ABSTRACT
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.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part Section 1|159 pages
Dimensions of the contemporary tourist experience
chapter 1|15 pages
Tourism, the tourist experience and postmodernity
chapter 5|13 pages
The interrelationship between tourist satisfaction and experiences
part Section 2|45 pages
Tourist demand and motivation
chapter 13|16 pages
The Ulysses factor revisited
part Section 3|254 pages
Tourist roles and experiences
chapter 19|12 pages
Volunteer tourism
chapter 22|14 pages
Is it just the music?
chapter 24|23 pages
Remembrancing, remembrance gangs and co-opted encounters
part Section 4|66 pages
The tourist experience and place
part Section 5|97 pages
Creating and mediating the tourist experience