending on the role, once you factor in lost productivity, training, recruitment and induction. By focusing on employees, you can flatten these costs and elevate results simultaneously.
Another practical example from Adventure World was reallocating the budget from mystery shoppers. They were spending tens of thousands of dollars a year on a single survey per park. I realised that the feedback was too limited and often overly critical. We redirected that budget into training and recruitment, which had a direct, measurable impact on both employee performance and guest experience.
Ultimately, it comes down to recruitment, leadership focus and understanding that improvements do not necessarily have to add costs.
One of the things we did with the team was to say, if you can find savings against budget, in any department, we won’t pocket the savings, we will re-invest those savings into an area that we know will positively impact the guest experience. That gives the whole team an incentive to find those savings, because they want to feel proud of their park. The only area that was ring-fenced was safety for obvious reasons (which is part of the guest experience in any case!)
5. Across Journey Beyond’s portfolio, Skydeck, Eureka 89, and cruise experiences, you were overseeing premium dining and attractions. How do you approach guest experience differently in a luxury environment versus a family attraction like Adventure World?
I do not think my approach changes between the two. The main limitation is the budget and how much you can invest in the product quality, depending on whether you are a four-star or five-star resort, or a theme park. What matters is delivering the best experience possible within the budget you have.
The one constant is the people experience. Employees are the same across luxury resorts and theme parks in terms of their value to the experience. They might be paid similarly per hour, but the interaction they create with guests is what makes the difference.
"The product is important, but genuine human connection is what makes an experience unforgettable"
I always think about this in everyday examples. If you have two Thai restaurants with the same food quality, you will naturally choose the one with friendlier people. I have a local example near me where 3 cafes serve excellent coffee, but only one has employees who consistently go beyond expectations. Francesca and Kirsty create such engaging, authentic interactions that I go there for the connection as much as the coffee. The other cafes are transactional. They deliver the product but not the engagement.
The lesson is simple. In luxury or family environments, you deliver what you can with your budget, but the people side can be elevated in every setting. Genuine interactions do not cost extra, but they massively enhance the guest experience.
“That makes so much sense. I have a few cafes like that as well. Only 1 gives me their genuine time of day” - John
Exactly. It is not about reading a script. Autopilot interactions do not connect. Even small changes, like saying enjoy the rest of your evening instead of a generic phrase, make it authentic. That is what builds a meaningful guest experience, in any environment.
6. What’s your ideal way to switch off and truly relax?
My guilty pleasure is enjoying great company in a beautiful restaurant. Ideally, somewhere in nature, by a river or in a forest. Being surrounded by nature has such a calming effect.
Watching the sun set over the ocean, perhaps in Noosa or somewhere similar, with a chilled glass of champagne, oysters, a pinot noir, some cheese, and really good company. That’s where I find my pleasure and how I switch off.
"Watching the sun set with great food, wine, and company in nature is my guilty pleasure."
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