Concept and Measurement of Memorable Tourism Experience

In the last twenty years scholars and practitioners have shown in­terest in exploring the concept of tourist experience from different perspec­tives. However, therefore less attention has been paid to the research on the tourist experience with special emphasis on the concept of memorable expe­rience (MTE). Starting from the above, the purpose of this paper is to present a detailed and systematic quantitative research review aimed at identifying new trends in MTE research and reducing the existing gaps in the experience economy literature. For the purposes of this research, 47 studies on MTE pub­lished between 2010 and 2021 were analyzed according to the year of publi­cation, geographic coverage, publication source and forms of tourism. The re­sults of this study suggest that the largest number of studies of MTE were con­ducted in 2019 (21.28%) in Asia (56.81%) and published in the journal Anatolia (10.64%). Further analysis revealed that the largest number of research were carried out in the context of destination and gastronomic tourism. Therefore, only for these two forms of tourism, the causal relationship of different vari­ables was analyzed, thus gaining an insight into their measurement instru­ments. In measuring the destination memorable tourism experience the MTE model is the most common one, while in measuring gastronomic tourism the most frequently applied dimensions are novelty, food quality, service environ­ment and atmosphere. From a management perspective, the findings of this study offer practical implications for measuring MTE, especially in the context of destination and gastronomic tourism. Based on the analyzed data, tour­ism providers can get an insight into the tested and valid instrumentation that can allow them to determine strengths and weaknesses in the existing elements of their offer always focusing on the possibilities for long-term im­provement of the whole service.