Tourist Experience and Experiential Tourism: a study about dimensions of memorable experience

Abstract

This article presents a discussion based on theories of Anthropology, Marketing and Tourism, in particular regarding the issue of experience anthropology and economy, in order to analyze the dimensions of experience, defined by Pine II and Gilmore (1999) and Oh, Fiore and Jeoung (2007), which allowed us to understand the experience of tourists who visited Gramado (RS) in the years 2010 and 2011.To achieve the proposed objective, a descriptive exploratory research was conducted enabling the selection, using quantitative methods, of a set of tourists from São Paulo (Capital) that had been in Gramado (RS) between the years 2010 and 2011, to which a qualitative research was applied. As main findings it was identified that the dimensions aesthetic, hospitality and entertainment were rated as most important for the formation of a memorable experience, and new dimensions emerged from in-depth interviews with the selected tourists.