(Clawson & Knetsch, 1963; Cutler & Carmichael, 2010; Knutson, Beck, Kim, & Cha, 2010; Yuan, 2009). These are analysed in a respective manner in the following section.
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.
Knutson et al.’s (2010) experience construct framework is more complex than the two frameworks that were discussed previously, and offers a useful indication of the structural relationships between stages of experience. Adopting O’Sullivan and Spangler’s (1998) three phases of experience (pre-, participation, and post-), Knutson et al.’s (2010) framework incorporates four major constructs of hospitality experiences, namely: service quality, value, satisfaction, and consumer experiences. The pre-experience stage includes concepts of expectations, promotional activities, word-of-mouth, and personal memories from previous experiences. Expectations functionas the foundation for the pre-experience stage and for underpinning perceived quality in the participation (during experience) stage. At the post-experience stage, the key outcomes examined by Knutson et al. (2010) involve personal perceptions of the experience, the value that they attach to the experience, and satisfaction with the experience. However, the linear relationship structures amongst the concepts examined in Knutson et al.’s (2010) framework have indicated the need to adopt of quantitative research approach to measure each construct. Such an approach, as argued by Jennings (2010), may be limited in uncovering the actual experiences that each individual thinks or feels.
Cutler and Carmichael’s (2010) framework of visitor experience differs from what have been proposed by Clawson and Knetsch (1963), Yuan (2009) and Knutson et al. (2010). A key strength of Cutler and Carmichael’s (2010) framework is that it acknowledges the complexity of visitor experience as multi-phased, multi-influential, and multi-outcome, and thus formulate them into a single conceptual model. In addition, Cutler and Carmichael (2010) consider two realms shaping the visitor experience: the influential and the personal. The influential realm includes factors outside the individual and consists of physical aspects, and product /service aspects. The personal realm involves elements embedded within each individual visitor such as, knowledge, memories, perceptions, emotions, and self-identity(Cutler & Carmichael, 2010). The outcomes of experience relate to overall evaluations of a trip, indicated by visitor satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The overall evaluation can influence and is influenced by individual elements and by the experience itself (Cutler & Carmichael, 2010).
Several common characteristics are evident from the frameworks that were noted above. First, Yuan’s (2009) framework is similar to Cutler and Carmichael’s (2010) in acknowledging the presence of external factors that shape the experience. Both studies incorporate aspects associated with product/service and physical/environment factors as determinants of the quality of experience outcomes. In the context of the travel dining experience, including these factors is essential since dining involves visitors in the tangible realm including the food, how it is served (i.e. service aspect), and the physical surrounding. Consequently, such factors will visitor evaluations of the quality of their dining experience.
However none of the frameworks that have been discusse consider internal factors as contributing to the visitor experience. The internal factor includes various aspects that are embedded in the individual visitor and may relate to visitor demographics, and travel situational aspects such as travel purpose, length of visit, and travel party. As has been noted by Ryan (2002), such aspects can affect travel-related decisions made by the visitor at each stage of the experience, which in turn influences the quality of the overall experience.
Furthermore, although most of the existing frameworks view and examine experiences as sequential phases, none has been developed with a specific focus on visitor dining experiences with local food in destination settings. This gap is important, given the increasing tendency of international visitors to travel to destinations for local culinary experiences, where this can enhance the overall destination experience (Henderson et al., 2012). A conceptual framework is needed that acknowledges the complexity of the visitor experience as multi-phased, multi-influential, and multi-outcomes, while incorporating suitable elements of the existing studies that have been discussed, in order to understand how international visitors experience local food in destination settings. The present paper therefore aims to address this research gap.
3. Visitor Dining Experience Framework
The framework proposed in this paper characterises the complex nature of visitor experience, as described by Ryan (2011) as multi-phases, multi-influential, and multi-outcomes. The framework is an adaptation of components of Knutson et.al.’s stages of experience (2010), of Cutler and Carmichael’s personal realm which shape the experience (2010), of Mak et al.’s factors influencing tourist food consumption (2012),and Yuan’s (2009) and Knutson et al.’s (2010) structural relationships between experience outcomes components in each stage of experience.
As illustrated in Figure 1, the conceptual framework consists of three major components of the visitor experience as follows:
Stages of the visitor dining experience