Contemporary Tourist Experience

Richard Sharpley is Professor of Tourism and Development at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK. Philip Stone is a former management consultant within the tourism and hospitality sector, and is presently employed as a Senior Lecturer with the University of Central Lancashire Preston, UK.

"Chapters are coherent in terms of writing style, depth of analysis, and the presentation of studies. Furthermore, the book includes diverse methodological approaches to the study of tourist experiences that range from more traditional positivist research methods, such as questionnaires (Chapter 3, 9), to in-depth qualitative interviews (Chapters 8, 11, 15), and less conventional methods, such as analyzing tourists' travel blogs (Chapter 6, 13), ethnographic methods (Chapter 5, 10), and a mixed method approach (Chapter 7, 14). Thus, overall, it is an interesting and useful book to tourism scholars, graduate students, and industry professionals." – Ilze Dziedataja, Manchester Metropolitan University, published in Tourism Analysis

• Introduction: Experiencing Tourism, Experiencing Happiness? Section 1: Conceptualising Tourism Experiences 1. Personal Experience Tourism: A Postmodern Understanding 2. The Habit of Tourism: Experiences and Their Ontological Meaning 3. Experiences of Valuistic Journeys: Motivation and Behaviour Section 2: Understanding Dark Tourism Experiences 4. Re-Conceptualizing Dark Tourism 5. Dark Tourism as ‘Mortality Capital’: The Case of Ground Zero and the Significant Other Dead 6. Towards an Understanding ‘Genocide Tourism’: An Analysis of Visitors' Accounts of Their Experience of Recent Genocide Sites Section 3: Motivation and the Contemporary Tourist Experience 7. Being Away or Being There? British Tourists’ Motivations Holidaying in Alanya, Turkey 8. Identity in Tourist Motivation and the Dynamics of Meaning 9. Bitten by the Twilight saga: From Pop Culture Consumer to Pop Culture Tourist Section 4: Place and the Tourist Experience 10. Volunteer Tourists' Experiences and Sense of Place: New Orleans 11. Family Place Experience and the Making of Places in Holiday Home Destinations: A Danish Case Study 12. Museums as Playful Venues in the Leisure Society Section 5: Managing Tourist Experiences 13. ‘We’ve seen it in the Movies, Let’s See if it’s True’: Motivation, Authenticity and Displacement in the Film-Induced Tourism Experience 14. Tourism Harassment Experiences in Jamaica 15. A Critical Evaluation of the UK ‘Grey’ Market’s Experience of the Overseas Package Holiday