Emotion in tourist experiences : Advancing our conceptual , methodological and empirical understanding

Sameer Hosany

Philippa Hunter-Jones

Scott McCabe

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1 . Introduction

The tourism industry get long be acclaim as the ‘ fun ’ industry . Tourism is practiced for its hedonic benefits . Tourists prefer to spend discretionary disposable income on vacation and travel basically for the anticipated pleasure they will obtain . In that sense , the value suggestion for tourism is significantly base on the emotion . This editorial come up to questions linked to the use of emotion in tourist experiences . The theorization of emotion get received much attention in the present-day tourism literature and among destination marketers . Emotion , episodes of intense spirit associated with a specific position or event ( Cohen & Areni , 1991 ) , meet a key role in understand tourist behaviour . Sketch own focused for example on positivist excited experience associated with festivals , shopping , theme parks , holidays , heritage site and adventure tourism , among others , and the links between excited responses and behavioural outcomes , such as satisfaction and customer loyalty .

At a practical level , tourist destinations around the universe underline the positivist excited association they seek to do between visitors and places . For instance , Slovenia uses the slogan “ I feel sdearnia ” to convey a sense of warmth , and a deep connection among potential tourists to the country . Other countries highlight the ‘ surprising ’ component of the tourist experience in their branding strategies . Notable successful country campaign include “ Amazing Thailand ” and “ Incredible ! ndia ” , which have make up make on associating a sense of positive surprise and delight with tourism visit . Other slogans highlighting positive emotional experience include “ It ‘s more fun in Philippines ” , “ Beautiful Bangladesh ” and “ Brunei : Abode of peace ” . These model farther emphasize the importance attach to positivist emotional reception connect with tourist experience .

However , whilst a lot of what push tourist demeanor is a lookup for pleasure , it live a a lot more complex picture requiring the need for more elaborate and theoretically driven inquiry . In this respect , the literature on tourist ‘s emotion get live significantly enrich in late yr . Tourist emotion inquiry make describe heavily on and applied concept and measures from the psychology literature . For lesson , a growing torso of studies ( e.g . Choi & Choi , 2019 ; Hosany , 2012 ; Jiang , 2019 ) apply cognitive estimate theories ( Roseman , Spindel , & Jose , 1990 ) to understand the antecedents and consequences of emotions to tourist conclusion . In price of measurement , and despite criticisms ( seeHosany & Gilbert , 2010 ) , many studies hold adapted self-report measures of emotion from psychology and these remain popular in tourism . Emotions determine respective point of the tourist experience ( Prayag , Hosany , & Odeh , 2013 ) . At the pre-travel point , emotion play a fundamental role in set off tourist motivations and inputs in destination selection work on . During the trip , emotions can change in intensity on a day-to-day basis . In increase , tourists ‘ emotional reaction are fundamental in determine post-travel evaluation such as satisfaction , destination attachment , perceived overall image and behavioural intentions .

The goal for this peculiar subject exist to further expand and enrich the literature on the role of emotion in tourist experience by solicit conceptual and methodological contributions that not only support but also challenge and develop our understanding of this crucial aspect of tourist behaviour . We cost delighted to obtain a diverse range of submissions , which contribute an array of original approach and insights . The final collection of newspaper ( n = 8 ) aid us to better realize the role of emotions across respective settings such as casino resorts , theme parks , leisure and older traveler , brand advertising and sword communication , and visiting friends and relatives ( VFR ) . We were impressed to see that these papers advance conceptual and methodological approach , in addition to their empirical contribution . The paper address measurement subject as good as identifying antecedents and consequence of tourist excited experiences in a scope of fresh context .

2 . The paper in this special effect

Whilst most former inquiry on tourist emotion own focused on positive spirit , such as joy , love and positivist surprise , negative emotions are also potential . The paper by Lai , Yang and Hitchcock leave crucial insights into the basic , excitement , and performance emotions that determine tourist ’ gratification and dissatisfaction with destination casino resorts . Through the development of a measurement scale consisting of both positivist and negative emotions , the overall gratification of gaming and non-gaming tourist live specify , contributing to our understand on how to compound three-factor theory with emotion theory . Contend that most of the negative emotions generated from bet on will not result in tourist dissatisfaction with destination casino resorts , the writer guide us towards further investigations into the effects of negative emotions towards destinations in considering the three-factor theory .

Emotion are complex find province that result in psychological and physical change that influence our behaviour . Our emotions change in answer to stimuli and as yet almost research need a mere snapshot of these country and response at a particular detail in time . Stepping beyond the traditional static , cross-sectional approach used to measure emotion . Lin , Nawijn and Biran ’ s paper seek to advance our apprehension of how motivations equal related to tourist ‘ emotion , in a longitudinal sketch for the first time in tourism research on this matter . Question leisure traveler in the Netherlands over a nine-month period , results signal that motivation make not hold a important impact on tourist ‘ emotion over a relatively long period of time . Determining that travel motivation , or a cluster of travel motivation , cause not seem to have important within-subject or between-subject impacts on tourists ‘ emotions reaffirm the complex relationship between tourists ‘ travel motivation and emotions , providing crucial managerial implications for destination marketers to regard .

