The tourist in the experience economy

In this conceptual article, the tourist experience is proposed as the moment when tourism consumption and tourism production meet. It is also the moment when value is created and resources are consumed and thus the decisive moment for the economics of tourism experiences. Value created by consuming tourism experiences depends not only upon the objective experience but also upon the tourist and the tourist's state of mind at that particular moment. This argument rests on the concept "arousal level" that gives a dynamic description of varying needs of a tourist. Needs are discussed in relation to a three dimensional categorization based on basic, social and intellectual needs. Resources consumed for the production of tourism experiences are analysed as consumption sets that include four generic resources: time, skills, goods and services. The tourist is assumed to play an important role in the final link of the production chain, i.e. that of realizing a consumption project by putting together resources in a consumption set that is needed to produce a tourism experience. In the final section of this paper, various hypothetical implications that this model may have for tourism and tourism research are discussed based on the composition of resources in the consumption set. The balance between working time and leisure time as well as the level of "tourism skills" are proposed as variables that may determine tourists' choices of tourism experiences.