Experience economy in the hospitality and tourism context

Experienced utility is an instantly perceived hedonic quality. Rooted in the idea of experienced utility, experience economy assumes that increased consumer experienced utility raises industry revenue. Previous studies have not explored the financial values identified with experiences as the main point of experience economy. The aim of this study was to explore the financial values of experience and service that hospitality and tourism customers perceive. A total of 182 hospitality and tourism customer responses were analyzed using content analysis, cross-tabulations, t-test, and ANOVA. The results revealed that the perceptual schema of product economy is clearer than that of experience economy; the monetary value of experience is lower than that of service; and there is no significant difference in financial values among experience types. Future research should examine the financial gain and loss values of specific experiential and service products perceived by customers from diverse backgrounds.