Customer experience in tourism: A review of definitions, components, and measurements. (July 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Godovykh, Maksim; Tasci, Asli D.A.
• Is Part Of: Tourism management perspectives. Volume 35(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020-07
• Subjects: Experience -- Review -- Definition -- Components -- Scales; Tourism -- Periodicals; 338.4791
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tmp.2020.100694
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2211-9736

Abstract

Abstract: The concept of customer experience has received increasing attention in different disciplines. However, the pathway for handling experience has not been clearly set forth due to divergent conceptualizations and insufficient measures of customer experience. This study critically analyzes empirical and conceptual literature on experience, provides a holistic definition of experience, proposes an experience model with four main components (emotional, cognitive, sensorial, and conative), and suggests using a combination of several measures to capture the totality of tourism experience at pre-visit, onsite, and post-visit stages. These suggestions provide important implications for researchers and practitioners by offering new ways to explore customer interaction with tourist products, detect affective and sensory components leading to important consumption outcomes, investigate individual impacts of anticipation, onsite experience, and recall, as well as analyze effectiveness of destination marketing practices. Abstract : Graphical abstract Unlabelled Image Highlights: This paper provides a comprehensive definition of customer experience in tourism. Experience comprises cognitive, affective, sensory, and conative components. Experience changes in different phases before, during, and after the trip. A combination of several measurement techniques can be used in tourism experience research.