Keywords

1 Introduction: Understanding the Tourist Experience

Although ‘experience’ provides the fundamental basis for the development, design and marketing of tourism services, it is only more recently that the tourism industry has recognised that engaging and memorable experiences comprise the core of the offer to consumers (Kim 2010). As the tourism sector has matured, it has evolved from a focus on concerns about understanding and meeting customer needs as a route to satisfactory outcomes, developing quality as a means to achieve competitive advantage, and building relationships with consumers to garner their loyalty. Alongside developments in marketing thought and practice in other product and service categories, the industry writ large is increasingly recognising that the essence of tourism is the development of travel and visitation experiences (Tung and Ritchie 2011). A clear challenge, then, lies in the ways to design tourism spaces for optimal touristic experiences, which are meaningful to each individual.

The tourist experience comprises all the behaviour, perceptual, cognitive and emotional aspects of tourist’s engagement with destinations and service providers, both expressed or implied (Oh et al. 2007). Tourism is often conceived as being distinct to other consumption contexts, however, due to the difference from everyday experiences (Cohen 1979), the complex emotions and long-lasting memories related to experiences in destinations, and the link between tourism experiences and sense of self-identity (Cutler and Carmichael 2010). Therefore, tourist experience and the meanings attached to them for individuals have been explored in some detail; yet, there is a disconnection between these theories and the emerging literature on experience design.

Theorising on tourist experience has been prolific. Whereas early analysis focused on the phases and modes of experience (Clawson and Knetsch 1966), as the literature developed it became clear that tourists often seek to connect their experiences in places and with people they encounter to their self-identity constructions (Bruner 1991a; McCabe and Stokoe 2004; Rickly-Boyd 2010). Furthermore, from the psychological perspective, researchers have found that tourism experiences often involve deep immersion and/or involvement in an activity or place/culture such that they develop symbolic meaning (Ekinci et al. 2013). Thus, tourism can involve skill acquisition, learning and development or mastery associated with certain forms such as sport tourism, mountain climbing or other recreational activities (Cutler and Carmichael 2010). These experiences provide a context and conduit for various meanings on the individual scale. A sense of achievement, camaraderie and belonging, connection with the surrounding environment that comes from conquering a specific goal, identity, self-empowerment and global citizenship lend memorability and depth to life-narratives (Wilson and Harris 2006 for example). The majority of the research on tourism experience has focused on the more existential effects whereas the majority of tourists’ concerns are profoundly more mundane, driven by a desire for relaxation. Visits to theme parks and day trip activities, short breaks to cities or other destinations, package holidays, all-inclusive breaks, cruises comprise the bulk of tourism experiences for most ordinary people. Yet, it is possible to relate these theories to the design of mass vacation experiences.

The rich diversity of tourism experiences often leads to a conflation of the mundane and profound, the sacred and profane in conceptualising tourist experience, but some essential qualities that connect all types can be identified. The notion of ‘memorableness’ as a key construct has been identified (Ritchie and Hudson 2009; Mathisen 2012) highlighting the subjectivity underpinning tourist experience. While Tung and Ritchie (2011) claim academic studies are increasingly examining tourism as a function of memorable experience, there is still a need to uncover the essence of what exactly makes certain experiences special, spectacular and fittingly memorable (see Morgan and Pritchard 2005).

Memorability can be defined in terms of the ‘enduring’ sense of the experience in the consciousness of individuals, and also in terms of the ‘indelibility’ of the experience over time, the sense of permanence and prominence of the experience in the context of the totality of accumulated lived experiences. A second defining feature is the significance of the emotions in tourist experiences. Whereas the more symbolic and existential styles of experience may involve visceral emotions of both positive and negative valence, the standardised holiday experiences on the other hand elicit heightened hedonic emotional engagement, with joy, happiness and pleasure as outcomes. A third key feature of tourist experience is encapsulated in the concept of authenticity. Tourism studies have long argued that tourist experiences can be defined in terms of their engagement with places. All types of tourism experiences require some sense of authentic engagement, a term that captures a range of feelings, the literature on experience design, however, has yet to factor authenticity into design thinking. These three key principles are discussed in this chapter to inform our analysis of experience design as performance.

