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 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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Myths can be part of the established narratives of tourist destinations: they offer a perspective on reality that may alter it but that makes it also more insightful by highlighting its inner contradictions and idiosyncrasies and challenging the universal values underlying it. This altered perspective on a place ensures visitors will feel touched by the myth and connected to the place, and the myth itself will be retold. In this paper, we discuss how we have connected narrative to story and story to myth to (re)tell the narratives of people and places and to enhance, in this way, the overall visitor experience in (tourist) destinations. We review two storytelling/placemaking projects that were commissioned to us by several regional, tourism organizations in Brabant, a province in the South of the Netherlands. The projects are: Becoming Vincent, a project about Vincent van Gogh; and Crossroads, a project about heritage from WWII. The aim of these projects was to draft a unique, narrative concept and design storylines that would link and upgrade the sites related to that heritage to eventually attract tourists there, and/or to stimulate visitors to visit more sites connected to the same theme. Finally, we draw lessons we learnt from these projects and highlight the insights we gained in the use of storytelling for mythmaking in tourist destinations
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Differences between tourists in photographing and photo-sharing behaviours have been under-researched. We examined the influence of geographic origin and travel group composition on tourist photographing and sharing. Questionnaires were used to measure photographing and sharing frequency, while participant observation afforded a deeper examination of sharing processes. Findings showed differences in photography behaviour between solo and accompanied tourists. Tourists from some continents also took and shared photographs more frequently. Observations uncovered processes connecting sharing, photographing, and content of photographs. As user-generated content becomes increasingly influential in tourism management, attention to origin, group composition and other individual differences can help engage tourists in photographing and sharing.
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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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As one of its main resources, weather is an integral part of tourism. Yet little is known about how individual tourists experience the weather and how it affects the subjective perception of their holidays. The weather appears to have a prominent place in language and the use of the weather in narratives of tourists can provide insight into how the weather affects tourist experiences. Based on a qualitative analysis of online travel blogs written by Dutch tourists, 16 weather themes could be distinguished, representing how the weather was narrated about by tourists. Moreover, different impact themes emerged describing how the weather impacted the tourists: tourists revealed positive, negative or neutral evaluations about the weather impacts. The findings of this study can be used for future research on tourist behaviour and how specific weather types and impacts influence the decision making of tourists in terms of itineraries and activities.
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Cultural festivals can attract cultural tourists, extend the tourist season and add vibrancy to the cultural scene. However, there is relatively little research on how festivals affect tourist experience of the destination or outcomes such as satisfaction or repeat visitation. This study used the Event Experience Scale to measure tourist experiences at three cultural festivals in Hong Kong – the Lantern Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and the Cheung Chau Bun Festival. The findings show that tourist experiences of these festivals are distinct, and they positively affect destination image and behavioural outcomes. Relative to permanent attractions and tours, festival experiences elicit stronger affective, conative and novelty responses. Festivals also convey a stronger impression of Hong Kong as a destination exhibiting Chinese and traditional culture, but less as a global city. The festival experience is associated with positive outcomes, namely greater satisfaction, intention to recommend and intention to return.
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Recent studies on urban policy responses to increasing tourism have moved beyond the physical impact of tourism to also include the way tourism is framed by social movements. This paper contributes to this line of research with a focus on frame resonance: the extent to which frames strike a responsive chord with the public in general and policymakers in particular. We introduce a specific form of frame amplification through cultural resonance; the appeal to pre-existing societal beliefs. Using an analysis of policy documents, print, online and social media, we demonstrate that frames around tourist shops in Amsterdam appealed to pre-existing beliefs that portray the inner city as: a delicate mix of functions, an infrastructure for criminal activities, and a business card reflecting the city’s quality of place. These beliefs amplified frame resonance to such an extent that they convinced an initially reluctant local government to ban tourist shops from the inner city, a policy that undermines the accessibility and inclusivity of urban spaces that the local government aims to promote (SDG 11). This suggests that the contingencies in the local context that enable or foreclose the cultural resonance of frames are essential in understanding policy responses to touristification.
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The tourism industry tries to strategically manage a customer’s experience by carefully designing, staging and managing the customer journey, in order to create a memorable experience. But what if that memory already has its onset during the experience itself? In this article, we introduce the concept of ‘anticipatory nostalgia’ and define it as a moment immediately after a peak moment in the experience, which entails the creation of a mental image of a future moment in time that is accompanied by an emotional response. We present a theoretical model to explicate a process in which anticipatory nostalgia can enhance the meaningfulness and memorability of an experience. We reason that anticipatory nostalgia is characterized by a joyous feeling yet followed by the elicitation of sad emotions. This implies that the tourist already begins to miss aspects of the experience before it is over. This moment results in a reflection which might replace the joy-sadness connection with a joy-calmness connection. Thereby, placing more emphasis on the uniqueness of the total experience. Potential methods for research are discussed in detail and address the explorative content analysis of autobiographical narratives and photo-elicited interviews, complemented by the use of virtual reality vignettes while measuring several physiological signals.
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