The "Place Experience" as a Key for Local Development: A Theoretical Framework

Abstract:

The promotion of local economic development processes in a metropolitan area often depends on its ability to attract sustainable tourism flows and to provide residents with a high level in the quality of life. Both are basic conditions to enhance the competitiveness of an urban context, but they become possible only if territorial planning strategies are centered on the real "experience" lived by tourists and citizens while they get in touch (either virtually or physically) with that place. This is the reason why all the choices made by policy makers, urban planners and territorial marketing managers should be aimed at promoting the best experience possible for people visiting and living their cities. So, there is a need for theoretical models capable to support practitioners in their effort for "experience design", which can find in the marketing literature many interesting conceptual grounds, with particular reference to the studies on tourism experience. This field is growing very rapidly in the last years, but at the moment it is still characterized by a high fragmentation and there is lack of systematic theoretical models. This paper aims at filling this gap by presenting a conceptual framework appositely developed in order to give a solid basis for the design, management and evaluation of the experiences lived by people when they plan, visit and remember a place.

• Periodical: Advanced Engineering Forum (Volume 11)
• Pages: 109-114
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AEF.11.109
• Online since: June 2014
• Authors: Giulio Maggiore*, Piera Buonincontri
• Keywords: Customer Experience, Sustainable Tourism, Territorial Marketing, Tourism Experience, Tourist Satisfaction

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