The Research Of Utility And Influencing Factors Of Visitors’ Extraordinary Experience

In the past30years, the research about experience gradually evolved into a hottopic in economic and management field, and in fact, the fastest growing industries inglobal economy all have some relation with the experiential consumption. And in theupcoming age of experience, the consumers’ focus attention also gradually transforminto the unique and unforgettable experience. In such circumstances, market providerscan only try to match the needs of the consumers, provide value-added services–theextraordinary experience, and they also have to ensure the high quality products andhigh level services at the same time. Tourism experience is one of the most typicalexperience forms of the experience age, and the core production activity of tourismindustry is to create visitors experience, and sell the “staged experience”. The reasonswhy tourists visit a particular tourist destination is the beautiful landscapes andelaborate designed service, but more important reason is that the overall image of thedestination has formed a “stamp” in the mind of the tourists, and these tourists couldget a “former experience” figure before they really go to the destination. So thevisitors expect the on-site experience seriously to check the compatibility of the“former experience” and the real experience. So essentially speaking, the primaryobject of the destination visiting is to pursue the fascinating experience which basedon the products and/or services.Given the importance of the visitors’ experience, many scholars regard it as thecore area of tourism researches, and a series of research conclusions, which haveimportant theoretical significance and application values, are formed. Butunfortunately, there is some inconsistence between these research conclusions. Somescholars think that visitors’ experience have important influence on the satisfactionand follow-up behavioral intention, and other scholars’ research results insist thatconsumers’ experience, which includes visitors’ experience, can’t update theircognitive system, in other words, visitors’ experience cannot affect the satisfaction oftourists and their follow-up behavior intention. In view of this, this article try to divide the tourist experience into two categories-extraordinary experience and ordinaryexperience based on the information accessibility theory, schema theory andcognitive-emotional theory. Then this study continues to research the different impactof these two types of experience on cognitive system of the visitors. At the same time,for the reason of providing operable practical guidance, this paper continues toexplore the influence factor of forming the visitors’ extraordinary experience. In theend, this paper also explores the common function of emotional factors and cognitivefactors on the visitors’ satisfaction and loyalty.The results of two different surveys show that when the visitors get theextraordinary experiences in the course of travel, their cognitive system and thesatisfaction and loyalty based on cognitive system will have significant ascension. Butwhen the visitors get no extraordinary experiences, there will be no significant changein their cognitive system. In addition, the study also finds that the ratio between skillsand challenge, perceived risk, customer compatibility and environmental qualityinfluence the visitors’ extraordinary experience at significant level, and the relationbetween extraordinary experience and the ratio between skills and challenge isinverted U curve. And environmental quality and service quality will influencevisitors’ perceived value significantly. In the end, the relationship between visitors’extraordinary experience and perceived value is not significant, but both visitors’satisfaction and loyalty will be impacted significantly by these two factors.This paper has four parts, which are introduction, literature review and relatedbasic theory, research design and empirical research, and the conclusion. In particular,the introduction is chapter1, and the main purpose of this part is to draw out theresearch background, the research question, the core concept, the reason of choosingthis topic, the research significance, and the innovations of this paper. Chapter1alsoreports the research approach, research scope, research methods and the framework ofthis paper. Literature review and theoretical foundation is chapter2and chapter3ofthis paper respectively. And these two parts mainly review the literature about theconsumer experience, visitors’ experience and extraordinary experience, find out theresearch theme, and affirm the origin of this research on the bases of information accessibility theory, schema theory and cognitive-emotional theory. Chapter4andchapter5mainly include the theoretical framework and empirical analysis, and thenthe proposed framework and research hypotheses are tested by two surveys and dataanalysis, the results are also discussed in this chapter. Chapter6is the overallconclusion of this paper. The theoretical significance and management applicationsignificance are discussed in this chapter on the basis of earlier research, and thelimitations of this study and the future research direction are also points out.The outlines of these chapters are as follows:Chapter1, the introduction part, elaborates the research background, the researchquestion, the core concept, the reason of choosing this topic, the research significance,and the innovations