Why people conduct different sharing about their travel is unclear. Understudied areas include the roles of tourism activity type, tourist well-being, and social context. Under the framework of construal level theory, three studies which combined secondary data and experiments revealed that: 1) challenging (relaxing) tourism activities lead to more desirability (feasibility) sharing; 2) eudaimonia (hedonia) occupy the dominant position and mediate the relationship between challenging (relaxing) tourism activity and desirability (feasibility) sharing; and 3) social context induces the transformation of the relationship between eudaimonia and hedonia, and has a significant moderating impact on the mechanism of travel experience sharing type. Theoretical and managerial implications of travel experience sharing type and mutual transformation between eudaimonia and hedonia are discussed.
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This paper seeks to highlight underlying issues of the tourism system that have led to tourism extremes of too much or too little tourism. Five phases are recognized that reflect different ways of dealing with too much tourism over time, after which the impact of a sudden lack of tourism is investigated in light of future renewal processes. This discussion highlights the remarkable capacity of the tourism industry to adjust to rapidly changing circumstances and crises, even when these cause anguish to individuals and within societies at large. The paper thus seeks to contextualize the current discussions regarding the transformation of tourism post COVID-19. It highlights the complexity of changing a tourism that multiple stakeholders depend on or have grown accustomed to. To come to a more balanced tourism, it is necessary to not only come up with alternative visions and strategies, but also to engage with the political economy nature of tourism development. A future research agenda should therefore also discuss facets of entangled power, social exclusion, inequalities and class differences to come to new reference points of what actually constitutes a more inclusive tourism success.
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Emotions embody the value in tourism experiences and drive essential outcomes such as intent to recommend. Current models do not explain how the ebb and flow of emotional arousal during an experience relate to outcomes, however. We analyzed 15 participants’ experiences at the Vincentre museum and guided village tour in Nuenen, the Netherlands. This Vincent van Gogh-themed experience led to a wide range of intent to recommend and emotional arousal, measured as continuous phasic skin conductance, across participants and exhibits. Mixed-effects analyses modeled emotional arousal as a function of proximity to exhibits and intent to recommend. Experiences with the best outcomes featured moments of both high and low emotional arousal, not one continuous “high,” with more emotion during the middle of the experience. Tourist experience models should account for a complex relationship between emotions experienced and outcomes such as intent to recommend. Simply put, more emotion is not always better.
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This paper examines how a serious game approach could support a participatory planning process by bringing stakeholders together to discuss interventions that assist the development of sustainable urban tourism. A serious policy game was designed and played in six European cities by a total of 73 participants, reflecting a diverse array of tourism stakeholders. By observing in-game experiences, a pre- and post -game survey and short interviews six months after playing the game, the process and impact of the game was investigated. While it proved difficult to evaluate the value of a serious game approach, results demonstrate that enacting real-life policymaking in a serious game setting can enable stakeholders to come together, and become more aware of the issues and complexities involved with urban tourism planning. This suggests a serious game can be used to stimulate the uptake of academic insights in a playful manner. However, it should be remembered that a game is a tool and does not, in itself, lead to inclusive participatory policymaking and more sustainable urban tourism planning. Consequently, care needs to be taken to ensure inclusiveness and prevent marginalization or disempowerment both within game-design and the political formation of a wider participatory planning approach.
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Stakeholders must purposely reflect on the suitability of process models for designing tourism experience systems. Specific characteristics of these models relate to developing tourism experience systems as integral parts of wider socio-technical systems. Choices made in crafting such models need to address three reflexivity mechanisms: problem, stakeholder and method definition. We systematically evaluate application of these mechanisms in a living lab experiment, by developing evaluation episodes using the framework for evaluation in design science research. We outline (i) the development of these evaluation episodes and (ii) how executing them influenced the process and outcomes of co-crafting the process model. We highlight both the benefits of and an approach to incorporate reflexivity in developing process models for designing tourism experience systems.
