<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>There has been a spectacular growth in the escape game sector over the past decade. The extraordinary global impact of escape rooms, their implications for tourism, and the limited literature provide grounds for this research. This paper examines such phenomena using an empirical methodology based on a geographic analysis of business repositories and a global survey. Tourism plays a significant role in the escape room industry: approximately one of every three customers is a tourist. Escape roomer-tourists have even been detected: people who essentially plan their trips with the sole intention of playing these games. A significant contrast exists between business-owners and countries, however, as to the role given to foreign customers and the opportunities that all the above implies. Indeed, the connection between escape room narratives and the local culture has been shown to be weak in a majority of cases. Thus, this contribution seeks to feed into an emerging and increasingly relevant debate that has been little addressed in tourism geography: linking experiences, creative economies, authenticity and cultural heritage, etc. – through escape rooms.</p>
</abstract>

There has been a spectacular growth in the escape game sector over the past decade. The extraordinary global impact of escape rooms, their implications for tourism, and the limited literature provide grounds for this research. This paper examines such phenomena using an empirical methodology based on a geographic analysis of business repositories and a global survey. Tourism plays a significant role in the escape room industry: approximately one of every three customers is a tourist. Escape roomer-tourists have even been detected: people who essentially plan their trips with the sole intention of playing these games. A significant contrast exists between business-owners and countries, however, as to the role given to foreign customers and the opportunities that all the above implies. Indeed, the connection between escape room narratives and the local culture has been shown to be weak in a majority of cases. Thus, this contribution seeks to feed into an emerging and increasingly relevant debate that has been little addressed in tourism geography: linking experiences, creative economies, authenticity and cultural heritage, etc. – through escape rooms.

Decoding escape rooms from a tourism perspective: A global scale analysis

Department of Physical Geography and Regional Geographic Analysis

Moravian Geographical Reports

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Decoding escape rooms from a tourism perspective: A global scale analysis"}

There has been a spectacular growth in the escape game sector over the past decade. The extraordinary global impact of escape rooms, their implications for...

Decoding escape rooms from a tourism perspective: A global scale analysis

Publié en ligne: 18 avr. 2021

Pages: 2 - 14

Reçu: 30 avr. 2020

Accepté: 20 oct. 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/mgr-2021-0001

Mots clés
escape games, recreation, tourist experience, authenticity, cultural landscape

© 2021 Arsenio Villar Lama et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Decoding escape rooms from a tourism perspective: A global scale analysis

Publié en ligne: 18 avr. 2021

Pages: 2 - 14

Reçu: 30 avr. 2020

Accepté: 20 oct. 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/mgr-2021-0001

Mots clésescape games, recreation, tourist experience, authenticity, cultural landscape

© 2021 Arsenio Villar Lama et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Mots clés
escape games, recreation, tourist experience, authenticity, cultural landscape