The Tourist Experience of Out-There-Ness: Theory and Practice

The interest in tourist experiences is crucial for understanding tourism & resulted in a number of typologies. In this study, Eric Cohen's phenomenology of tourist experiences is theoretically debated & deepened. From a constructivist phenomenological perspective, we argue that the notions of "provinces of meaning" & "switching worlds" are crucial for the understanding of tourism. Tourism is a switch from our everyday world to an out-there-ness, which is meaningful precisely because it represents another province of meaning that is to varying degrees new & strange. These thoughts formed the foundation of a new typology of tourist experiences that are empirically tested in seven case studies. Results show that, despite the varied character of the case studies, a large continuity can be observed in appearance & contents of the modes of experience, which has guided us to the formulation of both a self-report questionnaire & recommendations for tourism development. Future research will especially focus on the relation between modes of experiences & environmental quality conditions.