People do not buy products or even services; they purchase the total experience that the product or service provides. This book brings together established and emerging international scholars to provide systematic reviews and illustrative cases drawn from tourism, leisure, hospitality, sport and event contexts. The book provides a useful framework for focusing the goals and associated methodologies of future research efforts and for implementing the results of these efforts.
Offers a unique insight into these growing areas of the tourism industry looking at their interaction, market profiles, advantages and their effects on the environment. Gayle Jennings, Griffith University, Australia.
People do not buy products, or even services; they purchase the total experience that the product or service provides. Experience management is seen as the way to remain competitive in markets where globalisation and technology have turned products and services into commodities. This book draws together academic and practitioner insights into the consumer experience by combining the perspectives of the tourist consumer with that of experience managers, supported by examples from tourism, leisure, hospitality, sport and event contexts. With contributions from established and emerging international scholars, it is organised into three sections: understanding experiences, researching experiences and managing experiences. It aims to provide students, researchers and managers with a stimulating overview of the current research and managerial issues in the field and as well as a resource to guide their further reading.
This book reframes tourism, as well as leisure, within mobilities studies to challenge the limitations that dichotomous understandings of home/away, work/leisure, and host/guest bring. A mobilities approach to tourism and leisure encourages us to think beyond the mobilities of tourists to ways in which tourism and leisure experiences bring other mobilities into sync, or disorder, and as a result re-conceptualizes social theory. The proposed anthology stretches across academic disciplines and fields of study to illustrate the advantages of multi-disciplinary conversation and, in so doing, it challenges how we approach studies of movement-based phenomena and the concept of scale. Part One examines the ways in which mobility informs and is informed by leisure, from everyday practices to leisure-inspired mobile lifestyles. Part Two investigates individuals and communities that become entrepreneurial in the face of changing tourism contexts and reflects on the performance of work through multiple mobilities. Part Three turns to issues of development, with attention to the cultural politics that frame development encounters in the context of tourism. The varied ways that people move into and out of development projects is mediated by geopolitical discourses hat can both challenge and perpetuate geographic imaginations of tourism destinations.
In this classic analysis of travel and sightseeing, author Dean MacCannell brings social scientific understandings to bear on tourism in the postindustrial age, during which the middle class has acquired leisure time for international travel. In The Tourist—now with a new introduction framing it as part of a broader contemporary social and cultural analysis—the author examines notions of authenticity, high and low culture, and the construction of social reality around tourism.
Children’s and Families’ Holiday Experiences is based on the recognition of the active social role of children in shaping the nature of their holiday experiences and those of their parents and other adults. The volume provides significant insights into the holiday desires, expectations, and experiences of children and their families that offer the potential for the tourism industry to plan, develop, and market products that provide a higher quality of service to these populations. This book traces the modern history of the demand for and provision of holidays for children and families. As part of this it examines the nature of the holiday desires of parents and children and the roles society and the tourism industry play in influencing these. It provides an analysis of the changing nature of the holiday desires and experiences of children as they evolve through different life stages and the influence this has on the shape of family holidays. Given increasing concerns about child safety and education, this book examines both issues within the tourism experience. Finally, the book analyzes how the tourism industry caters to the needs of children and families and offers insights into how this could be improved in the future. This thorough investigation will be of interest to students, researchers and academics in the areas of Tourism, Geography and Child and Family Studies as well as the tourism Industry.
"This book looks at women as producers and consumers of leisure experiences. Women produce and consume leisure through a variety of activities as a way to enhance self-actualization and personal empowerment - sometimes through resistance to cultural norms and expectations"--
Routledge Handbook of the Tourist Experience offers a comprehensive synthesis of contemporary research on the tourist experience. It draws together multidisciplinary perspectives from leading tourism scholars to explore emergent tourist behaviours and motivations. This handbook provides up-to-date, critical discussions of established and emergent themes and issues related to the tourist experience from a primarily socio-cultural perspective. It opens with a detailed introduction which lays down the framework used to examine the dynamic parameters of the tourist experience. Organised into five thematic sections, chapters seek to build and enhance knowledge and understanding of the significance and meaning of diverse elements of the tourist experience. Section 1 conceptualises and understands the tourist experience through an exploration of conventional themes such as tourism as authentic and spiritual experience, as well as emerging themes such as tourism as an embodied experience. Section 2 investigates the new, developing tourist demands and motivations, and a growing interest in the travel career. Section 3 considers the significance, motives, practices and experiences of different types of tourists and their roles such as the tourist as photographer. Section 4 discusses the relevance of ‘place’ to the tourist experience by exploring the relationship between tourism and place. The last section, Section 5, scrutinises the role of the tourist in creating their experiences through themes such as ‘transformations in the tourist role’ from passive receiver of experiences to co-creator of experiences, and ‘external mediators in creating tourist experiences'. This handbook is the first to fill a notable gap in the tourism literature and collate within a single volume critical insights into the diverse elements of the tourist experience today. It will be of key interest to academics and students across the fields of tourism, hospitality management, geography, marketing and consumer behaviour.
An essential read for all leisure and tourism experts, this educational book analyzes and explains demographics, global supply and demand, globalization, intercultural behavior and mobility to help you forecast future consumer needs.
"This book provides contributed chapters on not only the tourist experience but also the growing importance in the economy in tourism and addresses issues such as tourism planning, innovation, and development, both at product and destination level, include the design of unique, memorable, and authentic experiences in order to assure tourism competitiveness"--