Emotions can too be return and associated with particular effect in the memory . Since holidays and travel live often intense experience that linger in the memory , it is important to seem beyond the immediate , visceral emotional state to advance our understanding of the role emotions act in next conclusion making . The paper by Akgün , Senturk , Keskin and Onal provides crucial empirical insights into the relationship between nostalgic emotions , destination picture and tourist conduct within the particular destination context of Istanbul . Two work are employ to serve stir debate into an understanding of the importance of post-visit experience on destination picture . In the first study , the cognitive image of Istanbul be feel to be a multi-dimensional concept compile of attractions , infrastructure , atmosphere , and value variables . In the second field , nostalgic emotion is get to positively relate to affective destination picture , and to every constituent of the cognitive destination picture of Istanbul . Conclusions indicate that destination picture may partially mediate the relationship between nostalgic emotion and intention to revisit and recommend .

There is a great need for cross-fertilization of theories and approach to move on our apprehension of the affective relationship between places and masses , specifically visitor . Cabanas ‘s paper try to better understand the interplay between emotion and space apply theory of sociology and the product and consumption of space , and experience , to experience at theme park . It applies symbolic interactionism to a critical literature review of research on experiences of stem park , such as atmosphere design , experience mastery , and visitors ‘ employment and in so perform highlights the need for grant greater agency amongst visitors to spring up their own excited narrative of their experiences of these experience settings , which can be overly scripted and staged . Visitors ‘ experiences can be explored from a deep qualitative perspective , such as emblematic interactionism to trace out meaning-making procedure , the situated and mixed excited register of experience that takes place within theme park space , and that goes beyond simple evaluation of gratification and repeat behaviors . These novel approaches can lend real value to the intention of emotional experiences in a scope of visitor setting .

Emotion make an significant circumstance in how destinations position and market themselves . For Lalicic , Huertas , Moreno and Jabreel , understand the excited sword communication of 10 of the almost popular DMOs in Europe in 2017 according to TripAdvisor was a key objective . Through an analysis of user reception across Facebook and Twitter , this report identify a matrix of successful and promising value that DMOs should integrate into their social media communication strategy regarding their destination brands . It visualizes a set of value that DMOs should either not include or try to avoid when propose to successfully lock with their user . It identifies difference between the two social medium program , render DMOs with guidelines on how to in effect transmit their brand expend specific emotional sword value on social media . In a related paper , Tercia , Teichert and Soehadi use a generic experience saving framework to better understand advertising in suggest emotions and communicating specific experience dimensions . Travel experience cost differentiated between passive and fighting involvement , as good as between those with immersion and absorption experiences . Finding suggest that traveler ’ excited response to advertising has a partially mediating result on their effectiveness , dependent in part on the specific type of envisioned travel experience .

Finally , two papers test emotion within specific consumer context . Ramer , Zorotovich , Roberson , Flanigan and Gao ‘s subject looks at emotions within a specific type of tourism experience , relate together two comparatively understudied areas in travel research : the intersections between Visiting Friends and Relatives ( VFR ) and emotional experiences in the travel context . It does this by interview the result of pre-existing household dynamics on the emotional experiences of emerging grownup travel to call fellowship during the fall pause . Finding uncover a significant impact of class dynamics on emotions during VFR trips , with positivist emotion espouse a linear decline during the travel period , and negative emotion succeed a pattern consistent with the holiday happiness curve . Second , Pestana , Parreira and Moutinho ‘s paper leave us with crucial insight into what motivates the elderly tourism market , distinguish between youthful and older seniors . A model explaining the mediation role act by gratification in the relationship between motivation , emotion , and behavioural intention equal evolve and test through the application of structural equation modelling . Satisfaction is base to mediate the relationship between motivations and emotion , and behavioural purpose , simultaneously strengthening the positivist association between push and pull motivations . Previous experience has a moderating effect . Managerial implications include questioning the usefulness of the model evolve in different geographical settings .

3 . Resolve remarks

Emotions are ubiquitous in tourist experience and the papers in this special effect offer new insights that go on this field of inquiry . Despite much progress , various methodological-theoretical design circumstance stay on . For example , how best to evaluate emotions in tourism ? A special issue of emerging sketch make moved away from self-reports and embrace fresh approach such as Corpus Linguistics ( Rahmani , Gnoth , & Mather , 2019 ) to extract and study tourists ‘ emotional experiences . Still , additional inquiry is needed to , for lesson , straight compare verbal , non-verbal and indirect qualitative emotion amount . In addition , with some exception , tourism inquiry predominantly focuses on positivist excited experiences . Late evidence even so suggests , in non-hedonic context , tourists deliberately seek negative emotion ( Knobloch , Robertson , & Aitken , 2017 ; Nawijn & Biran , 2019 ) . Negative emotion can lead to positive result such as happiness ( Nawijn & Biran , 2019 ) and ethical selection formation ( Malone , McCabe , & Smith , 2014 ) . More inquiry is needed to flourish our apprehension of tourist ’ negative emotional experiences in a place Covid-19 epoch . At the theoretical level , trivial is know about the interplay and hierarchy of cognitions and emotions in tourist behavior models . Tourism researchers are encouraged to develop and try compete models . Emotion can live either an independent variable or a mediator between knowledge and outcome variables such as intent to recommend and perceive image evaluation .

We hope that articles in this special proceeds will promote tourism student go this sphere of research forward . We would like to express our appreciation to Professors Alan Fyall , Brian Garrod and Youcheng Wang for the opportunity to guest edit this special subject in Journal of Destination Marketing & Management . Last but not least , we would care to thank the reviewers for furnish constructive feedback during the review process . The author and special issue guest editor appreciate their efforts for provide timely reviews .

Contributor Information

Philippa Hunter-Jones , Email : p.hunter-jones @ liverpool.ac.uk .

Scott McCabe , Email : scott.mccabe @ nottingham.ac.uk .

Mention

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