2.3 Existing Visitor Experience Frameworks
A phasing of experience is proposed by Clawson and Knetsch (1963) in the context of outdoor recreation activity. There are five distinct yet interacting phases of experience that each individual encounters, beginning with planning (anticipation), travel to site, on-site activity, return travel, and recollection. Although Clawson and Knetsch’s recreation experience framework (1963) recognises the individual engagement at different stages of experience, it seems deficient in providing the information about visitors’ attitudinal and behavioural dimensions, such as, what and how the visitor thinks, feels, and perceives at each stage of the experience.
The merit of including attitudinal and behavioural dimensions is addressed by Yuan (2009). The structural relationships among the major components of hospitality experience, service, and customer satisfaction is developed to propose a better way to understand the experience. Yuan’s framework incorporates three important stimuli for consideration by service providers when creating or staging products/services for the customers to experience. These stimuli include the physical product, the service, and the environment. The level of the customer’s perceptions, involvement, and interactions with these stimuli leads to either satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the overall experience. Yuan’s (2009) study, however, focuses more on the measurement of perceived quality and satisfaction concepts. For this reason it lacks any consideration of pre- experiences (i.e. expectations) and of the future behavioural intentions phase.