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For online experiential products, tactile attributes are important but hard-to-achieve features. This research aims to explore consumers' emotional experiences by incorporating tactile attributes into the online clothing shopping scenario.

This paper presents two online shopping experiments by consumers who purchase online clothing: one experiment involves subjects browsing clothing products on a computer screen; the other one involves subjects touching the clothing fabric while browsing a corresponding product on a computer screen. Based on the stimulus–organism–response (S-O-R) model, a physiological polygraph was used to record the emotional experience of subjects under the stimuli of “sight” and “sight + touch.”

(1) Subjects had a more positive emotional arousal under the stimuli of “sight + touch”; (2) the visual merchandising of clothing and expected touch task affect subjects' overall emotional experience with clothing, and with a good visual experience and expected tactile experience, the subjects showed a more positive emotional valence under the stimuli of “sight + touch”; (3) differing from previous research, this experimental data only supports the hypothesis that the skin conductance indicator is related to the level of emotional arousal, without supporting its correlation with emotional valence. However, the heart rate indicator is correlated with emotional valence but not with emotional arousal.

This work proposes a way to study the tactile attributes of online clothing and enriches the theoretical framework of polygraph and the S-O-R model for the research of online experiential products, and in terms of application, it sheds light on sales strategies of online experiential products for retailers and brand owners.

This chapter aims to share practical experiences in creative tourism management, in order to propose some basic guidelines for DMOs and DMCs interested in designing activities that cater to this new demand. Specifically, our intention is to analyze and highlight the basic criteria that most weighs to fit such a singular demand.

As practitioners, most of the examples, observations, and analyses are based on our daily management of the Creative Tourism Network® (CTN) and the solutions found by our members in the development of their creative tourism programs all over the world. These observations rely also on surveys and literature references.

(i) The emergence of the experiential tourism in general, and the creative one in particular, is only the visible part of the paradigm shift that is affecting the tourist industry, leading to the appearance of new opportunities and challenges. (ii) Amidst such a new and versatile context, it’s important to analyze the factors that contribute to the experience achievement, in order to adapt them and guarantee the best practices. (iii) This enables to list down some guidelines and practical advises for managers to cater this new demand.

This chapter is written simultaneously with the paradigm shift and thus limits the distance we can have on its evolution as well as on the study’s completeness. It thus just pretends to provide a provisional balance of the current situation, contrasted with literature reviews.

The emergence of creative tourism implies a completely new form of management for both cultural and tourist fields that leads to the creation of specific skills and general guidelines to be adapted for different contexts.

The study, based on examples proposed by the CTN, offers a transversal overview of creative tourism, a sector that has not been deeply analyzed yet given its increasing growth. It is thus a novel approach, close to the practitioners’ daily challenges.