Beyond quality of service: exploring what tourists really value

Abstract

Experience economy is the last segment in the growth of economic value. After the appearance of services and the quality assurance culture, experience design and management point to experience quality as the new way to assess what the customer really values. Focusing on tourism industry, the present article compares a wide sample of tourists’ numerical scores and verbal assessments, analyzed with a sentiment analysis engine. The objective is to acquire a deeper knowledge of the concept of experience quality to find out what the tourist really values.