week 6 the tourist experience

The Tourist ExperienceTheories & Marketing ImplicationsRichard S. Aquino, MITM

Instructor - TMARKPROMO

Presentation Outline

• Welcome to the Experience Economy

• Defining tourist experience

• How do tourists create their experiences?

Welcome to the Experience Economy

As goods and services become commodified, the customer experiences that companies create

will matter most (Pine & Gilmore, 1998).

The progression of economic value demands that businesses design engaging experiences that command a fee.

Progression of Economic Value

Progression of Economic Value

4 Stages:

1. Move from raw materials to

2. make products to

3. deliver services to

4. stage experiences

Progression of Economic Value (example)

Service vs. Experience

• An experience is not an amorphous construct; it is as real an offering as any service, good, or commodity.

• To realize the full benefit of staging experiences, however, businesses must deliberately design engaging experiences that command a fee.

Taxi (TV Show)

• the episode of the old television show Taxi in which Iggy, a usually atrocious (but fun-loving) cab driver, decided to become the best taxi driver in the world. He served sandwiches and drinks, conducted tours of the city, and even sang Frank Sinatra tunes. By engaging passengers in a way that turned an ordinary cab ride into a memorable event, Iggy created something else entirely a distinct economic offering. The experience of riding in his cab was more valuable to his customers than the service of being transported by the cab and in the TV show, at least, Iggy's customers happily responded by giving bigger tips. By asking to go around the block again, one patron even paid more for poorer service just to prolong his enjoyment. The service Iggy provided-taxi transportation was simply the stage for the experience that he was really selling.

Service vs. Experience

• An experience occurs when a company intentionally uses services as the stage, and goods as props, to engage individual customers in a way that creates a memorable event.

• Commodities are fungible, goods tangible, services intangible, and experiences memorable.

Service vs. Experience

• While prior economic offerings - commodities, goods, and services are external to the buyer, experiences are inherently personal, existing only in the mind of an individual who has been engaged on an emotional, physical, intellectual, or even spiritual level. Thus, no two people can have the same experience, because each experience derives from the interaction between the staged event (like a theatrical play) and the individual's state of mind.

Economic Distinctions

Experience Economy Concepts

How to stage experiences that sell?Pine and Gilmore suggest that marketers be

guided by the following concepts that influence an experience:

• Customer participation (passive vs active)• Connection (absorption vs immersion)

These form the four characteristics of a memorable experience.

Realms of experience

Realms of experience (Entertainment)

• The experience that majority of people think of

• Passive participation, absorption

• Example: watching TV, attending a concert

Realms of experience (Educational)

• Participants are in the absorption stage but requires them to have active participation rather than passive.

• Example: attending a class

Realms of experience (Escapist)

• Can ‘amuse’ like entertainment and ‘teach’ like educational experience

• But requires participants to immerse themselves

• Example: Acting in a play, cooking lessons, basket weaving lessons, guided tour of the Grand Canyon

Realms of experience (Aesthetic)

• Requires participants to immerse themselves with passive participation

• Example: Unguided tour/sightseeing Grand Canyon

Integrating these realms create the ideal customer

experience.

The tourist experience

• The tourism industry is a ‘marketplace of experience’ (Volo, 2009)

• Experiences are unique from the tangible aspects and other services that form a tourism product.

• Experiences are mental, spiritual and physiological outcomes resulting from on-site recreation engagements (Schaensel & McIntosh, 2000).

• A tourism product is an ‘experience’.

How are experiences created?

Although marketers pre-program the sites that can be seen and activities that a tourist can

perform, tourist experiences are shaped in the tourists’ minds.

Example of tourist experience creation & outcomes in a

geotourism context (Aquino et al., in review)

Tourist experience creation

Tourist gaze (Urry, 1990)

• Whenever tourists travel, they gaze upon objects and scenery in the destination.

• ‘gaze’ pertains to seeing things

• The gaze is shaped by meanings that tourists attached to what they witness

Tourist experience creation

Tourist performance (Edensor, 2000)

• Urry’s visual gaze in unreflexive to understanding multi-faceted destinations

• Destinations are ‘stages’ where tourists perform; these stages are regulated and pre-determined

• Tourist performance integrates a physical element with the cognitive properties of the gaze

Tourist experience creation

Embodied performance (Larsen & Urry, 2011)

• Gazing and performing should dance together rather than stare at each other from a distance

• The moving body employs ‘multiple gazes’ when encountering tourist objects

Tourist experience creation

Social relations

• The stage where tourists perform is shared with other ‘actors’ (e.g. service providers, other tourists) (Edensor, 2000)

• ‘Social relations’ in tourist performances; a communal performance

Tourist experience creation

Psychological process (Larsen, 2007)

• Tourists use their sensation, perception & cognition (Volo, 2009)

• Tourist use their internal responses (e.g. imagination and emotions)

• Tourists react to stimuli differently from each other

• Thus, tourist experiences are ‘subjective’.

Discussion question

• How can marketers use the experience economy concepts when designing tourism products and experiences?

Quiz next meeting