Touristic quest for existential authenticity

This study examines the experience of repeat tourists who participate actively in a Renaissance festival, front indepth interviews and participant observation over two consecutive years. Results contradict the general view of such commercial attractions as merely "spectacle" or "inauthentic". The notion of existential authenticity is central to understanding the experience of regular, repeat festival-goers who take their participation seriously. This committed action is a means of attaining heightened bodily feelings, expressing, regaining, or reconstructing a sense of desired self, and developing authentic intersubjective relationships. The study supports the existential notion in terms of intrapersonal and interpersonal authenticity.