Construction of Knowledge on the Tourist Experience: a systematized literature re view using the PROKNOW-C method

Abstract:

In view of the diversity of approaches to the concept of the tourist experi ence, we aim to demonstrate and characterize trends in research streams, through a systematized review of the international scientific literature using the PROKNOW-C methodological procedure to create and analyze of bibliographic portfolios. For this, we explored three axes that support the construct of the tourist experience in the field of contemporary tourism studies: a humanistic axis, oriented towards sociocultural interpretation and criticism; an economic-administrative axis, which emphasizes mar keting and management studies of consumer experiences; and a third axis, which focuses predominantly on cognitive and behavioral aspects, emphasizing memory and the dimensions of the experience. We conclude that although there are ramifications of studies on the tourist experience, these groups constitute thematic axes that present areas of overlap in their approaches. Thus, we infer that recent advances in the study of the tourist experience show hybridizations in their research streams and ontological, epistemological, theoretical and methodological founda tions, making the object of study highly complex, and requiring efforts to overcome conceptual reductionisms.

Keywords:
tourist experience; tourist; PRO-KNOW-C; literature review; epistemology