Dear colleagues,
As you may be aware, tourism is an industry that inherently revolves around creating experiences. However, a basic and standardized tourism service is no longer sufficient to provide tourists with an unforgettable experience (Rijal and Ghimire, 2016). In the tourism sector, where tourists actively participate in creating their own experiences and the roles of tourism professionals and tourists need to be redefined, tourists seek new, different, and unforgettable experiences during their holidays (Thanh and Kirova, 2018), and they are willing to pay a premium for this (Hwang and Han, 2018). It is crucial to understand what constitutes the tourist experience and how this experience is shaped as a result of visiting a destination (Oh et al., 2007). While there is no universally accepted and defined method for a better understanding of the nature of the tourism experience, preliminary studies have extensively researched and continue to research the experiences of tourists. In this regard, the experience economy model developed by Pine and Gilmore (1999) is widely used to comprehend consumer experiences (Hwang and Lyu, 2015) and is considered a dominant model (tom Dieck et al., 2018). The experience economy, which has gained significant attention since the early 2000s in understanding the tourism experience, encompasses various types of tourism activities such as festivals, wine tours, hotel services, cruises, sports events, cultural and artistic events, heritage and camping sites, theme parks, museums, hot springs, and casinos, all of which are extensively discussed.
In the experience economy approach, an unforgettable experience is achieved through a "staging-oriented" experience economy rather than a "providing-oriented" service economy that emphasizes high levels of product and service quality (Pine and Gilmore, 1998; 1999). Consumers consume products and services not only for functional and rational reasons but also to have a unique, memorable, extraordinary, and unforgettable experience (Oh et al., 2007; Morgan et al., 2009; Hosany and Witham, 2010). This indicates that in the future, competition between businesses will revolve around staged experiences rather than product and service quality (Pine & Gilmore, 1998; Morgan et al., 2009). Consequently, tourism service providers are compelled to develop competitive strategies that not only focus on the quality of their products and services but also ensure consumers have an unforgettable emotional and spiritual experience (Oh et al., 2007; Morgan et al., 2009). In order to guide tourism managers and practitioners who aspire to provide an unforgettable experience to their guests and to advance current research on tourism experiences, I have accepted the invitation to be the guest editor of a special issue in the peer-reviewed journal "Journal of Humanities, Arts, and Social Science," published by Hill Publishing Group Inc. in the USA. The theme of this special issue is "The Experience Economy Approach for Tourism Services and Types," and I invite your support and contributions. I encourage you to submit original scientific studies based on the experience economy approach, focusing on topics such as new tourism trends, services, and the main tourism types classified by themes such as sea, nature, gastronomy, faith, rural, culture, sports, health, adventure, events, and more.
References
Hosany, S., & Witham, M. (2010). Dimensions Of Cruisers’ Experiences, Satisfaction, And Intention to Recommend. Journal of Travel Research, 49(3), 351-364.
Hwang, J. & Han, H. (2018). A Study on the Application of the Experience Economy to Luxury Cruise Passengers. Tourism and Hospitality Research, 18(4), 478-491.
Hwang, J. & Lyu, S. O. (2015). The Antecedents and Consequences of Well-Being Perception: An Application of the Experience Economy to Golf Tournament Tourists. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management, 4(4), 248-257.
Morgan, M., Elbe, J., & Curiel, J. E. (2009). Has the Experience Economy Arrived? The Views of Destination Managers in Three Visitor-Dependent Areas. International Journal of Tourism Research, 11(2), 201-216.
Oh, H., Fiore, A. M., & Jeoung, M. (2007). Measuring Experience Economy Concepts: Tourism Applications. Journal of Travel Research, 46(2), 119–132.
Pine, B. J., & Gilmore, J. H. (1998). Welcome to the experience economy. Harvard Business Review, 76(4), 97-105.
Pine, B. J., & Gilmore, J. H. (1999). The Experience Economy: Work Is a Theatre and Every Business a Stage. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Rijal, C. P. & Ghimire, S. (2016). Prospects of Creating Memorable Experience in Nepalese Tourism and Hospitality Industry. Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Education, 6, 40-66.
Thanh, T. V. & Kirova, V. (2018). Wine Tourism Experience: A Netnography Study. Journal of Business Research, 83, 30-37.
tom Dieck, M. C., Jung, T. H. & Rauschnabel, P. A. (2018). Determining Visitor Engagement through Augmented Reality at Science Festivals: An Experience Economy Perspective. Computers in Human Behavior, 82, 44-53.