A qualitative analysis of the dimensions of the tourist experience in oriental spiritual retreats based on Eat Pray Love film

Abstract

The use of destinations in films impacts a large number of audiences, generating travel motivations and expectations. Consequently, these cinematographic destinations receive a wide number of tourists looking to satisfy their needs resulting from the visualization of the movie, wanting to recreate experiences as similar as possible to those of the protagonists. Concretely, the particular case of the phenomenon Eat Pray Love (EPL) film, directed by Ryan Murphy released in 2010, shows throughout the movie the relationship that is established between the tourist and the locals of each destination and how through the relationships established with the locals, help the protagonist during her process of searching for spirituality. The great boom of the film’s premiere made many viewers interested in making spiritual retreats in the destinations shown in the film, India and Bali. Thus, tourist packages were created that gathered the spiritual practices visualized in the film to satisfy their needs. So, by visualizing and applying Cutler and Carmichael's (2012) analysis of the dimensions of the tourist experience, it has been possible to make a comparison of how fiction has been adapted to the reality in the tourist products based on the film conducting a qualitative approach method throughout the research. Finally, the results of this research have made it possible to evaluate the programs of existing tourist packages based on the film to determine and specify the essential elements that must be present, as well as improvements and recommendations for the film destinations