A Conceptualization of the Senses, Emotions, and Memories in Memorable Tourism Experiences

Abstract

This chapter explores a conceptualization of the elements that create a memorable tourism experience – senses, emotions, and memories. A comprehensive and coherent theoretical model is established to explain the complexities involved in the tourism experience creation (tourism experience relational model) and in the memorable tourism experience (conceptual model). The data suggest that, first, the senses developed an important role in the experiential stimuli perception; second, the emotions are fundamental to these experiential stimuli understanding and meaning creation, and third, memory is essential in the codification and storage process and anticipation of meaningful information to future experiences. The conceptual model is based on the five senses (sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch), three positive emotions (joy, love, and positive surprise), and two memorable elements (recollection and vividness). Future research opportunities in the memorable tourism experience are explored, such as the relation between the sense, emotions, and memories.