Tourists’ Perceptions & Assessments

The volume examines unconscious and conscious cognitions occurring before, during and following virtual and actual leisure-related planned and unplanned travel. It includes a global review of the literature on tourists' perceptions and assessments by Woodside and Metin. The volume advances theory on hospitality meanings from both conscious and unconscious processing of stimuli (sights, actions, consequences). It explains how seemingly trivial experiences can have big repercussions in hospitality. Expanding on John Urry's grandmaster thesis, The Tourist Gaze, the volume proposes that assessments occur automatically with perceptions even when perceptions occur unconsciously. As well as a global review of the literature by Woodside and Metin, it includes highly-focused reports on the following topics: user-generated reviews in the hospitality industry; evaluation of the service performances; luxury tourists: celebrities' perspectives; nontrivial behavioral implications of trivial design choices in travel websites; the role of social psychology in the tourism experience model (TEM); destination brand performance measurement over time; perceptions of hotel disintermediation: the French generation Y case; constructing and shaping tourist experiences via travel blog engagement and more. The volume provides "reading assignments" for learning the nuances of perception and assessment processes by tourists.