Experiential choice in tourism

This chapter deals with how tourists and tourism businesses decide which experiences are good and important. Tourism businesses cannot be sure of which experiences the tourists create, they can only deliver experience propositions. Tourists’ choice of experiences and their assessment of them are decided by their mental awareness toward experiences, earlier experiences, set of values and general interest regime. There might be a gap between tourism businesses’ experience propositions and tourists’ realized experiences. For tourism businesses, it is an advantage if they can identify their customers’ interest regimes.

A case study – visitors’ choice of a specific restaurant serving local food in a family amusement park – is used to illustrate the principles and dilemmas. The case study revealed that guests have different values and interest regimes and that the choice of the place to eat is often the result of a negotiated decision in a group, for example a family. The management’s decision on experience propositions is based on how the propositions contribute to profitability, PR and guests’ assessment of the experience. In this case, the management’s choice of meal propositions to some degree, but not completely, led to the guests realizing the intended experience.