Reframing adverse weather as a catalyst for special tourism experiences

On any given day millions of travellers find themselves contending with weather that deviates dramatically from prior expectations. Traditionally regarded as an unwelcome disruption, adverse weather has rarely been examined for its potential to enrich, rather than diminish, the value of tourist experiences. Consequently, this research critically explores how tourists positively reappraise adverse weather disruptions in tourism experiences. Based on eight focus groups (n = 42), transcript data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis within a social-constructivist paradigm, combining iterative coding with abductive reasoning. Findings demonstrate that adverse weather can function as a situational catalyst that enables tourists to reinterpret disruptions through uniqueness, meaningfulness, and authenticity. In these accounts, weather disruptions take on a liminal quality, suspending routine expectations and intensifying experiential salience. We conceptualise this process as a co-activation of established experiential dimensions through which such episodes are rendered as special tourism experiences.