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While Augmented Reality (AR) is increasingly being implemented across a number of industry sectors, an open issue remains over the emotional as well as experiential impacts of this new technology within urban cultural heritage tourism. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to create a tourist experience model for AR tourism applications in the context of urban heritage tourism. The data were collected through five focus groups with a total of 49 participants. A theoretical tourist experience model was generated using Hassenzahl’s [(2003). The thing and I: understanding the relationship between user and product. In M. A. Blythe, K. Overbeeke, A. F. Monk & P. C. Wright (Eds.), Funology (pp. 31–42). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers] model of user experience. Hassenzahl's (2003) model relies on the basic idea that product characteristics and features have an effect on the actual consequences. The data were analysed using thematic analysis in order to examine the alignment of themes according to previously identified themes from the literature as well as investigate new emergent themes from the focus groups. This study extends the theoretical aspect of the user experience model by Hassenzahl (2003) through empirical confirmation. The findings reveal that the user experience is formed by the correlation of product features and the perceptions and experiences of tourists. Due to the fact that successful implementation use cases of mobile AR applications is still limited, particularly within the tourism industry, the establishment of a comprehensive set of factors has been considered to be crucial for successful implementation.
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This paper proposes that tourism research needs to explore the potentially lasting psychological benefits of tourism by implementing a eudaimonic perspective of well-being. Consequently, this study adopted a eudaimonic approach to tourist well-being by investigating the reported psychological well-being of pilgrims and the concepts involved in the pilgrimage experience via the exploration of 74 personal narratives. Pilgrims’ self-transcendent peak experiences encompassed spiritual moments of revelation, healing and epiphany. These experiences led to spiritual growth that seems to have impacted participants’ religious spirituality, also long after their pilgrimage, which can be perceived as a potential long-term effect of the pilgrimage experience. The self-transcendent peak experience of the pilgrims can be explained via enhanced autonomy, the experience of positive relationships, achieved personal growth, a sense of purpose in and of life, their character development and a state of self-acceptance.
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Purpose: This paper aims to analyse the development of research on gastronomic tourism experiences and chart its relationship to foundational management and marketing literature as well as the tourism and hospitality field. Design/methodology/approach: The author develops a literature review of papers in specialist journals and the SCOPUS database to identify major research themes and the evolution of experience and gastronomic experience research. Findings: Gastronomy is an increasingly important element of tourism experiences. Gastronomic experience research in tourism mirrors the evolution in management and marketing theory from rational information processing approaches to emotional and hedonistic approaches and analysis of relationality and co-creation. The paper sketches a development from Experience 1.0 (producer-orientated) to Experience 2.0 (co-creation) to Experience 3.0 (foodscapes) in gastronomic experiences in tourism research. Research limitations/implications: Increasing complexity of gastronomic experiences requires a more holistic analytic approach, including more attention for relational and co-creational processes. Linking together different experience elements and experience phases requires more holistic and contextual research approaches. Practical implications: Hospitality organizations should recognize the differentiated and complex nature of gastronomic experiences, the different touchpoints within the customer journey and their relationship to experience outcomes. The development of hybrid gastronomic experiences offers both opportunities and challenges for the future. Originality/value: This quantitative and qualitative literature analysis underlines the need for a more holistic approach to gastronomic experiences, covering different experiential phases and contexts of production and consumption.
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This special issue of Journal of Heritage Tourism on dark tourism aims to encourage and advance theoretical, conceptual, and empirical research on dark tourism. The call for papers was inspired by the editor’s theoretical and research interest in dark tourism studies. The collection of articles in this special issue provides original, innovative and international tourism research that is embedded in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary theoretical and methodological thought in the study of dark tourism. Finally, this editorial will address a few lines of future research directions focusing on the experience and emotions of visitors at ‘dark tourism’ sites.
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This research concerning the experience and future of zoos was carried out from 2011-2012 and takes regional ideas concerning Zoo Emmen as well as global visions into account. The research focuses partly on Zoo Emmen, its present attractions and visitors while also comparing and contrasting visions on the future in relationship to other international zoos in the world. In this way, remarkable experiences and ideas will be identified and in the light of them, it can serve as inspiration for stakeholders of zoos at large. The main research subject is a look at the future zoos in view of: The Zoo Experience – an international experience benchmark; The Zoo of the Future – a Scenario Planning approach towards the future; The virtual zoo - zoo’s in the internet domain.
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