How a spoiled vacation can change your worldview: A study of the contribution of negative touristic experiences to existential authenticity

This research is designed to address the phenomenon of existential authenticity, acquired during travel and tourism. The current research aims to legitimize the inclusion of negative experiences in the existing theoretical framework, which suggests that certain types of positive touristic experiences facilitate one’s authenticity. Based on original existential theory and current developments in the field, this study engages qualitative content analysis of travel blogs to detect the categories of negative touristic experiences that that evoke individual’s sense of self. As a result, a set of such categories emerges and demonstrates that, first, negative and positive contributing experiences may be classified similarly and, second, that negative experiences catalyze the sense of liminality, which, in turn, is a necessary requirement for the comprehension of existential authenticity. The result suggests that previously exclusion of negative experiences from the studies on authenticity in tourism is invalid and limits the understanding of the phenomenon.