This chapter aims at understanding travelers' literary experience in “The Museum of Innocence,” which is known as a museum based on a book that was written by Orhan Pamuk. To reach the purpose, a qualitative research approach was adopted in this study, and online reviews posted by visitors of the museum were used to explore the main components of their experience in a literary context. The collected data was examined through content analysis. As a result of analysis, visualization, a sense of nostalgia, awe, and memorable components were revealed. These components were interpreted in different ways by visitors. Theoretical and practical implications were provided as well as limitations for future research lines.
TopIntroduction
People are motivated to visit some destinations for a wide range of purposes such as leisure, seeking for a novelty, experiencing literary objects and filmed areas within the different types of tourism, including film tourism and literary tourism (Hoppen et al., 2014; Kassean & Gassita, 2013). Among these, literary tourism has become a popular market segmentation over the past decades and has gained significant attention from tourism scholars (Çevik, 2020; Quinteiro et al., 2020). According to Quinteiro et al. (2020, p. 361; as cited in Butler's (2000) study), it is described as “the form of tourism in which the primary motivation for visiting specific locations is related to interest in literature.” In sum, it has been defined as the act of visiting literary places related to writers, authors’ biographies and their texts. In the literary destinations, understanding visitor experience is crucial for destination practitioners and extant literature.
As an important literary attraction, Museum of Innocence located in Istanbul (Turkey) plays a major role in the memorable tourist experience and is considered as a literary attraction. The Museum of Innocence, created by Orhan Pamuk, is a small Istanbul Museum consisting of installations that show the memories and meanings of daily life items described in the author's novel with the same name. Orhan Pamuk is a recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. After this award, his recognition increased. People who read his novel (Museum of Innocence) wondered his museum. Despite tourists’ visiting to this museum, very limited research in the context of literary tourism was conducted on it (Çevik, 2018). In particular, to the best of authors’ knowledge, there is no research that examines visitor experiences at this museum.
In order to fill this research gap, this book chapter will attempt to investigate visitor experiences of Museum of Innocence using User Generated Content within the context of literary tourism. To attain our research gap, reviews posted by international travelers on TripAdvisor will be examined by descriptive analysis. In accordance with this book chapter purpose, the content of the present research is configured as follows: in the first section, a literature review about the literary tourism, the role of fictional museums in the visitor experience and User Generated Content and visitor experience will be presented. The research method and findings will be presented in the next section. Finally, a clear conclusion will be offered.