Transformational Tourism Experiences: The Communication of Service Providers

Introduction

Travel and tourism have a long-lasting association with the idea of transformation (MacCannell, 2013; Morgan, 2010; Lean, 2012; Crossley, 2012; Allon & Koleth, 2014; Ozçelik, Aydin & Omuris, 2018) and have frequently been depicted in the literature as instruments for personal enlightenment, self-development, and inner discovery (Kottler, 1997; Smith & Kelly, 2006; Curtin, 2010; Han, Lee & Hyun, 2020). In recent years, there has been growing interest from tourists and tourism providers, destinations, and academia in the concept of transformational tourism, which is also seen as one of the most significant trends for the future of the tourism industry.

Although references to personal transformation in tourism contexts can be found in many studies of tourist motivations and behaviours (Salazar, 2004; Nawijn, Mitas, Lin, & Kerstetter, 2013; Cohen, Prayag & Moital, 2014; Lin, Kerstetter, Nawijn & Mitas, 2014), as well as religious and spiritual tourism (Collins-Kreiner, 2010; Norman, 2011; Ross, 2014; Robledo, 2015; Kujawa, 2017), it is only in the last two decades that transformative tourism has emerged as a consolidated research field (Lean, 2009; Saunders, Laing & Weiler, 2014).

In this domain, it is possible to distinguish two main approaches: studies focussed on the potential of specific forms of tourism to stimulate personal transformation, including backpacking (Brown, 2009; Kanning, 2013; Lean, 2009; O’Reilly, 2006) and volunteer tourism (Erdely, 2013; Grabowski, 2013; Lean, 2009); and studies centred on the process of tourist transformation, which analyse the mechanisms of transformative tourism experiences, transformation triggers (Kirillova, Letho & Cai, 2017), facilitators and inhibitors (Pung & Del Chiappa, 2020), outcomes (Soulard, McGehee, Knollenberg, 2020), key dimensions (Pung, Gnoth & Del Chiappa, 2020), and the transformative experience design processes (Sheldon, 2020).

Although the benefits resulting from transformative experiences for both tourists (Wolf, Ainsworth & Crowley, 2017) and the tourism industry are identified in previous research (Reisinger, 2015; UNWTO, 2016; Smith, 2018; Sigala, 2020), few studies have taken a supply perspective. According to Sheldon (2020), the design of transformative experiences is challenging and requires a careful focus on tourist’s values, motivations, and level of consciousness, as well as a consideration of the level of awareness of tourism providers and decision-makers. The employee’s role in the creation of personalised transformational experiences for tourists is emphasised by Soulard et al. (2019), who proposed a strategy for organisations and firms wishing to provide transformative experiences.

Given Pine & Gilmore’s (1998) suggestion that transformation is the ultimate form of experience, it is important to understand if and how transformational experiences are being integrated into service industries such as tourism in order to add economic value (Sanders, Laing & Weiler, 2014). If transformational tourism is becoming more important for consumers, one would also expect to see this reflected in the communication of tourism suppliers about the transformational dimensions of the experiences they provide.

This chapter aims to understand how service providers are positioning themselves in the domain of transformational tourism, by analysing how transformational experiences are communicated on their websites. In particular, the research attempts to identify which characteristics of transformational experience are particularly emphasised in communications with consumers.

The chapter begins with an overview of the most recent literature on transformational tourism, while also covering relevant published research on the importance of websites as communication tools for tourism competitiveness and product differentiation. The methodology and findings of the content analysis developed are then presented and discussed.