Intangible cultural heritage and experiential tourism: a netnographic analysis of tourists engaging in craft based tours in Jammu and Kashmir.

The research focuses on how tourism is co-produced between the informal environment and individual tourists using a case of traditional craftsmanship of Pashmina craft Jammu and Kashmir. The purpose is to identify the elements that make tourists cultural encounters (serendipitous or planned) experiential. The research therefore attempts to add to the existing body of knowledge by exploring the basic question of what makes cultural tourism based on intangible culture experiential? Cultural tourism and crafts tourism encourage staging of experiences, however this study attempts to understand how a tourist innovates and interprets everyday life of a destination to achieve authentic experiences that are characteristic of a destination. The data has been analysed using netnographic analysis of 20 travel blogs. The results of this study have implications in marketing of craftsmanship as an intangible cultural resource.