Towards a holistic understanding of cruise visitors’ sense of placeantecedents and experience outcomes

Resum

Cruise tourism has witnessed a significant growth recently, with a particularly high demand in Europe: the number of cruise tourists has increased from 4.49 million in 2008 to 7.17 million in 2018 (CLIA 2019). Despite its relevance, the cruise tourism phenomenon has received scant attention in the academic literature (Papathanassis, 2017), which has tended to focus on cruise tourists’ onboard perceptions rather than their onshore destination experience (Weaver and Lawton 2017). A key concept emerging from the multidisciplinary research addressing the relationship between individuals and places, is that of sense of place, which can be described as “the meanings and attachments held by an individual or group for a spatial setting” (Stedman, 2003, p. 822). Furthermore, the tourism literature has emphasised the need to integrate the sensory dimensions of a place experience, the perception of existential authenticity (Jiang et al., 2017) and the creation of a memorable experience (Pine and Gilmore 1999), when modelling tourist experiences. A holistic understanding of cruise visitors’ experience onshore cannot be achieved without considering the role of tour guiding and particularly the process of emotion co-creation taking place in the interaction between guides and tour members. In light of the above, this doctoral thesis aims to advance the current understanding of cruise visitors’ experience at a port of call by developing and empirically testing two structural equation models. The thesis investigates: (i) destination’s sensescape, for which a formative measurement instrument is proposed and validated, and existential authenticity as antecedents of sense of place and (ii) memorable tourism experiences and post-visit behavioural intentions as sense of place outcomes. Furthermore, the dissertation explores the role of co-created emotional value during a guided tour experience in triggering sense of place, memorable tourism experience and destination loyalty. To fulfil the aforementioned objectives, a qualitative and a quantitative study was carried out, in which the behavioural differences between independent and guided cruise visitors were assessed. The structural equation modelling results demonstrated differences between the hypothesised baseline (independent tourists) and guided tour models. The results of the former supported all posited hypotheses. Regarding the guided tour model, the proposed positive relationship between memorable tourism experience and post-visit behavioural intentions was found not significant. Nevertheless, the emotional value derived from the guided tour experience contributed to tourists’ return and recommendation intention in this case. The findings of the qualitative study also testified for the positively-valenced sentiment nature of the guided tour experience onshore. The findings contribute to the existing tourism literature and provide practical implications for DMOs, port authorities and tourism businesses.