The customer and tourist experience? Conceptual convergence or divergence

Abstract

This chapter critically evaluates the concepts of customer and tourist experience as theorized from the marketing and tourism disciplines, respectively. In marketing, cognitive, affective, conative and sensorial elements inform the concept of customer experience, with the marketing offer being the source of the experience. In the tourism literature, early conceptualizations of the tourist experience emphasize its distinctiveness from everyday life with recent theorization recognizing a shift from homogeneous portrayals of tourists to pluralizing depictions that captures the diversity of tourism and hospitality experiences. In comparison to tourism studies, marketing scholars have narrowly defined the term customer experience. The chapter aims to review both tourism and marketing approaches to conceptualizing experience and highlights commonalities and differences. The current theorization and dimensionality that imbue both concepts are discussed. The chapter concludes with pathways for researchers to better integrate the different approaches offered in these two fields.