2 Key Aspects of the Tourist Experience—On- and Off-Site

Of crucial importance in the design of tourism spaces is the acknowledgement that tourist experiences are not restricted to the destination. They are informed by marketing and word of mouth well before the tourist even leaves home (Gretzel et al. 2006). On the ground in tourism destinations, tourist experiences are embodied, reflexive and intersubjective. These touristic moments are recalled and retold over time, further solidifying the individual’s impressions of the destination (Morgan and Pritchard 2005; Rickly-Boyd 2010). The extension of tourist experience to include holistic temporal and spatial dimensions illustrates the power of emotion and memorability, which can be greatly influenced by perceptions of authenticity—that is, whether tourists feel they are experiencing what is promised in a destination’s marketing. Authenticity of destination does not necessarily mean that a space must be original or genuinely reproduced, but that it must correlate to the tourist’s expectations. As such, a replica presented as original is generally unsatisfying to tourists as they feel they are being tricked. Similarly, a destination sold as an imaginative, family playground, such as a theme park, can be equally unsatisfying if one travels as a family but finds the atmospherics and design of the park too dated, dangerous and boring, thereby preventing a day of togetherness.

2.1 Emotion and Memorability

Tourism destinations are rich contexts for experiences and are intrinsically linked to emotions (Otto and Ritchie 1996). Thus emotions have become an important area of research in terms of their influence in decision making and for behavioural outcomes, such as satisfaction (see Bigné et al. 2008; del Bosque and San Martin 2008; Hosany and Gilbert 2010). Therefore there is a strong impetus for destination managers and other tourism service providers to encourage positive emotional engagement on the part of tourists during the experience. Yet there has been relatively little research on the customer perspectives of emotions in tourist experience, despite a wide interest in general consumer research (see Johnston and Kong 2011 for example). Instead, tourism research has focused on the supply side perspectives on consumer emotions (with some recent exceptions, e.g., Malone et al. 2014). Experience providers can facilitate ‘emotional work’ (activities that enhance emotional well-being) by allowing tourists to cope with situations, co-create and participate in the production of the experience to learn and to be active participants (Prebensen and Foss 2011). Positive emotions can be engineered to create enjoyable and memorable experiences. Emotions have been seen as important in the design of theme park experiences. The classic Disney concept of ‘Imagineering’ for example, combines the need to stir the imagination of consumers together with the art of touching the heart, eliciting emotions of love, happiness, delight, wonderment and so on to create memorable experiences (Nijs and Peters 2002).

However, still too little focus is placed in tourism research on the psychological processes underpinning experience, as Larsen (2007) observes, when in fact tourists who are asked about their holidays often refer to experiences as memories emanating within the individual and not necessarily or specifically about destinations. Larsen (2007) argues that there are two kinds of memories; explicit (general facts and knowledge) and episodic (personally experienced events; store of factual memories concerning personal experiences). Similarly, but distinct, Sather-Wagstaff (2008) divides memories into two types based on the way we engage with memory socially, particularly through visual cues. Prosthetic memories are publicly circulated, shared through the engagement with distributed imagery, such as tourist photographs, whereas heteropathic memories are empathically driven, as the viewer of the visual imagery imagines oneself in that the situation pictured (Sather-Wagstaff 2008). In comparing these approaches, it becomes apparent that memory and emotionality are important to tourist experience both individually and socially.

Memorability can also be related to motivation and goal directed behaviour as a driver of tourist experience. Cutler and Carmichael (2010) remind us that tourists are not motivated to achieve ‘satisfaction’ but rather by felt needs to escape, learn, relax, rejuvenate, etc. They suggest five elements that affect satisfaction (memory, perception, emotion, knowledge and self-identity) can be considered as constituting travel experiences. Memories are representations of experiences in and through narrative recreation or re-constitution. They are different from actual experiences, as they may change (Cary 2004). This is the ‘rose-tinted spectacles’ view of how experience is reconfigured in the memory over time. As humans, we draw on important episodic memories, such as family holidays, over the life-course, to build a sense of coherence to our identities, through narrative retelling (Bruner 1991b). Nostalgia is an important construct in tourist experience, because it is used as a specific device to engage tourists’ emotions in the creation and staging of tourist experiences (such as historical re-enactments at heritage sites for example). Indeed, Bruner’s (1994) study of Abraham Lincoln’s boyhood home in the US shows that tourists engage with nostalgia towards a number of ends. Nostalgia is used to rejoice in the myth of America’s early history, but it also, conversely, is used to celebrate the tremendous progress the nation has undertaken from the 1850s to the present. Nostalgia is also an important link to memorability in the long-term reflection phase of tourist experience.

