Designing a tourist experience for numen seekers

Abstract

Purpose

Although tourist experience has been considerably studied, there is a dearth of research on spiritual cognitive stages in tourism literature. Therefore, this paper aims to reveal the dimensions of the tourist experience based on numinosity context.

Design/methodology/approach

A qualitative method is used by the etic and emic approach with an ethnographic background. After observation and active participation in the field, data was collected from 44 participants with semi-structured interviews to reveal their numinous experiences dimensions.

Findings

The results show that numinous experience in three categories (mysterium, tremendum and fascinans) can be evaluated in seven dimensions including history, story, awe, reverence, atmosphere, place-based and nature-based dimensions.

Practical implications

This study provides managerial and practical implications for tourism stakeholders to be aware of numinous experiences and to better manage sacred places.

Originality/value

This paper offers a novel tourist experience design in the numinous context to the best of the authors’ knowledge.

Citation

Bideci, M. and Bideci, C. (2021), "Designing a tourist experience for numen seekers", Qualitative Market Research, Vol. 24 No. 5, pp. 704-725. https://doi.org/10.1108/QMR-12-2020-0147