Quality Tourism Experiences: a Qualitative Study of Gold Coast Resident's Perspectives as both Tourists and Hosts to Tourists

Abstract

In an experiential economy, tourists demand quality tourism experiences. Tourists want more than to see sights or to overnight in a hotel, they want each component of their travel to deliver a quality experience. As the industry becomes more competitive, industry focus and research on the determinants of quality tourism experiences is burgeoning.This research studies Gold Coast resident’s perspectives of quality tourism experiences both as a tourist and as a host to tourists. China tour group individuals applied their quality filters of pricality, functionality, aesthetics and familiarity, to benchmark the China tour mediating quality concepts, Tour leader, Locally hosted visits, Tour elements, Tour group, Tour destination, and Hosting to evaluate a quality tourism experience. Situated within the social sciences, the design of this research is multifacted and uses a blended approach of traditions and methods with the intent of interpretion and meaning-making. To this end an interpretive constructivist approach lead to the adoption of a blend of phenomenology and ethnography traditions.