Research On The Travel Experience And Self-identity Of Working Tourists

Working holiday tourism,the new type of tourism,which is a part of the tourism industry,has been increasingly sought after by young people in recent years.It combines work and tourism and makes young people who have limited money but plenty of time and are eager to stay in a tourist destination for a long time also have the opportunity to enjoy an in-depth travel experience.In the field of tourism practice,many travel agencies have already paid attention to this young tourist group,such as the agency--Youyou Ji and the organization--EASIN,and regularly recruit working tourists in various ways.In fact,they link young people with tourist destinations by working tourism to meet the aspirations of them and promote sustainable development of tourism destinations.However,although the working tourism is in full swing in the tourism industry,domestic scholars still are not paying enough attention to the working tourist in the circle of tourism academics.Working tourists are often discussed in the group of backpackers or marginal groups in the tourism immigration system The development of practice,the educational attributes,commercial attributes and sustainable development of tourism destinations contained by working tourism urgently require the tourism academic community to conduct a separate research and understanding on the working tourism group.In view of this,the article tries to use the sociological perspective and selects Lijiang Ancient City,which is one of the tourist destinations preferred by the working tourist group,as a case study place.Through the participatory observation,in-depth interviews and online travel diaries to obtain research data,the author adopts social construction theory to analyze the constructive subject,constructive process,constructive method,constructive specific content and constructive outcome of the overall experience of working tourists' in Lijiang ancient city.Trying to explore the following questions:(1)What are the constructive subject and means of working tourist's experience?What are the main processes involved in social construction of working tourist's exerience?What are the specific contents of the construction?(2)Through the travel experience,what changes have occurred in the self-identity of working tourists?(3)In addition,what role does the work play in the entire experience?Through scientific research and analysis,the following conclusions are drawn:(1)The subject of tourism experience is the working tourist.The object of tourism experience are tourist attractions.The social construction of tourism attraction is the starting point of the construction of the tourism experience.The construction of tourism experience includes two types:initial construction and reconstruction.The construction process is divided into three stages,which are the expected tourism experie nce stage,the on-site tourism experience stage and the recalling tourism experience stage.The construction subjects,construction type and construction content are different because of the different stage of tourism experience.(2)The construction content of the expected tourism experience is mainly divided into two sub-categories of "Imagination of Lijiang" and "Imagination of the mode of working tourism".The content of the on-site tourism experience is divided into 5 sub-categories including "sign/view experience,cultural experience,host--guest interaction experience,Life-style leisure experience and warm interpersonal relationship experience".The recalling tourism experience stage's construction content has two sub-categories that are "travel narrative" and "self-narrative".The dimensions of self-narrative and self-identification are overlapped.(3)The inherent characteristics of emerging adulthood and the structural characteristics of modern society are the main reasons for the self-identification crisis of working tourists.Working tourism can be regarded as a life practice or choice for young people who has a need to seek for new self-identity.(4)The final result of the tourism experience's construction is self-identity.It is the content of the expected tourism experience that satisfies the "differentiation" demand of working tourist.The on-site tourism experience gives the working tourists a sense of self-belonging."Travel narrative" in the recalling tourism experience stage strengthens the sense of self-meaning of the working tourist,while "self-narrative”including the changes of world view expansion,self-change,self-efficacy,self-re flection and self-cognition.The satisfaction of "differentiation" demand,sense of self-belonging,sense of self-meaning and the dimensions of self-narrative all together promote the formation of new self-identity.(5)Work is not only a means to extend the length of travel time for working tourist,but also a method to ensure that working tourist can obtain the multi-dimensional tourism experiences in host community.In the meantime,work facilitates the formation of self-identity by promoting the participants' self-efficiency.The innovations of the article are as follows:(1)From the participants' perspective,the research pay attention to working tourists who are young,and deepens the research on the segmentation of the young people's tourism market.(2)As for the research content,the paper analyzes the social construction stage of working tourists' experience and the relationship between tourism experience and self-identity,which enriches the research of tourism experience.Through the case study,the article focuses on the emerging phenomenon of working tourist.By taking the working tourists in the ancient city of Lijiang as the research object,the research analyses the social construction phases of working tourist's experience and tries to build the relationship between the tourism experience and self-identity.Hope that the fingings can provide a comprehensive understanding of the working tourist's experience in academic community and some inspirations of product marketing and project design for working tourism in business field.