Tynan and McKechnie (2009), in discussing the gaps between theory and practice of experience marketing, highlight enjoyment, entertainment, learning, skills, nostalgia, fantasising and evangelising as post-experience outcomes. Some experience marketing and design has specifically employed nostalgia as just one technique used to elicit emotional responses. Emotions are central to ‘experiences’, but despite a wealth of recent research, some authors argue that there has been too much focus on understanding the role of emotion in experiences, leaving unanswered questions about how to elicit emotions in the design of experiences (McCole 2004). Since ‘peak’ experiences, such as tourism, engage basic and visceral emotions, they become memorable. Memorability also derives from the episodic nature of tourism experience, but also importantly, both emotions and memory are intertwined within consumer’s self-narratives, and thus stretch before and beyond the actual on-site experience. A key concept that can be used to address the integration of consumer’s psychological states into experience design is that of authenticity. It is by employing authenticity into experience design, and understanding the ways tourists attribute perceptions of authenticity into their off-site reflections of experience, that tourism destinations can engage emotions and memorability.

2.2 Authenticity

On first contemplation, the term ‘authenticity’ brings to mind, for many, rather rigid distinctions between original and replica as well as genuine and fake, among others. It is no surprise, then, that some of the first scholars who used the term in the study of tourism did so with rather limited interpretations. Boorstin (1961), among the first to argue that tourism is comprised of pseudo-events, seemed to take pleasure in pointing out the inaccuracies, indeed inauthenticity, of tourism settings. This started a trend, particularly among tourism anthropologists and historians, of deconstructing tourism sites with critiques of staging that left no metaphorical rock unturned in their quest to dismantle the ‘illusions’ that had been presented to tourists (see Gable and Handler 1996). In such investigations, the tourists themselves were not spared, as ‘uneducated’ people fooled by the tourism industry and, worse off, unaware of it even happening, they took pleasure in the experience nonetheless. While this trend does continue to have some momentum in tourism research today, for the most part there has been a shift towards understanding the nuances of the tourism experience which, crucially, requires a recognition that we are all (not just our research subjects) tourists. The emphasis on reflexivity and breaking down dichotomies that has come about with postmodernity has, indeed, been fruitful in such tourism research.

The work of MacCannell (1976) and Cohen (1979, 1988) was instrumental in changing the course of study of authenticity in tourism. MacCannell (1976) called attention to the sophisticated staging mechanisms of the tourism industry as integral to tourism as a larger sociological phenomenon. From the use of markers and signposts that direct our attention towards attractions to the desire to both engage with staging, by way of theming, as well as to see behind it to the back regions of tourism operations. Similarly, Cohen (1979) identified various motivations in regards to authenticity. He noted that while authenticity, as in originality and genuineness, may be a factor for experiential, experimental and existential tourists, it is, in fact, the staging and theming of tourism as recreational and escapist that drives many tourists. Further, he was among the first to suggest the flexibility of the concept of authenticity in tourists’ minds, and therefore, as applicable in tourism design. He argued for recognition of ‘emergent authenticity’ (1988), that an object, action or place could become authentic over time. For example, Disneyland in southern California is the original fantasyland and amusement park that inspired all of the others in the worldwide franchise. What was once new could be deemed the original, and thereby authentic over time. Moreover, Cohen (1988) contended that staged authenticity could, in fact, be useful in the protection of the original. As is the case in zoos, for instance, as the staged landscapes and soundscapes in which tourists encounter animals allows for the imaginative potential of the space. If such encounters are found satisfactory, further desires to travel into fragile natural environments may be quelled thereby protecting them from greater impact. In all, Cohen (1979, 1988) and MacCannell (1976) were introducing what would come to be known as constructivist approaches to authenticity, which in contrast to objectivist approaches that focus on originality, are more concerned with the power of symbolism and narrative (see Wang 1999).

