A Comprehensive Socio-economic Model of the Experience Economy : the Territorial Stage

This paper deals with the economic dimension of the experience economy, i.e. how economic value is created between customers and producers and is articulated to monetary transactions. After discussing the Pine & Gilmore’s metaphor of stage and concept of admission fees, we propose the model of the Territorial Stage constituted by two elements. First, the Territorial Stage depends on the accumulation of transactions along history (complex process in time and space). Second, the accumulation of the transactions constitutes the territorial stage under a concrete dimension (arrangement, spatial organization, activities, etc.) and a symbolic dimension (image, reputation, level of range and price). From this core concept, we then suggest an operational typology of Territorial Economic Transactions (TETs) to analyse the history of Swiss tourism resorts. Indeed, tourism resorts are good examples of the fact that value, in the experience economy, is not produced at the scale of a business but beyond companies. Conclusions suggest that today’s development of the EE is the result of a double movement of ‘touristification’. First, the mobility of people increases and opens infinite possibilities to develop presential transactions. Second, traditional goods are more and more transformed into goods enriched by symbolic territorial meanings.