Tourist consumer; consumer behaviour; experiential consumption; definitions of experience; characterizers
Abstract
This study seeks to provide a theoretical review of experiential consumption in the field of tourism, to better understand the behaviour of the tourist as a consumer. The tourist experience is a complex process, changing in time and space and encompassing more elements than the tourists themselves; thus, the experiential consumption approach emerges as adequate for a complete understanding of consumer behaviour in the tourism context. Under this approach, this study proposes a review of the definitions of the notion of “experience” coming from consumer behaviour literature, both in general and in tourism, with the aim of identifying the defining characteristics of the tourist's experiential consumption, and thus offer an approximation to the concept “experience” to be applied to tourism consumption. We have been able to identify four predominant characterizers (i.e. cognitive; emotional; interactive; sensorial), which can be used as defining and descriptive for future empirical research, and that lead us to develop managerial implications that could be carried out hand in hand with new technologies.