Thus, while there remains an interest in critiquing the staging of tourism, particularly as it reveals social powers that privilege specific tellings of history and/or representations of race and class, such work does little to illuminate the ways tourists engage with and make meaning in tourism spaces. Bruner’s (1994) research on the boyhood home of Abraham Lincoln distinguishes such differences in approach as positive and negative, as he advocates moving beyond a negative reading of tourism spaces to take a positive approach interested in ways tourists make meaning both with and despite the staging of the tourism industry. Several other studies developed from this approach have found that tourists, once in a tourism designed space, define its authenticity using a variety of parameters (see Bruner 1994; Rickly-Boyd 2012). Further, tourists especially respond to various forms of authenticity all within the same space, as the mixing of originality, genuineness, symbolism and experience help to build a richer and more individualistic interpretation, enabling subjective stories of place to emerge (see Buchmann et al. 2010; Rickly-Boyd 2012, 2013). Such ideas are becoming well-known among researchers of the tourism experience, but they are less frequently included in the dialogue of design and planning. In other words, theoretical interests of some tourism scholars have led to the investigation of how tourists make meaning in a whole host of spaces, which could be quite productive if circulated back to practitioners. Those in the area of experience economy are notable exceptions, as that work is more actively engaged with tourist experience research, marketing communication and tourism design.

A burgeoning area of authenticity and tourism experience research, which has significant implications for the experience economy and tourism design in particular, is the concept of existential authenticity. Wang (1999) proposed this form of authenticity as an alternative reading of touristic experience which is activity-based. Rather than the object-oriented approaches of objectivism and constructivism, existentialism foregrounds notions of identity and embodiment. More specifically, Wang (1999) suggested intrapersonal (bodily feelings and self-making) and interpersonal (family ties and communitas) modes of experience. Because this perspective looks beyond the epistemological understandings of authenticity to the way authenticity is experienced and felt, it has been essential to the study of the nuances of tourist experiences. Existential authenticity points to the power of subtle staging, atmosphere, companionship amongst travellers and intersubjectivity. As such, it has the potential to help bridge the theoretical interests in authenticity and tourism experience and is inextricably linked to emotion and memory, through which can be interpellated, with the more practical considerations of design and planning. However, in order to bridge the connections between emotion, memorability and authenticity in tourism design, it becomes necessary to understand tourism experience as a co-constructive performance.

3 Tourism as Performance: Staging and Design

Tourism scholars have long recognized that tourism is a performative act. Performative extends beyond what Pine and Gilmore (1999) suggest as “work as theatre”, but tourism is a co-creation process that includes staging and improvisation, choreography and exploration, along with direction and imitation, among other performances. A key example is the work of Edensor (2000), who argues that in addition to tourism being a series of staged events and spaces, it is also an array of performative techniques and dispositions. Edensor claims that tourist experience can be related to actions or practices, which are constantly being worked on and played out in the performance of the vacation. Edensor’s theorizing draws on Goffman’s (1959) ideas about how people present versions of themselves in different contexts (backstage and frontstage), and thus he argued that social life can be thought of as a dramaturgical performance in which social actors perform their identities relationally in time and space, depending on the social context. Edensor argues that tourist spaces, or stages, can be defined as ‘enclavic’ (prescribed and regulated) or ‘heterogenous’ (more varied and less clear-cut, where a diverse range of activities can occur). And while specific performances can be encouraged, tourists can adopt different and varied performances within these spaces.

This conceptualization of performance has been developed from MacCannell’s (1976, 1999) stage metaphor by a number of tourism scholars (see Crang 1997, 1999; Desmond 1999; Edensor 2000, 2001; Baerenholdt et al. 2004; Rickly-Boyd et al. 2014). Whether tourism takes place in parks, museums or cities, such destinations are bounded (symbolically or physically) and they are organized so as to suggest, and in some cases police, appropriate behaviour by tourists (see also Neumann 1988; Chaney 1993 and Baerenholdt et al. 2004). While perhaps one of the more overlooked elements of staging, the boundaries that delineate tourism spaces from the surrounding areas are important. In the case of New Orleans, Atkinson (2004) observes the ways in which music is used to shape tourism spaces. Where the music stops, so do the tourists. As a result, following new waterfront developments (pre-Hurricane Katrina), the city employed musicians to play along the area in the hopes that tourist’s would follow. Indeed, they did. And now as the city continues to rebuild in the hurricane’s aftermath, music once again serves to revive tourist spaces. Rather than the use of signage, music (or silence) forms the symbolic boundary of touristic New Orleans. Further, tourists have come to associate an authentic New Orleans experience with music. This extends well beyond Mardi Gras to the city as a whole. As such, a holiday in the city would likely be regarded as less authentic if one was to not have at least one musical encounter while visiting. Thus, Edensor (2001, p. 71) contends, tourists do not simply serve as an audience to a staged tourism performance, they are an essential part of the performance, as “tourism constitutes a collection of commonly understood and embodied practices and meanings which are reproduced by tourists through their performances—in alliance with tourist managers and workers”.

