Multi-Sensory Tourist Experiences

Since the end of the twentieth century, there has been an ocular-centric affinity in tourism research, often related to studies of place images and tourists’ visual sensations. But there is more to travel than sightseeing: travel experiences are not just in the eye of the beholder but also in the ears, palate, nose, hands and feet. Tourist experiences are both corporeal and multisensory. Although vision is a dominant mode of consciousness in the modern world and some 90% of our perceptual intake is visual, this may not indicate an overall significance of eyesight. What one might call polysensualism is a manifestation of the increased emphasis on senses other than vision in travel experiences. Based on personal interviews, the paper will exemplify some under-researched non-visual tourist experiences related to novel themes on the research agenda.