Leisure experience and imagination - Rethinking Cohen's modes of tourist experience

Holiday-makers experience the places where they are on holiday in different ways. Back in 1979, Erik Cohen introduced his 'modes of tourist experience '. Cohen's approach was promising for better understanding 'experiences' in a phenomenological way, but very Little happened afterwards with his 'mode s' either in a theoretical or empirical way. This article reconsiders his t heoretical model and reformulates the modes of experience, which have a bas is in Alfred Schutz's lifeworld concept, and a theory on imagination and me taphors. The role imagination can play in free-time experiences is that it can provide a new synthesis between the self and the environment. The metap horical context has a quality that can be referred to as 'out-there-ness'. The concept of out-there-ness, instead of Cohen's 'centre-out-there', can b e well applied to leisure situations where no centres are relevant, but onl y orientations and metaphorical references.