The stage metaphor, thus, extends to many aspects of touristic experience. Notions of scenography and stage design, directors and stage managers, actors and intermediaries, and tourists as performers and audiences are all active in the staging of tourism. Staging does more than offer direction towards particular behaviours, it sets the atmosphere and can encourage particular emotionalities—playfulness at a theme park, contemplation at a museum, relaxation at a spa. Indeed, it is such heightened emotional states that encourage memory formation. Yet, despite efforts to choreograph and direct tourists, tourism staging and design cannot determine performance and experience (Edensor 2000, 2001). Further, the stage metaphor does not account for the spontaneous moments of being a tourist. It is through tourism moments—the being, doing, touching and seeing of tourism—and embodied practice that tourists are able to have a sense of experiencing “real” places (Cloke and Perkins 1998; Coleman and Crang 2002; Baerenholdt et al. 2004; Larsen 2008; Rickly-Boyd 2013; Rickly-Boyd et al. 2014). While atmospherics may suggest a feeling and a performance, it is up to the individual tourists to work with this raw material in relation to the motivations that inspired their visit to actually perform the space—that is, to make meaning from and with the designed space. In other words, design can only go so far, tourism experience is co-creative, tourists must bring their imaginations as well.

Tourism space design can offer the proper staging and atmospherics, but the actual experiences, and from that, memories, come from the work of the tourists to actually in engage with such design elements (Larsen 2005). Tourist’s perceptions of the authenticity of these elements influence how seamlessly these associations can be made. As Rickly-Boyd (2013) has suggested elsewhere, the moments of existential authenticity—feelings, identity, companionship, family ties—do not happen independently from the materiality of the tourism setting. Atmospherics, staging and design offer the materiality through which tourists perform the space, with others (companions and tourism service personnel). By way of example, Buchmann, Moore, and Fisher’s (2010) study of Lord of the Rings tourism in New Zealand illustrates the ways material setting, fantasy, intersubjectivity and embodiment work relationally to produce a satisfying, authentic, albeit highly imaginative experience. Tourists traveling to New Zealand for LOTR tourism are motivated, primarily, by the film series developed from Tolkien’s books. Because imagination and fantasy are key elements of their desired experience, the tour operators engage them with mediated hyperreal simulacra by way of combining scenes from the films with actual locations of filming. It is from this combination that the authors suggest tourists expressed a sense of an authentic experience, as they note being able to relate to the themes of Tolkien’s stories—fellowship, adventure and sacrifice. An experience of fellowship results from touring with others of common motivation, and this extends to the guides who lead the group on their adventure. Further, the experience of travelling far distances to places only imagined adds to the element of adventure. Embodiment, then, comes from being in the physical landscape of filming, feeling the sun, wind, rain and walking the terrain. The authors argue that embodiment “helps counteract feelings of surreality” (2010, p. 241). It is through this combination of materiality and imagination that tourists describe a feeling of authenticity, are able to emotionally engage with the tourism space, and therefore are more likely to make lasting memories. Thus, what a performance approach offers to the experience economy, by way of designing tourism spaces, is not necessarily a prescriptive agenda, but a broader perspective from which to consider the ways tourists engage with such spaces.

