2. Literature Review
2.1 Conceptualising the Visitor Experience
Experience is a broad concept that reflects aspects of daily life and may therefore be interpreted from either within or from outside the management science perspective (Caru & Cova, 2003). Highmore (2002) views experience as relevant to two different states: the moment-by-moment lived experience, and the after experience which is subject to reflection and prescribed meaning. Consistent with this view, Larsen (2007) asserts that experience can be categorised into two. One focuses on what happens here and now in a specific situation, whilst the other one highlights an accumulation over a period of time. Pine and Gilmore (1999), the originators of the term ‘experience economy’, state that experiences occur within a person who is engaged with an event at a physical, emotional, intellectual or even spiritual level, and is left with memorable impressions.
Considering the growing importance of the experiential aspect of product consumption, Caru and Cova (2003) declare that the concept of experience is a key element in understanding consumption behaviours. Moreover, from an experiential perspective, the consumption experience is no longer limited to some pre-purchase or post-purchase activities, but involves additional activities which influence consumer decisions and future actions. This indicates that the consumption experience is spread out over time and can be divided into several stages of experience (Caru & Cova, 2003).
Mittal, Kumar, and Tsiros (1999) propose the ’Consumption System Theory’ (CST) to conceptualise the consumption experience. Mittal et al. (1999) characterise a consumption system as involving three dimensions: a product/service’s attribute-level evaluation, satisfaction, and behavioural intention. From a systems perspective, consumption occurs when a bundle of products and services is consumed over time in multiple episodes. The consumption system encompasses a series of activities within the wider process of consumer decision-making, ranging from pre-purchase activities such as need recognition and information search, to post-purchase activities such as satisfaction and future behaviour (Mittal et al., 1999).In terms of examining this system, Mittal et al. (1999) suggest two alternative approaches: cross-sectional and longitudinal. Each type of examination reflects a distinct perspective on th consumer experience. Cross-sectional analysis offers a structural view of consumption experiences, in which three dimensions of the consumption system are interconnected and influence overall consumption. On the other hand, longitudinal analysis provides a process view of the consumption system with the relationships between attribute-level evaluations and satisfaction changing over time. Similarly, satisfaction can also turn into a behavioural intention over time.
Given the experiential nature of the tourism and hospitality industry, creating unforgettable experiences for visitors is critical to business success (King, 2002; Oh, Fiore, & Jeoung, 2007).The discussion about consumption experiences in tourism emerged in the early 1960s in Clawson and Knetsch’s (1963) study of outdoor recreation, followed by Cohen’s (1979) original reference to the term tourist experience. Adapting Mittal et al.’s (1999) Consumption System Theory, Woodside and Dubelaar (2002) introduced their theory of the ’Tourism Consumption System’ (TCS) which is relevant to the tourism context. It attempts to achieve a deep understanding of the multiple immediate and downstream relationships amongst events that are experienced by a visitor prior to, during, and following a tourism trip. A set of related travel thoughts, decisions, and behaviours evolve along these stages when consuming tourism-related products. The central proposition of TCS theory is that the thoughts, decisions, and behaviours regarding one activity at one stage of tourism consumption experience, will influence the thoughts, decisions, and behaviours for activities occurring at other stages. In addition, visitor backgrounds (e.g. demographic and social) and destination service providers are included in Woodside and Dubelaar’s (2002) theory as the influential variables of visitor decisions and behaviours.
2.2 Factors Influencing the Visitor Experience
From the visitor perspective, destinations are comprehensive bundles of tourism experiential products and services (Zouni & Kouremenos, 2008).Delivery of experience quality for visitors is complex since it is multi-influential and involves mobilising a variety of tourism stakeholders (Jennings & Nickerson, 2006). Considerable effort has been dedicated to examining the underlying factors which impact on the quality of the tourism experience (Mak, Lumbers, Eves, & Chang, 2012; Nickerson, 2006; Ryan, 2011, 2002). Ryan (2002) asserts that the quality of tourism experience involves not only the attributes provided by tourism suppliers, but also the attributes brought by the visitor. He further explains that quality is shaped by internal factors such as a:visitor’s motives, past experience, knowledge of the destination, and individual personalities. In addition, the quality of the experience is also influenced by external factors such as: the induced marketing images relating to the destination, travel activities, patterns of change at the place, and people with whom the destination is shared (Ryan, 2011).
Consistent with Ryan’s view (2002), Nickerson (2006) proposes three factors that influence the quality of the tourism experience: the traveller, the product or destination, and the local population. First, the traveller visits a destination with ideas or expectations about prospective experiences. These ideas or expectations are formed by individual social constructions, perceptions derived from media, product images, preconception knowledge, and visitor past experiences. The second influential factor described by Nickerson (2006) is tourism product and that refers to all experiences with products or services offered by tourism and hospitality business operators (e.g. tour operators, accommodation, food service, transportation and attractions), as well as experiences with public sector (government) services like information about public services. The activities undertaken during travel are also included as the tourism product factor. The final factor affecting the quality of the tourism experience is the quality of life, residence attitude towards tourism and the sense of place fostered by the local population (e.g. host-guest social contacts) (Nickerson, 2006).
The three factors proposed by Nickerson (2006) provide a valuable contribution to understanding the visitor experiences in a more general tourism context. In a detailed examination of food tourism, Mak et al. (2012) recognise three underlying factors affecting the consumption of food-related travel: the tourists, the food in the destination, and the destination environment. Included within tourist related factors are cultural or religious influences, socio-demographic factors, food-related personality traits, exposure effect/past experience, and motivational factors. Components of the destination food factor include food sensory attributes, food content, methods of preparation and cooking, food or cuisine type, food availability, and food price/value and quality are viewed as. Lastly, the destination environment factor involves gastronomic image, marketing communications, contextual influences, service encounters, servicescape, and seasonality are also included as affecting food consumption in tourism (Mak et al., 2012).
The preceding discussions have suggested that the visitor experience is complex. As Volo (2009) has highlighted, its complexity is reflected in the difficulties to define the concept, identify and measure the components, as well as to define how visitor experience changes in keeping with the characteristics of the individual visitor. Many studies have examined the visitor experience from various perspectives. Ritchie and Hudson (2009) identify five major streams of tourism experience research: 1) the conceptualisation of tourism experience; 2) visitor experience, behaviour and decision making models; 3) methodologies related to approaches and procedures of examining experiences; 4) types of experiences; and 5) managerial concerns .Although there is an extensive and growing body of literature discussing the visitor experience, its essence and conceptual structure remains elusive (Jennings et al., 2009; Jurowski, 2009).Several attempts have been made to conceptualise the temporal nature of visitor experience and illustrate it into experiential phases (Clawson & Knetsch, 1963; Cutler & Carmichael, 2010; Knutson, Beck, Kim, & Cha, 2010; Yuan, 2009). These are analysed in a respective manner in the following section.