Experiential dimensions in leisure marketing: a study on 2009 Rock?n Coke Festival participants

In growing world economies, it is difficult to satisfy personalized consumer needs by traditional marketing strategies. Thus, experience is becoming the best way to satisfy consumer demands. It is clear that every global sectors from all types of companies to all consumer products apply for the experiential marketing practices focusing on experiences in the process of buying. It is also observed that in leisure sector, managers provide experiential stimuli to consumers. Having an enjoyable experience during leisure is often the ultiamte goal of leisure participants. On the other hand, providing an enjoyable experience is the ultimate goal of leisure resource managers. In addition leisure experience has a compex nature, it is an emerging state of mind resulting from interactions with others in the environment. This implies that the outcomes may not be the same as the nature of interactions are believed to vary. In this sense, the purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of participants? of Rock?n Coke Festival.This thesis contains three chapters. In chapter 1, the concept of leisure, leisure marketing and the leisure marketing mix were explained. Chapter 2 was about the concept of experience, experiential marketing and its features, leisure experience and its dimensions. At the last chapter of the thesis, chapter 3, there was a study on participants of 2009 Rock?n Coke Festival.The findings indicate that there are many dimensions of leisure experience, and these dimensions have an impact on pleasure behaviour, intention to recommend and satisfaction level of the participants. The results also revealed that the aspects of leisure experience were found to be significantly varied according to demographics. The results of the study have significant differences as to how organizers of the leisure and recreation activities interpret experience, satisfaction, intention to recommend and thoughts about participation. Managerial and research implications can be formulated based on these results.