title: Understanding Transformative Experiences in Cross-Cultural Contexts
Creators: name: Teoh, Wei Yii
Publisher: name: Griffith University
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: co-creation
subject: transformative experiences
subject: culture

description: Travel and tourism experiences hold tremendous power beyond their economic value. They have the power to transform how consumers see or define themselves and others as they interpret the meaning of these experiences. Therefore, travel and tourism experiences have benefits that transcend the destination, whether these are physical, knowledge, psychological or social. As more and more consumers anticipate greater meaning and value from their travel and tourism experiences, transformations appear as a beacon towards satisfying this need. However, there are two significant issues in transformative experience research: first, studies have yet to holistically explore the transformative experience phenomenon beyond specific contexts or theories; and second, while studies shed light on the importance of culture, none has explicitly approached the understanding of culture and transformations in cross-cultural contexts. This PhD project aims to understand transformative experiences in cross-cultural contexts by addressing two specific objectives. The first explores how travel and tourism experiences transform those consuming these experiences by reviewing all travel and tourism transformative experience literature. Consumers can transform from various travel and tourism experiences, such as backpacking, voluntourism, educational tourism, wellness retreats or visiting dark heritage sites. Theoretical discussions tend to lean on a specific theory depending on the context – that is, voluntourism and transformative learning theory or independent travel and existential transformation – resulting in different triggers or outcomes. Furthermore, the first objective allowed the identification of future research avenues and a set of literature gaps that then informed the second objective, which focuses on understanding the intersection between transformations and culture in cross-cultural tourism experiences. This objective provides greater insight into understanding transformative experiences, particularly the triggers, processes, barriers and outcomes that exist in cross-cultural contexts. This PhD project is designed as a set of three studies, each of which focuses on the objectives and overarching aim of this PhD project, which they collectively answer. Overall, this PhD project is based on an interpretive, qualitative philosophical paradigm and seeks to deepen understanding and build toward the theoretical breadth and depth of the cross-cultural transformative experience phenomenon. Study 1 focuses exclusively on the first objective, holistically conceptualising transformative experience from a cocreated perspective, identifying three main dimensions in co-created transformative experiences and respective outcomes: knowledge, physical, social or psychological transformations. Study 1 also identifies gaps in the existing literature that inform Studies 2 and 3, revolving around one central objective: understanding the intersection between transformation and culture in cross-cultural tourism experiences. Study 2 uses an analytical autoethnographic method to understand how independent tourists consume culture and co-create their experiences to transform their understanding of the culture. It identifies how cultural materials in the destination act as physical stimuli for experience co-creation, during which barriers can form from unmet expectations and poor service provision. Furthermore, the study identifies tourists’ positive and negative transformations, especially in their perspective, values and behaviours towards the destination’s people. Study 3 uses semi-structured interviews to understand how educational tourists transform in cross-cultural environments, especially those living at the destination for an extended time. The study identifies four circumstantial environments through which educational tourists encounter cultural materials and discusses how various facilitators can guide or shape educational tourists’ experiences in these environments. The study also uncovers how educational tourists’ motivations enable meaning-creation in the experiences and educational tourists’ transformation processes. Specifically, educational tourists diverge in their knowledge transformation, whether towards their competencies or destination understanding, and how cultural familiarity with the destination mediates a psychological or social transformation. Theoretically, this PhD project provides a holistic, co-created transformative experience conceptual framework to assist in better understanding transformative experiences. It also provides breadth and depth towards understanding transformations in cross-cultural contexts and how culture has multiple roles within different actors, whether suppliers, facilitators or consumers. Practically, the PhD project offers different levels of suggestions, all of which cater to the different actors in the experience. Recommendations to suppliers include improving, preserving and conserving cultural materials to create emotional and thought-provoking meaning-making opportunities. Facilitators should focus on guiding and shaping consumers’ transformations by educating them on the essential meanings behind the observed destination’s culture and encouraging reflective activities. Finally, consumers should focus on proactively interpreting the meanings behind their experiences through tangible or intangible actions (e.g. journaling or storytelling), using their motivations as a foundation.