Recently, “experience economy” has been a new trend of hotel industry. Hoteliers begin to
show more concerns on providing experience rather than service. Based on this situation, I
want to discuss a model—4 realms of experience and how it relates to hotel industry.
According to Pine II and Gilmore, there are 4 realms of experience. The 4 realms are
entertainment, educational, esthetic and escapist, which differentiated by two sets of
criteria: Absorption or Immersion and Passive participation or Active participation. The
word “Immersion” may be a little difficult to understand. However, I saw a clear
explanation of the word given out by David Lee King. As he says in his article, the
immersion means “where you become physically or virtually part of the actual experience.
Instead of the experience going into the guest, with immersion, the guest ‘goes into’ the
experience.”
So based on the model, if a person participate in an activity passively and absorb
something in the mean time, he may have an entertainment experience. On the contrary, if
the person participate actively and immerse in the experience meanwhile, he may have an
escapist experience. What’s more, for a person who participate in the activity passively and
immerse, he might have an esthetic experience. Nevertheless, if the person actively
participate in the activity and try to absorb something in the meantime, he may have
educational experience.
Hoteliers are seeking for creating unforgettable experience to guests. Thus, this model
could be used as a reference. As there are various kinds of hotels, their target groups and
