Surfing the Creative Wave

Creative tourism experiences constitute clear examples of the experience economy principles. They address new tourists' necessities. They can activate tangible and intangible resources, contribute to the development of local skills while offering the chance to engage with the overall social agents of the tourism system addressing key tourism challenges of the 21st century. Over the past few years, surf tourism has aroused the interest of many people, and surf tourists are increasingly more experienced, demanding and seeking a wide range of engaging experiences. To connect surf tourism to creative tourism, the authors developed a model focused on a creative surf experience. The chapter presents several contributions to the development of creative experiences of surf tourism where surf destinations can focus on and develop a greater audience that searches for such experiences.

Promoting the Tourist Experience Economy in LEDCs Through Authentic Fair-Trade Handicrafts

The handicraft sector plays an important role in providing economic benefits of tourism to local communities. However, this sector is threatened by globalized supply chains. This conceptual chapter explores the synergistic value of linking the experience economy, creative tourism, and fair-trade principles to increase the benefits of the handicraft sector to local communities while supporting positive tourist experiences. The handicraft sector contributes to the livelihoods of marginalized members of the supply chain side of a destination by opening opportunities for adding value to their tangible products through co-created experiences. Furthermore, the creative potential allows tourists to create memories, connecting with producers in interesting and meaningful ways, when fair-trade principles are integrated as part of the tourist experience. To ensure a balanced synergy and active connection between experience economy, creative tourism, and fair-trade concepts, well-trained and skilled artists, art managers, and creative entrepreneurs are needed in tourist destinations.

Authenticity in Tourism Experiences

Authenticity is a term that emerged from the modern era. Travellers are demanding authentic, experientially oriented opportunities with more meaningful interactions with locals. Travellers of the new generation want to have meaningful travel which is sustainable as well as experiential. The rise of an experience economy that concentrates on entertainment, education, escapism, and esthetics has made authentic travel experiences more critical. The tourists are more aware of their needs and are motivated towards places that offer real experiences. The chapter aims to explain the concept of authenticity and relate it to the tourism and hospitality industry. The discussion around various kinds of authenticity as described in the literature has been done. A case study demonstrating authentic experiences in rural homestays has been included in the chapter. Further authentic experiences derived from various tourism and hospitality sectors like food, accommodation, and entertainment have been explained.

Wellness Tourism Experience on the Rise Post COVID

This chapter synthesizes the emergence of the growing wellness tourism segment in an era of post-COVID-19 travel when consumer mentality has been radically changed and shifted towards different needs. This includes any activity that allows tourists to work on themselves mentally or physically and present several considerations and recommendations for the wellness industry to take full advantage of tourism opportunities moving forward. It aims to help understand consumer behaviour and preferences by predicting wellness tourism trends and developments, acknowledging the gaps in the research available for understanding wellness tourism post covid and reflecting the experience economy perspective in the sector. A research method was developed, including a literature review and survey application to potential wellness tourists. Discussion of results is provided, along with main conclusions, allowing the identification of trends and development measures to help improve wellness tourism in a post-COVID era.

Hospitality in the Experience Economy

Experience economy plays a predominant role in the hospitality industry. Consumer experience has always been of great importance for the hospitality business. As consumer experience evolved, businesses needed and still need to find new ways to differentiate themselves. To remain competitive and stay in the market, hospitality firms are working towards creating outstanding and memorable experiences that exceed guest expectations. In the context of Pine and Gilmore's experience economy conceptual model, the chapter attempts to theorize and explain how hospitality businesses are curating consumer experiential encounters. Digital nomads are the ignition source of driving an experience economy. The chapter further highlights how technology would additionally ease hospitality enterprises to frame excellent strategies focused on supplying the value to the digital consumers and then expecting their customers to generate additional business.

Examining Experience Economy Dimensions on Virtual Tour Satisfaction and Destination Visit Intention

Virtual tour is an emerging phenomenon in the tourism industry. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this technology is accelerated and utilized as media to market tourism sites that are mainly closed to contain the Coronavirus spread. This study aims to investigate the relationship between virtual tour experience economy dimensions and outcome of the experience, particularly satisfaction, followed by intention to visit the actual site. Utilizing the PLS-SEM method, this research found that three of the four experience constructs, namely entertainment, esthetics, and escapism positively relate to satisfaction, which leads to participants’ intention to visit the destinations. This finding further supports the role of virtual tour as a strategy to market tourism destinations, as well as emphasizing the significance of immersion and entertainment effect in a virtual content. The result can be of assistance to virtual tour providers or tourism marketers in understanding customer perspective. Keywords: experience economy, satisfaction, tourism, visit intention, virtual tour

Konsumpcja w fanoturystyce w ujęciu ekonomii doświadczeń

Chęć wypoczynku, przeżycia przygody, zdobycia nowych doświadczeń zawsze były motywatorami podejmowania podróży turystycznych. Jednak w ostatnich dwóch dekadach na doświadczenie patrzy się inaczej. Własne doznania, przeżycia i doświadczenia stają się bowiem podstawową wartością nabywaną przez konsumenta-turystę. Artykuł nawiązuje do koncepcji gospodarki doświadczeń (ang. experience economy) jako jednego z ważniejszych modeli opisujących gospodarkę XXI wieku. W artykule zaprezentowano założenia koncepcji ekonomii doświadczeń i ich zastosowanie do badania konsumpcji w fanoturystyce, wraz z przykładami interpretacji jej założeń. Fanoturystyka jest zaliczana do zjawisk szybko zyskujących popularność i nierozerwalnie wiążących się z kształtowaniem turystycznych doświadczeń. Celem artykułu jest zidentyfikowanie założeń ekonomii doświadczeń i zastosowanie ich do deskrypcji konsumpcji w fanoturystyce. W pracy zastosowano metodę analizy i krytyki piśmiennictwa, a także syntezę. Artykuł ma charakter przeglądowo-koncepcyjny.

Changing the business narrative: a guide to successful experience offerings

Purpose In this article, we aim to increase understanding of the unique nature of experiences in comparison to services and explain how narrative change can enable organizations to fully participate in the experience economy. Design/methodology/approach Drawing upon relevant experience design and experience economy literatures the paper outlines key differences between experiences and services. The narrative change process is then employed to provide managers specific guidelines for strategically reframing their value production paradigm to become more experience-centric. Findings rticulating key elements of an organization’s narrative such as characters and intended outcomes allows an organization to more intentionally change their narrative to align with the experience economy. Practical/implications The essential outcome of an experience is that participants do something for themselves ? for example, learn a new skill. Participation is integral to every experience transaction. Originality/value Although Pine, Gilmore, and others have detailed the differences between experiences and services, definitional disagreements and oversimplifications of these concepts still exist. This paper further differentiates these economic offerings. Additionally, this paper is the first to integrate the narrative change process into a discussion about experience strategy.