Abstract. In order to influence the decision making process in tourism, and to keep account with the “tough” competition environment in the current economy, destinations find themselves “fighting” more and more for the attainment of an image as favourable as possible in the mind of the tourist. It is for this reason that the marketer projects the image identity and develops contact points, so that, through the application of suitable stimuli, the tourist will have a memorable sensory experience through the stages of pre-consumption, actual consumption and post-consumption of the travel product. The purpose of the present article is to evaluate the sensory experience of the tourist – a possible instrument for reducing the gap between projection and perception, as well as for imagining the travel product.

Keywords: experience, sensory experience, contact points, sensory dimensions, destination.