4 Concluding Remarks

In this chapter we have noted that experience design is gathering pace as an important driver of the development of tourism destinations (Tussyadiah 2014). However, we also claim that the design concept, whilst recognizing the need to incorporate tourist’s subjectivities into the design process, has considered only the surface textures of tourist’s psychological processes. We argue that central to ideas of tourist experience are emotions, memory and nostalgia. Tourists’ motivations for holiday are immeasurably diverse, but some unifying themes include the need to expand one’s cache of worldly experiences and to build a stock of happy memories. As such, the concept of authenticity takes centre stage as a driver of positive, rich emotional engagement and memorability. Experience design must take account of this psychological context and create destinations as stages in which tourists are able to create their own experiences with the input of others (tourists and service workers).

With this in mind, we can recommend the following considerations for the design of tourism spaces:

  • Materiality—the stage upon which the tourism performance takes place is of the utmost importance. This establishes the type of performances offered to tourists, the boundaries of the performance, and the roles of other actors. For tourism taking place in natural settings, this requires a close interaction of tourism infrastructure, perhaps including the management of flows of tourists to ensure that people are able to engage with the natural environment in uncrowded ways (Lawson and Baud-Bovy 1977). For constructed spaces, however, atmospherics must be employed that follow a general narrative of the place such that tourists can place themselves within that narrative as they move through the space. Thus, it is the materiality of the tourism space that allows for the embodied performance of tourism, which elicit emotional responses and create the visceral components of memory-making.

  • Simulacra and hyperreality—In addition to the materiality of tourism spaces, symbolic and simulated elements are important to engaging tourists’ imaginations. With the exception of highly themed environments, such as amusement parks, care should be taken to balance the presence of simulacra with genuine landscape features. In other words, while simulation offers the potential for hyperreality and highly imaginative spaces, an over-preponderance can produce the sense of frivolity. Blending the genuine artefacts of place with simulations allows tourists to ground their imaginations in a material reality, acting as a counterbalance to surreality.

  • Signposting—Distinguishing points of interest within the landscape is central to tourism practice. In fact, MacCannell (1976) has raised the question of which came first—the marker or the tourist? In any case, signposting attractions facilitates a number of tourism practices—it grounds authenticity in the material landscape, it encourages tourists’ attention and even photography, and in so doing, it directs tourists to shared space experiences. Thus by directing tourists’ movement through the landscape signposts also foster moments of togetherness, where individuals stop together to take in a view or admire a cultural remnant. It, however, also goes without saying that signposts used too frequently (like the overuse of simulacra) can have the effect of oversaturation of information leading tourists to be less impressed by the marked attractions.

  • Encounter—Tourists are rarely alone. Most people travel with others in groups and/or with family. Moreover, travelling requires encounters with persons at the destination, be they other tourists, service workers or local residents. So while there is little that can be done regarding the management of intra-family encounters, tourists do assess and remember the hospitality practices experienced, and thereby the feelings of welcome induced, at destinations. This notion is far from novel, yet the roles of other encounters beyond the control of the service environment need to be factored into the design process.

  • Marketing correlation—While each of these components feeds into notions of authenticity, a sense of correspondence between tourism advertisements and on-site experience is crucial. First and foremost, authenticity in tourism is about the meeting of expectations. Marketing messages need to be appropriately framed and communicated, to ensure that tourists engage the experience with the right emotional goals. Memorableness is partially linked to the emotional strength or depth of the experience and so marketing communications are crucial to the emotional context-setting as antecedent to authentic and meaningful tourist experience.

Tourists’ perceptions of authenticity are important, as they are the means by which individuals connect the materiality of tourism spaces to the significance of their own experiences while on tour. Experience is made of key components, namely emotion/memory, sense of identity, intersubjectivity and embodiment, all of which relate to existential authenticity. So while designers may not be able to control for existential authenticity, they can encourage particular emotions and mindsets through atmospherics. The use of appropriate staging, theming and scenography can offer the raw materials with which tourists can begin to perform the holiday they want, individually. When staging corresponds to tourists’ preconceived notions of the place, there is a greater likelihood of satisfaction and perception of authenticity of the space. So rather than attempting to force positive emotions and lasting memories from the design process, building in objective (material) and constructive (symbolic) notions of authenticity into the staging allows for subjective, meaningful performances, and psychological engagement will result. Existential authenticity, as a facet of experience, is a co-creative process. Tourism design can only go so far in encouraging particular experiences, at some point it is up to the tourists to perform the holiday they desire from the materiality afforded them.