Tourist experience as a result of interaction with alien culture

The article explores the phenomenon of tourist experience in the context of the experience economy. The purpose of the article is to reveal the process of tourist experience development. The author hypothesizes that tourist experience is a result of interaction with a alien culture, that has several stages and depends on a complex of factors. The article provides a broad analysis of scientific approaches to the definition, classification, assessment, management of tourist experience in domestic and abroad literature. The most common interpretations of tourist experience in philosophy, sociology / anthropology, economics and marketing, geography, psychology are presented. There are a clear bias in research in favor of the economy and marketing of tourist experiences and an obvious lack of sociological, psychological, and cultural studies, especially domestic ones. This article focuses on the formation of tourist experience by overcoming the cultural shock. The author interprets the cultural shock not as a pathological phenomenon, but as a normal human reaction to being in an alien environment, allowing him to enrich life experience. The signs, typology, graphic model of cultural shock are given. The depth and duration of the cultural shock experienced by tourists depend on internal and external factors. Among them, those factors that are tourism specific are of particular interest. These include the tourist experience of a person, the type of tourism – mass or individual, organized or unorganized, stage of tourism destination life cycle, etc. The factors of globalization and digitalization have a particularly strong influence. Their impact seems mixed. The author concludes that an integrated approach is important in the study of tourist experiences.