Innovation strategies and technology for experience-based tourism

Tourism is undergoing significant change and facing new challenges-that call for new perspectives. At least two dimensions of the change can be identified: -new forms of tourism, characterized by the tendency to depart from mass tourism; -the diffusion of information and communication technologies, with a pervasive effect on the creation, production and consumption of the tourist product. The limited success of most attempts to exploit produced windows of opportunity indicates that we are facing a pre-paradigmatic phase of transition. Innovative attempts gain new strategic value when viewed front a perspective that values experience as an important new attribute. Such a perspective has significant consequences for the growth of destination strategies, policies, and the integration of the information-society dimension. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.