of this paper firstly. The consumers’ decision-making model haschanged from rational decision model and information processing model which arebased on microeconomics and classic decision theory, to the decision model based onthe consumer experience. So the research about consumer experience has become ahot issue in the field of economics and management. Visitors’ experience is one of themost typical experience forms of the experience age, and the core production activityof tourism industry is to create visitors experience, and sell the “staged experience”.However, different scholars hold different opinions about the utility of visitors’experience: someone think that visitors’ experience can affect their cognitive systemsignificantly, others hold the opposite view. To solve this dispute, this paper raises theconcept of extraordinary experience based on the existing literature and related theory,and then the study frame, the research ideas and research methods are confirmed.Chapter2, the literature review part, mainly analyses the earlier researchachievements about the consumer experience, visitors’ experience and extraordinaryexperience. First of all, this paper summarizes and assesses the definition, dimensions,the causes and effects, and management strategies about consumer experience; Forvisitors’ experience, after the statement of concept definition and the research angle,the classification, dimensions, the causes and effects of visitors’ experience also arementioned; at last, this paper also review the literature about extraordinary experience,and mainly introduces the influencing factors and results of extraordinary experience. Chapter3presents the theoretical basis of this paper, and gives some support tothe research model in chapter4. First of all, information accessibility theory isintroduced. From this theory we know that the experience and the emotions based onthis experience come from short episodic memory, and cognitive system and personalfaith is derived from a relatively stable semantic memory. That the semantic memorycould be updated by episodic memory is the key deciding factor of visitors’extraordinary experience’s influence on visitors’ cognitive system. Secondly, thepaper introduces the schema theory, and analyses the internal psychologicalmechanism of the formation of visitors’ extraordinary experience. Finally this paperintroduces the cognitive-emotional theory, and discusses the relationship betweencognitive factors and emotional factors, and the joint influence of these two factors onsatisfaction and loyalty is also mentioned.Chapter4is the theoretical framework and the assumption proposition part. Thischapter put forward the theory model and the research hypotheses based on theliterature review in chapter2and theoretical foundation in chapter3. There are twostudies in this paper, and study1aims to ensure the utility of visitors’ extraordinaryexperience, and clarifies the different influences of the extraordinary experience andthe ordinary experience on visitors’ cognitive system; study2attempts to confirm theinfluence factors and mutual relationship between extraordinary experience andperceptive value, then the effect of this two factors on tourists satisfaction and loyaltyare also examined. This part also develops the research hypothesis, which could beexamined and discussed through empirical studies in the subsequent chapter.Chapter5is the empirical study part. The mainly purpose of this part is testingand discussing the theory model and research hypotheses which were proposed inchapter4through study1and study2. In study1, research design and samplecollection process are introduced firstly, and then variables’ reliability and validity areconfirmed, at last the different utility of the extraordinary experience and are tested.Simply speaking, extraordinary experience could significantly affect the visitors’belief system, but ordinary experience doesn’t have the similar effect. Study2alsoobtains data from survey. After the confirmation of the measuring reliability and validity, the theoretical framework and research assumptions are examined throughthe structure equation model. Study2finds that the ratio between skills and challenge,perceived risk, customer compatibility and environmental quality influence thevisitors’ extraordinary experience at significant level, the environmental quality andservice quality influences visitors’ perceived value significantly. In the end, therelationship between visitors’ extraordinary experience and perceived value is notsignificant, but both visitors’ satisfaction and loyalty will be impacted significantly bythese two factors.Chapter6is the overall research conclusion part. On the basis of empirical studyin chapter5, this part discusses the theories and processes about the influence visitors’extraordinary experience on visitors’ cognitive system, and puts forward the guidingprinciple of extraordinary experience’s construction in the practice field. Thesuggestions about how to carry out dally work is also provided.All in all, based on the literature review and to meet actual work needs, thispaper tests the effectiveness of visitors’ extraordinary experience, and develops theresearch model about the influence factors of the extraordinary experience andperceptive value. Finally these two models are examined through two studies. Thispaper not only enriches the theory about visitors’ experience, but also providessuggestions and management principles for the practical work.