Research that conceptualizes tourist extraordinary experiences both from the structural and anti-structural perspective is limited in the tourism literature. The purpose of this research is to develop a new theoretical perspective that re-conceptualizes our understanding of tourists’ extraordinary experience by taking into consideration both the structural and anti-structural elements of an experience. It draws on phenomenological interviews with 26 food tourists. The study finds that extraordinary experience consists of elements such as profaneness, collaborative interactions and conflict-easing, which represent both the structural and anti-structural elements. The findings of this study allow us to question whether extraordinary experience is purely structural or anti-structural as suggested by previous research. Rather, based on the findings, we argue that extraordinary experience is the positive co-existence of both the ordinary and the non-ordinary. As a result, we use the term “synstructure” to conceptualize the tourist extraordinary experience.

This paper provides an overview of the concept extraordinary tourist experience and highlights its complexity. It also elaborates on the five facilitators (1) experiencescape, (2) properties of the experience, (3) social dynamics: (4) transformative and (5) positive surprise.

Despite ongoing problems with gender inequalities in tourism, little is known about gender differences in first and solo authorships, collaboration, and choice of research approaches. This study analyzes these academic practices using 4973 articles (11,033 authors) in three major tourism journals from 1990 to 2017. The results show evidence of gender homophilic collaboration behaviors. Gender heterogeneous co-authorships are becoming pervasive and seem to be driven by female first authors. Solo female researchers strongly associate with qualitative research. While male-only teams have the lowest likelihood of using qualitative research, the situation is more complex for gender heterogeneous teams. Practical suggestions derived from the findings for the gender equality agenda in tourism are discussed to promote more gender-diverse collaborations and female led research.

Despite ongoing problems with gender inequalities in tourism, little is known about gender differences in first and solo authorships, collaboration, and choice of research approaches. This study analyzes these academic practices using 4973 articles (11,033 authors) in three major tourism journals from 1990 to 2017. The results show evidence of gender homophilic collaboration behaviors. Gender heterogeneous co-authorships are becoming pervasive and seem to be driven by female first authors. Solo female researchers strongly associate with qualitative research. While male-only teams have the lowest likelihood of using qualitative research, the situation is more complex for gender heterogeneous teams. Practical suggestions derived from the findings for the gender equality agenda in tourism are discussed to promote more gender-diverse collaborations and femaleled research