Digging deep into the experience – flow and immersion patterns in a mountain holiday

What is it about?

This paper provides a longitudinal study of a 5-days tourist stay in a mountain resort, where flow and immersion are analysed to understand how consumers experience and construct their holiday stay. The need to carry a longitudinal study is motivated by the lack of research looking at what actually happens during the experience in itself. More precisely, the long encounter of a holiday is often disregarded and the tourist experience is studied afterwards through single and comprehensive satisfaction surveys. How consumers evolve across a holiday stay and construct their experience is an understanding that needs further investigations. Among the variety of concepts developed to study the experience, flow and immersion are particularly interesting foundations since they bring a detailed analysis of the processes that lie at the heart of the experience. This study aims to identify how both concepts develop within a holiday context and what strategic knowledge might be gained from their analysis. A qualitative study conducted on a sample of 10 individuals interviewed every day of their stay provides curves showing the occurrences of flow episodes. More importantly, the study looks at the evolution of flow and immersion across each day of a holiday stay: it identifies the conditions of their emergence; their recurrence; and, how they influence one another. Managerial implications call for a more strategic analysis of the specific components that support the emergence of flow and immersion. Theoretically the paper brings a deeper understanding of the tourist experience progression and questions the potential linkages between flow and immersion.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

The literature has not yet fully addressed the concept of flow and immersion in a holiday experience, this article helps to understand how consumers evolve through different types of experiences. Its major insight comes from its longitudinal study, which is rarely undertaken in tourism.