Train Tourism in the Context of Experiential Tourism: The Example of the Touristic Eastern Express Travel

Businesses focus on the concept of customer orientation in order to plan their activities correctly in the modern market. The concept of consumption experience has emerged in the modern marketing approach and the experiential tourism understanding has become widespread in the field of tourism. In this direction, the research focused on the concept of "train tourism", which is one of the alternative tourism types that the experiential tourism phenomenon is adopted as an approach. Moreover, the research aimed to develop a substantive theoretical model in order to determine the experiences of the individuals participating in the Eastern Express and Touristic Eastern Express travels. In the study using the grounded theory research design, the data obtained were analyzed using the constant comparative method, the three-step coding method and the coding manual. As a result of the analysis, a theoretical model named "Train Tourism Experience" and having a substantive nature was revealed. As a result of the research, eight components that generate the train tourism experience and named as "Emotional Experience, Gastronomic Experience, Hedonism, Innovative Experience, Authenticity, Popular Culture, Symbolism and Social Interaction" were revealed.