2001/06/01 by Jaap Lengkeek, J. Lengkeek
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research #Recreation, Leisure, Wilderness Management #Religious Tourism and Spaces
paper · doi:10.1177/0268580901016002003
openalex publication_date 2001/06/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/26
Holiday-makers experience the places where they are on holiday in different ways. Back in 1979, Erik Cohen introduced his `modes of tourist experience'. Cohen's approach was promising for better understanding `experiences' in a phenomenological way, but very little happened afterwards with his `modes' either in a theoretical or empirical way. This article reconsiders his theoretical model and reformulates the modes of experience, which have a basis in Alfred Schutz's lifeworld concept, and a theory on imagination and metaphors. The role imagination can play in free-time experiences is that it can provide a new synthesis between the self and the environment. The metaphorical context has a quality that can be referred to as `out-there-ness'. The concept of out-there-ness, instead of Cohen's `centre-out-there', can be well applied to leisure situations where no centres are relevant, but only orientations and metaphorical references.