Extraordinary Experiences through Storytelling

Abstract

A global trend in the experience industry is to build an entire business or parts of a business around a story. This might apply to a single product, an organization or a destination. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to discuss and highlight critical issues to reveal new insights into conceptualizing tourism and hospitality organizations as stories. For the consumer to be immersed in the story and to have an extraordinary experience, two preconditions are proposed which relate to the type of service and the setting: one is the need for the experience to take place in a hedonic service consumption setting and the other is a servicescape that allows the consumer to step away from everyday reality. It is also proposed that involvement and co‐creation, as well as a guide, can be used to facilitate a tourist's immersion in a story and a servicescape. Should the organization succeed in creating a unique story, the benefits include the difficulty other organizations face copying the achievement and attention from the media.

Keywords:

• Storytelling
• servicescape
• dramaturgy
• extraordinary experiences
• strategy
• hospitality