The Production and Consumption of Experiences: A Study of the Spa Industry in Norway

Summary: The experience economy has been put on the political agenda particularly in the Scandinavian countries, where the role of the experience industries with regard to regional and rural development has received a fair amount of attention. As a result, existing research on the experience industry to a large extent deals with parts of the industry characterized by parttime employment and seasonal activities in rural locations. In addition, the existing literature presents a variety of practices regarding how researchers categorize both the experience industries as well as several related fields. How to demarcate the experience industries is not an obvious matter, and the first topic to be addressed here is therefore categorization. The work with exploring research question 1: What characterizes the experience industries, and what challenges do we face when attempting to define and categorize them? resulted in Paper 1; ‘Defining and categorizing the experience industries’ which was co-written with my supervisor, Professor Britt Engan Dale (Nilsen & Dale, 2013). Here the debate surrounding the demarcation and definition of the service industry in the 1980s and 1990s is used to shed light on the ongoing debate regarding the experience industries. General principles of classification are presented, as well as suggestions relating to the existing classification system of economic activity, the NACE code system, and its limitations. The next main topic is how the spa industry can illustrate the massive consumption trend that the experience industries represent, and what characterizes the spa industry is investigated into by looking at how the industry is marketing itself. To answer research question 2: ‘What characterizes the Norwegian spa industry, what is its marketing communicating, and how are the spa industry’s experience spaces constructed and represented?’ - I analysed Norwegian spa’s home pages in Paper 2: ‘Presenting spa experiences online: constructing places of wellbeing’ (Nilsen, Manuscript submitted). The spa industry uses a number of objects and artefacts, ideas and philosophies actively in the marketing of treatments that either provide the customer with well-being experiences or are aimed at modifying the customer’s physical appearance. The analysis suggests that self-disciplined bodies and consumption are increasingly interlinked, luxury is something we all deserve, authenticity is a relative concept, and that the exotic ‘others’ are still used to identify ‘us’. The third main topic addressed in this thesis is that of the experience itself. Attempting to understand the experience industries without having a clear understanding of what an experience is and means to people seems futile. In the attempt to reach such an understanding, psychological elements, as well as social dimensions, ought to be included in addition to the role and impact of surrounding materiality. Crucial elements in this context are the way in which the body to an increasing degree can be a scene of consumption as well as a display of capital. To answer research question 3: What role does the body play in the individual’s production and consumption of spa experiences? therapists and customers are interviewed about their spa experiences. The results are presented in Paper 3: ‘The role of the body and body ideals in the production and consumption of spa experiences’ (Nilsen, 2013). In the article, the body’s central role in this kind of experience consumption is emphasized, as well as the different roles that various people’s bodies take on. While some bodies are in place, others are not, and how consumption, identity, and the body are connected is central to the analysis. Part 1 of the thesis links the various topics together, provides a background for understanding the growth of the experience industries, and gives a more thorough account of the methods used