The Quality of Visitor Experience A Case Study in Peripheral Areas of Europe by Szilvia Gyimóthy A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of Anglia Polytechnic University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy This research programme was carried out in collaboration with Bornholms Forskningscenter, Denmark January 2000 Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to all those who supported me during the 3-year process of this study. First, I would like to thank Professor Stephen Wanhill, leader of the Tourism Research Programme and Mr. Svend Lundtorp, the Chief of Research at Bornholms Forskningscenter for taking me on board in the academic pursuit and endorsing my project proposal. I am grateful to my first supervisor, Professor Jan Mattsson, for providing an insight in service marketing research during the early stages of this study. I am greatly indebted to my main supervisor, Professor Nick Johns, for his conscientious guidance, lengthy discussions and his ceaseless encouragement. This project would not have been realised without the contribution of my colleagues. A special thanks goes to Ms Valerina Clarke and Ms Mette Krogh Olsen who provided immense help during the pilot and main data collection. I am also obliged to the fellows at Bornholms Forskningscenter, especially Anders Sørensen, Kirstin Brandt Blomgren, Ann. Hartl-Nielsen and Tage Petersen for challenging my thoughts in various informal discussions. Finally I would like to thank my husband, Anders, my parents, and my family-in-law for their constant support and effort to keep up the good spirit all the way along. Szilvia Gyimóthy January 2000 Contents 1. Introduction.................................................................................................................9 2. Research Problem......................................................................................................11 2.1. Substantial level: quality provision and measurement problems in tourism practice...........................................................................................................11 2.1.1. In-built failures: business characteristics and their con-sequences for quality provision.............................................................................................12 2.1.2. Inadequacy of existing quality measurement schemes .....................................13 2.1.3. Theoretical approaches to quality measurement schemes ................................15 2.1.4. When hospitality meets tourism: consequences at an integrated level..............16 2.2. Conceptual discourses in service research relating to customer assessment......17 2.2.1. Where does service research stand today? .......................................................17 2.2.2. Defining customer assessment: objective or subjective?...................................19 2.2.3. Conceptualising the structure of customer assessment.....................................21 2.2.4. Measuring customer assessment......................................................................24 2.3. Methodological issues in tourism, marketing and consumer research..............30 3. Lessons from the Pilot Study .....................................................................................33 3.1. Problem formulation and research design .......................................................33 3.2. Practical lessons .............................................................................................36 3.3. Conceptual lessons..........................................................................................37 3.3.1. Different understanding of the tourism product...............................................37 3.3.2. Different framework of assessment .................................................................39 3.4. Methodological lessons: service quality research constructs its own reality! ....40 3.5. Revising the point of departure .......................................................................43 4. Research Design........................................................................................................45 4.1. Research domain and questions ......................................................................45 4.1.1. Demarcation of research domain.....................................................................45 4.1.2. Research questions..........................................................................................46 4.1.3. Empirical study design ...................................................................................48 4.2. Scientific methodology ...................................................................................49 4.2.1. Research ontology and epistemology...............................................................50 4.2.2. Choice of methods ..........................................................................................51 4.2.3. Corroboration tests .........................................................................................52 4.3. The empirical areas of study ...........................................................................54 4.3.1. Introduction to Bornholm ...............................................................................55 4.3.2. Norfolk: the control case.................................................................................56 4.4. Research design: practical issues of data collection and analysis .....................57 4.4.1. Data collection................................................................................................57 4.4.2. Data treatment................................................................................................59 4.4.3. Data analysis ..................................................................................................59 4.4.4. A note on the pilot results...............................................................................62 4.5. Results: structure of the thesis.........................................................................62 4.5.1. Definition of concepts and terms.....................................................................63 5. The Tourist’s Journey: Describing the Con-sumption of an Experience .....................65 5.1. Preparatory activities ......................................................................................65 5.1.1. Hedonic task definition...................................................................................65 5.1.2. Variation as the main goal..............................................................................66 5.1.3. Designing strategies........................................................................................70 5.2. Experiential activities .....................................................................................76 5.2.1. Journeying: spatial and temporal pacing .........................................................77 5.2.2. Tourist self-image and orientation ..................................................................78 5.2.3. Sensory and extrasensory perception...............................................................79 5.2.4. Saturation.......................................................................................................82 5.3. Processing activities........................................................................................83 5.3.1. Updating by comparison .................................................................................83 5.3.2. Associative learning .......................................................................................84 5.3.3. Assessing by comparison ................................................................................85 5.3.4. Assessing by affective marking .......................................................................88 5.3.5. Adapting the assessment.................................................................................88 5.4. Extraordinariness of holiday consumption behaviour: four propositions..........89 6. The Virtual Journey: Symbolic Aspects of Destination Experiences...........................95 6.1. Preconception .................................................................................................96 6.1.1. The Lost Eden ................................................................................................97 6.1.2. Historic nostalgia.......................................................................................... 100 6.1.3. Scandinavian and Danish mentality.............................................................. 101 6.1.4. Un-Danish.................................................................................................... 102 6.1.5. Bornholm myths in visitors’ preconceptions ................................................. 103 6.2. Negotiation................................................................................................... 103 6.2.1. Subscribing to myths by observant and participant negotiation...................... 104 6.2.2. Rejecting the myths by observant and participant negotiation........................ 111 6.2.3. The importance of Bornholm myths.............................................................. 118 6.3. Traveller mythologies ................................................................................... 118 6.3.1. Negotiating travellers’ mythologies............................................................... 121 6.3.2. The importance of traveller mythologies