Empirical & Theoretical Themes

After this foundation has been established, an additional element of core themes raised by the interviewees is going to be presented. An initial scanning of the interviews has been conducted in such a way that issues raised in each interview were noted, and the themes that seemed most prevalent by recurring in several interviews were chosen as the themes to focus on in the analysis. This means that the data material to a large extent suggests the content of the analysis. In addition, theory as presented in previous chapters⁷⁶ will be applied to the analysis at a later stage as a means to understand the empirical themes raised during the interview process. The aim is that theory and empirical data will correlate in a way that reflects the hermeneutical process behind this piece of research, i.e. theory will enhance understandings of empirical data and vice versa.

The core themes that have been extracted from the interviews are presented below.

The data review forms a basis for generating these specific themes, which operate on

76 See chapters 4 + 5

many different levels. They are issues expressed by the interviewees, and not factual descriptions of what has taken place in terms of tourist experiences. The subsequent analysis will address these themes and related theory.

• The Tourism Context :

(Defined as issues that surround a specific tourist experience, and thus influence it)

o Individual circumstances, e.g. practical considerations (finances, time, compromises etc.) forming a particular frame for the experience

o Collective influences, e.g. historical developments, i.e. travel opportunities and norms at a point in time pointing out certain directions

• The Tourist Experience:

(Defined as issues related to the tourist experience itself – both notion A + B play a role in this respect)

o Approach to the tourist experience (focus on the number of different experiences vs. getting a lot of details out of one experience)

o Adventure (risk and danger vs. trivialisation) o Novelty (opposed to familiarity)

o Atmosphere – underlying the experience as a frame of reference (nostalgia, ideals and dreams)

• Outcome:

(Defined as issues that relate to what is gained from the tourist experience in retrospect)

o Memories & Togetherness (forming bonds based on experience)

o Recharging: Relaxation and escape (getting away and preparing for everyday life)

It is thus assumed that the core of it all is the tourist experience itself, but surrounding it are aspects of context and outcome that do play significant roles for the way the experience is discursively positioned. There is a high correlation between these empirical themes and the theory presented previously, in that Mossberg’s

time/space dimension of an experience⁷⁷ entails a before, during and after, which may very well correspond to the above themes. Aspects of the tourism context may be said to relate to the before dimension, since practical considerations, historical developments etc. are part of considerations and influences on any given holiday and the choices that precede it, and hence the upcoming tourist experience. The tourist experience naturally relates directly to during, in terms of notion A, since all of the mentioned topics within this theme have to do with the experience itself. There are, however, aspects that relate to the way the experience is internalised in the tourist, i.e. notion B. Although aspects of both notions are implied by the interviewees, notion A is in focus at this point.

Last but not least, outcome relates to the after dimension where there is a sense of having gained something from a holiday and a specific tourist experience. In this sense, the before and after dimensions are surrounding circumstances that affect the choices made, as they go into the process of the travel career. During the experience is a process in itself that operates on different levels, as described and discussed in the theory chapter.⁷⁸ The core of the following model described previously is the process of experiencing at two different levels, described as notion A and B as shown in Figure 6.1.

Figure 6.1

A→B: Accumulation

B→A: Expectations/Outcome

The contention is that this process, during, within the process of a coherent before, during and after, entails an accumulation process that affects the experience at both levels (A and B) via generated memory, whether it is unconscious (implicit) or explicit (conscious). As mentioned earlier, the conscious and unconscious levels of experience play into these two notions, because notion A is primarily conscious and notion B may

77 See section 5.2.1 A Tourist Perspective.

78 See section 5.1 The Tourist Experience – Dual Notions and Perspectives

Notion B:

Accumulated tourist experience Notion A:

Single Tourist experiences

be conscious at some level, but to a great extent it is unconscious. They both play into the tourist experience at an analytical level as well, because the expressed notion A experiences are tangible and thus also accessible methodologically speaking, and notion B experience is hidden and thus also somewhat inaccessible. However, it is assumed that notion B can be made accessible through the data material and the ways notion A is characterised and positioned by the interviewees.

There seems to be a link between the presented theory and these empirical themes, and the hermeneutic process of this study will continuously address both theory and empirical data, which will also affect the later analysis. The steps below are thus meant to illustrate the analytical process in relation to previous theoretical concepts, as described in Chapters 4 and 5, and more directly applied to this study above. This is also meant to illustrate the incorporation of the empirical data into this analytical structure:

Figure 6.2

The idea is that the three core themes form step 1 of the analysis, which also entails an application of theoretical perspectives of before, during and after, as presented in the theory chapter 5. The first step is primarily concentrated around notion A of the experience, although in light of issues connected to notion B as well, because they are not completely separable notions. Moreover, the discourse on these tourist experiences is as important to the experiences entailed in this step as anything else.

Step 2 incorporates the travel career by linking interviewee experiences and analysing

them as coherent entities. It is in relation to the application of the travel career that the above mentioned travel units, patterns and types of tourist experiences may be useful as a way of moving from a generalised description into more detailed levels of understanding. Step 2 will be moving into notion B of the experience, in that relations between experiences will be explored. Eventually, identity construction will be explored at step 3, the final step of analysis, drawing on the former two levels of analysis and theory previously introduced,⁷⁹ in an attempt to answer the research questions.

The results of the analyses are therefore expected to be rather complex, but also a reflection of a field that has many different levels, which means that the complexity of the results represents a certain value. The reasoning behind this approach is that by looking into these themes, generated from the empirical data but analysed through the theoretical framework, it will be possible to explore tourist experiences and their different connotations in the world of the tourist. When related to the travel career, it will also become possible to explore the shifting experiences, at least to the extent that they are being reflected upon and narrated by these interviewees, which then becomes the constructed identity resting on tourist experiences. Identity construction in terms of the way these travel careers are composed narratively is more important than anything else. This is not an attempt to understand the shifts in actual behaviour, but the way they are used discursively to construct identity. That is the aim of the analysis and this study in general, and therefore also where the analysis ends. In the following chapters, the above framework will be applied as the analysis is conducted.

79 The analytical process has nothing to do with ways in which identity is constructed, i.e.

these three steps do not imply steps of identity construction, but merely steps of the analysis to explore identity construction.