Experiential Destination Marketing and Tourist Behavior: A Research on Senior Tourists

Abstract

Destination tourism activities and objects, by their very nature, are experience based and have a high potential in terms of experiential marketing’s applicability. In this regard, it has been aimed to adapt strategic experiential marketing modules (sense, feel, act, think and relate) to the destination of Istanbul and to analyze the effect of those components on the satisfaction level and behavioral intentions (loyalty, intention to pay more and negative WOM) of senior tourists visiting Istanbul, Turkey. Data were collected by a self-administrative questionnaire on senior visitors. The results of structural equation model showed direct and indirect relations between strategic experiential marketing modules, experiential satisfaction and behavioral intentions.