Multisensory Experiences of Italian Tourists in Rural Transylvania

Codrina Sandru,Florin Nechita

doi:10.4468/2016.2.08sandru.nechita

Codrina Sandru, Florin Nechita

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.4468/2016.2.08sandru.nechita

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Abstract

The concept of experiential tourism is a foundation for the valorisation of intangible cultural heritage of a rural area from south-eastern Transylvania, Romania. The experience was closely observed and analysed in order to determine how the regional tourism promotion organizations should use intangible heritage assets in order to promote this area, and also to be incorporated in the tourist offers by Romanian tour operators. Aiming to evaluate tourists’ insights on their rural tourism experience, a close research was conducted among the participants at an international summer school, specially designed for the valorisation of the intangible cultural heritage. The results outline the sensorial triggers, which describe Italian tourists’ experience in Fagaras Land.

Highlights

With the dramatically change of the world’s economy that changes the servicebased requirement into experience-based one (Pine & Gilmore, 1998), peoples needs will continue to focus more on the consumption for experiences rather than products (Kim et al, 2012)
Considering the aforementioned trends, the present paper explores the concept of experiential tourism as fundamental for the valorization of the intangible cultural heritage, with a special focus on a Romanian tourist destination, Fagaras Land
Participants were accommodated in two rural areas with rich and distinct intangible heritage resources, which insufficiently valorized in different tourism packages offered by tour operators: Drăguş and Mândra villages

Summary

Introduction

With the dramatically change of the world’s economy that changes the servicebased requirement into experience-based one (Pine & Gilmore, 1998), peoples needs will continue to focus more on the consumption for experiences rather than products (Kim et al, 2012). The main properties of the experiences should be: involvement of all senses; having a unique process with intrinsic value for individuals; irreversibility; involvement of the contact with ‘raw stuff’, the real thing (Bulencea & Egger, 2015) It is in the industry’s interest to make an impact with great stories that can engage and excite the tourists, and get them emotionally involved in order to create memorable experiences (Lund, 2012), and the usergenerated content published online can amplify the effects of it. Because the focus of the designed and researched tourism experience was the valorization of the local intangible cultural heritage, the main objectives of this paper are to identify the sensorial triggers that best describes Italian tourists’ experience in Fagaras Land. Rural tourism is largely domestic, and positioned as a small-scale activity and an alternative to mass tourism, rural destinations are becoming increasingly popular, and the online marketing and promotion of rural destinations should be developed (Zhou, 2014)

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