Framing the “Romantic Blur”: How Tourists’ Idealize Adventure Experiences

ABSTRACT

Specialized adventure tourism providers are facing challenges when delivering experiences due to tourists’ unrealistic expectations. The literature has highlighted that a “romantic blur” has been covering tourists’ perceptions in this regard, creating difficulties in the experiencescapes. The need to have a better understanding of how tourists idealize the adventures they are buying, what drives them to engage in those adventures, and what they expect from service providers has led to this study. Results disclose an identifiable pattern in the “romantic blur” that covers tourists’ expectations regarding their adventure experiences, as well as the potential to explore the Experience Economy principles.

KEYWORDS:

• adventure tourism
• experience economy
• idealizations
• extraordinary experience
• experiencescape

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia [UID/ECO/00685/2020].