Untitled

216 experimental research
distinctive quality and their relation to the
experiences of everyday life.
Travel was in the past a frightening rather than
enjoyable experience, though some individuals, like
explorers and adventurers, were exhilarated by its
dangers and challenges. With the general improvement
of security and the development of modern
means of transportation, travel increasingly
became a more comfortable and pleasurable
experience. With the routinisation and stress of
modern life, the disappearance of traditional
lifestyles in industrialised societies and the
despoliation of their environment, travel and
vacations became for many modern people an
opportunity for interesting, enjoyable and often
memorable experiences, which often retrospectively
became the highlights of their lives. Indeed,
some tourist experiences resemble Maslow's `peak
experiences', an intense personal sense of loss of
identity in the grandeur, awe or ecstasy of the
moment, as in the presence of a `breathtaking'
natural sight. Such experiences have sometimes
been called `nature mysticism'. Most tourists,
however, do not ordinarily reach such heights, but
enjoy their journey in a spirit of quiet, often playful
animation. However, as tourism becomes increasingly
routinised and attractions and destinations
are commoditised, the difference between
everyday and tourist experiences decreases: tourism
tends to become just another consumer activity,
forfeiting much of its distinctiveness.
In the sociological discourse of tourism, the
problem of the nature of the touristic experiences
of moderns focused upon the question of authenticity:
do tourists seek to experience the authenticity
of other places and other times �as
MacCannell would ask), or are they satisfied with
merely contrived, inauthentic offerings, staged �see
staged authenticity) for them by the tourism
business? However, the concept of `authenticity' is
a social construction. One individual may conceive
and experience a place, performance or object as
`authentic', while another may not. A typology of
tourism experiences can be constructed on the
basis of the centrality of the tourist's quest for the
`authentic'. Thus, Cohen's `existential' tourists seek
direct immersion in the `authentic' life and culture
of the hosts; `experiential' tourists seek primarily a
vicarious observation of the authentic life of others;
while `recreational' tourists tend to stay satisfied
with the make-believe presentations of authenticity,
which they playfully accept as real. It indeed
appears that the playful enjoyment of `surfaces' has
superseded the `quest' for `authenticity' as the
cultural model of the touristic experience of
`postmodern' tourists �see postmodernism).
See also: liminality; ludic; play; rites of passage;
ritual
Further reading
Cohen, E. �1979) À phenomenology of touristic
experiences', Sociology 13: 179±201.
MacCannell, D. �1973) `Staged authenticity: arrangements
of social space in tourist settings',
American Journal of Sociology 79�3): 589±603.
Maslow, A.H. �1978) Towards a Psychology of Being,
2nd edn, Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand.
experimental research
ERIK COHEN, ISRAEL
Experimentation is a deductive approach to
research. It entails the intervention of the researcher,
usually to introduce the independent
variable, with a high degree of control over the
dependent variable. There are broadly three such
methodologies: experimental, quasi-experimental
and action research. All three may have a role to
play in understanding tourism. True experiments
are commonly thought of as being laboratory
based, due to the high level of control that good
experimentation requires. However, laboratory
experimentation has the weaknesses in that population
validity may be low and `ecological validity'
is weak. To overcome these weaknesses, it is
possible to conduct quasi-experiments outside the
laboratory in real-life situations, although doing so
presents different problems. Such experimentation,
however, requires the study of large groups if the
many variations and ambiguities involved in
human behaviour are to be controlled. Thus such
large-scale experiments tend to be expensive to set
up and take more time. Action research, an
alternative form of experimentation, involves the