The Structure and Meanings of Intercultural Interactions of International Tourists

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to highlight the structure and meanings of intercultural interactions between international tourists and local residents. To achieve this purpose, the study adopted a naturalistic approach. This approach was selected as appropriate for the study because it yielded an emergent, emic understanding of the tourism experience. This understanding facilitated the formation of an inductively based, empirically grounded conceptualization, and structural model of intercultural interactions from the tourist's point of view. The outcomes of the study represent constructions of the tourism experience that were shared by a variety of tourists, and thus represented salient themes that help to categorize the intercultural interactions in international tourism. International tourists who had participated in international pleasure travel within the past year were interviewed using an ethnographic interview method based specifically on the Spradley method. The results of the interviews were analyzed systematically using developmental sequence methods based on the instructions by Spradley. As a result of the study, an integrated model of the intercultural interactions of international tourists was suggested from the shared themes, meanings and patterns that shaped participants' international tourism experiences.