Tourists as Experience Collectors : Conceptualizing the Process of Collecting

While literature on experiential tourism suggests that travellers are increasingly more interested in unique, extraordinary and collectable experiences, little has been said about nature and dynamics of tourists seeking to add destinations or travelling experiences to their collection. Using collecting as the main theoretical lens, we re-conceptualise frequent travellers as collectors of travelling experiences. Findings from our 22 in-depth interviews with frequent travellers indicate that this is a pervasive and prevalent process across many tourists. They also uncover the stages, sub-processes and characteristics of the collecting travelling experiences process. Based on these findings, we further discuss how tourism organizations, local authorities and policy makers can apply the produced framework to understand frequent travellers’ behaviour and respond accordingly