Routledge Handbook of the Tourist Experience offers a comprehensive synthesis of contemporary research on the tourist experience. It draws together multidisciplinary perspectives from leading tourism scholars to explore emergent tourist behaviours and motivations. This handbook provides up-to-date, critical discussions of established and emergent themes and issues related to the tourist experience from a primarily socio-cultural perspective. It opens with a detailed introduction which lays down the framework used to examine the dynamic parameters of the tourist experience. Organised into five thematic sections, chapters seek to build and enhance knowledge and understanding of the significance and meaning of diverse elements of the tourist experience. Section 1 conceptualises and understands the tourist experience through an exploration of conventional themes such as tourism as authentic and spiritual experience, as well as emerging themes such as tourism as an embodied experience. Section 2 investigates the new, developing tourist demands and motivations, and a growing interest in the travel career. Section 3 considers the significance, motives, practices and experiences of different types of tourists and their roles such as the tourist as photographer. Section 4 discusses the relevance of ‘place’ to the tourist experience by exploring the relationship between tourism and place. The last section, Section 5, scrutinises the role of the tourist in creating their experiences through themes such as ‘transformations in the tourist role’ from passive receiver of experiences to co-creator of experiences, and ‘external mediators in creating tourist experiences'. This handbook is the first to fill a notable gap in the tourism literature and collate within a single volume critical insights into the diverse elements of the tourist experience today. It will be of key interest to academics and students across the fields of tourism, hospitality management, geography, marketing and consumer behaviour.

The Routledge Handbook of Tourism Experience Management and Marketing offers a comprehensive and thorough inquiry into both customary and emergent issues of tourism experience and co-creation. Drawing together contributions from 83 authors from 28 countries with varied backgrounds and interdisciplinary interests, the handbook highlights multiple representations and interpretations of the theme. It also integrates a selection of illustrative global case studies to effectively present its chapter contents. Tourism experience drives the contemporary tourist’s behavior as they travel in pursuit of experiencing unique and unusual destinations and activities. Creating a memorable and enduring experience is therefore a prerequisite for the all tourism business organizations irrespective of the nature of their products or services. This handbook focuses on conceptualizing, designing, staging, managing and marketing paradigms of tourism experiences from both supply and demand perspectives. It sheds substantial light on the contemporary theories, practices and future developments in the arena of experiential tourism management and marketing. Encompassing the latest thinking and research themes, this will be an essential reference for upper-level students, researchers, academics and industry practitioners of hospitality as well as those of tourism, gastronomy, management, marketing, consumer behavior, cultural studies, development studies and international business, encouraging dialogue across disciplinary boundaries.

The planning, design, management and marketing of experiences for tourism markets is a major challenge for tourism destinations and providers in a globalized and highly competitive market. This book bridges the gap in contemporary literature by carefully examining the management and marketing of tourism experiences.

Tourism is facing a new paradigm that has been brought on by the introduction of experiences in the development, management, and promotion of tourism. Associating experiences to tourism destination and products allows tourists to relate to their vacations differently and helps to fuel a destination’s competitiveness and compliance with new needs and motivations that are being driven by the tourists. When properly design, managed, and developed, tourism experiences can contribute to the destination’s overall sustainability by maximining tourism’s positive impacts and fostering their spillover to local communities. Planning and Managing the Experience Economy in Tourism is an essential reference book that seeks to advance research on tourism experience as well as investigate how tourism experiences can create and increase tourism competitiveness. The book explores how the experience concept has evolved in the last decade, alongside the needs and motivations of consumers, and how it can be conceptualized, designed, managed, and implemented both at the tourism firm and destination levels. Delving further into concepts like creative tourism, destination attributes, and smart experiences, this book serves as a dynamic resource for travel agencies, tourism managers, tourism professionals, marketers, destination managers, government officials, policymakers, academicians, students, tourism officials, planners, and researchers.

This comprehensive Handbook offers an overview of current research on the use of social media within the tourism industry, investigating a range of social media practices and proposing strategies to address key challenges faced by tourist destinations and operators.

The Routledge Handbook of Cultural Tourism explores and critically evaluates the debates and controversies in this field of Tourism. It brings together leading specialists from a range of disciplinary backgrounds and geographical regions, to provide state-of-the-art theoretical reflection and empirical research on this significant stream of tourism and its future direction. The book is divided into 7 inter-related sections. Section 1 looks at the historical, philosophical and theoretical framework for cultural tourism. This section debates tourist autonomy role play, authenticity, imaginaries, cross-cultural issues and inter-disciplinarity Section 2 analyses the role that politics takes in cultural tourism. This section also looks at ways in which cultural tourism is used as a policy instrument for economic development. Section 3 focuses on social patterns and trends, such as the mobilities paradigm, performativity, reflexivity and traditional hospitality, as well as considering sensitive social issues such as dark tourism. Section 4 analyses community and development, exploring adaptive forms of cultural tourism, as well as more sustainble models for indigenous tourism development. Section 5 discusses Landscapes and Destinations, including the transformation of space into place, issues of authenticity in landscape, the transformation of urban and rural landscapes into tourism products and conservation versus development dilemmas. Section 6 refers to Regeneration and Planning, especially the creative turn in cultural tourism, which can be used to avoid problems of serial reproduction, standardisation and homogenisation. Section 7 deals with The Tourist and Visitor Experience, emphasising the desire of tourists to be more actively and interactively engaged in cultural tourism. This significant volume offers the reader a comprehensive synthesis of this field, conveying the latest thinking and research. The text is international in focus, encouraging dialogue across disciplinary boundaries and areas of study and will be an invaluable resource for all those with an interest in Cultural Tourism. This is essential reading for students, researchers and academics of Tourism as well as those of related studies in particular Cultural Studies, Leisure, Geography, Sociology, Politics and Economics.

Routledge Handbook of the Tourist Experience offers a comprehensive synthesis of contemporary research on the tourist experience. It draws together multidisciplinary perspectives from leading tourism scholars to explore emergent tourist behaviours and motivations. This handbook provides up-to-date, critical discussions of established and emergent themes and issues related to the tourist experience from a primarily socio-cultural perspective. It opens with a detailed introduction which lays down the framework used to examine the dynamic parameters of the tourist experience. Organised into five thematic sections, chapters seek to build and enhance knowledge and understanding of the significance and meaning of diverse elements of the tourist experience. Section 1 conceptualises and understands the tourist experience through an exploration of conventional themes such as tourism as authentic and spiritual experience, as well as emerging themes such as tourism as an embodied experience. Section 2 investigates the new, developing tourist demands and motivations, and a growing interest in the travel career. Section 3 considers the significance, motives, practices and experiences of different types of tourists and their roles such as the tourist as photographer. Section 4 discusses the relevance of ‘place’ to the tourist experience by exploring the relationship between tourism and place. The last section, Section 5, scrutinises the role of the tourist in creating their experiences through themes such as ‘transformations in the tourist role’ from passive receiver of experiences to co-creator of experiences, and ‘external mediators in creating tourist experiences'. This handbook is the first to fill a notable gap in the tourism literature and collate within a single volume critical insights into the diverse elements of the tourist experience today. It will be of key interest to academics and students across the fields of tourism, hospitality management, geography, marketing and consumer behaviour.