| Abstract: | This article purports to explore the impact of the four types of experiences - education, entertainment, escapism, and aesthetics - proposed by Pine and Gilmore (1999) on the collective experience across a range of interactive technologies in a leading technology-empowered tourist destination – la Cité du Vin in Bordeaux. The findings reveal that passive and active technologies have different impacts on the visitor's social experience. Technologies that require visitors' active participation afford opportunities for verbal and physical interactions with other visitors. By contrast, passive technologies, providing recreational and artistic content to visitors without them having to interact with the technology, tend to preclude social interactions. This research contributes to the literature addressing the social experience phenomenon in a cultural tourism context. It also provides important implications for managers involved in the design and management of technology-empowered tourism experiences. |
