Many cultural tourism sites, regardless of the context, provide regularly scheduled interpretive programs and other interpretive materials such as signs, brochures, and audio devices. Interpretation is particularly important in cultural tourism settings because cultural tourism includes historical, cultural and/or heritage elements that can be impacted negatively by human influx and behaviors. Given this, within cultural tourism settings, interpretation is used to impart messages about the cultural resources themselves, their values, and their management (Benton, 2011). The purpose of this study is to understand tourists' meaning–making processes resulting from their participation in personal interpretive programs by identifying the mechanism(s) of mindfulness and meaningfulness related to cultural resources within cultural tourism settings. Many researchers (Ballantyne, Packer, & Falk, 2011; Ham & Weiler, 2007; Tubb, 2003) have conducted empirical studies about the expected outcomes of interpretation (cognitive outcomes [e.g., tourist knowledge gain], affective outcomes [e.g., tourist satisfaction], and behavioral outcomes [e.g., intention to revisit or engage in prosocial behavior]). However, these outcomes may not be sufficient to explain the value and benefits of the interpretation experience to the visitor. Furthermore, they do not focus on explaining how these outcomes are generated through a visitor's personal experience, and what mechanisms underlie these three categories of outcomes. Thus, this study investigated the underlying mechanism(s) that tourists use to generate meanings and values for cultural resources. Within a constructivist paradigm, the data were collected through direct observations and 59 in–depth interviews about participants' meaningful experiences gained from the personal interpretive programs at the Secret Garden at Changdeokgung in Korea. Examination of study participants' narratives about their experiences during their guided tour uncovered five themes — resources, personal context, program features, stories, and interpreter — that included categories associated with the guided tour (program features, stories, and interpreter), and other factors not related to the guided tour (resources and personal context) as facilitators of meaning-making. Among the six categories of elements (themes), only three themes (program features, stories, and interpreter) included some elements that were critical to helping tourists become mindful during the tour. The findings showed that meaningfulness about a place or a resource may or may not be generated as a result of the personal interpretive tours, at least not immediately, even if tourists are mindful. The personal context theme was highlighted as a crucial cue for study participants to develop meaning during the tour.This study is one of few to investigate tourists' meaning–making processes resulting from their participation in personal interpretive programs by identifying the mechanisms of mindfulness and meaningfulness related to cultural resources within a cultural tourism setting. Several theoretical propositions were made based on the study results. The implication of this research is that interpretive managers and interpreters who are familiar with the tenets of meaning-making and the process of transformative learning should be better able to create programs that help tourists' have meaningful experiences. Specific managerial implications associated with personal interpretive program within a tourism setting and recommendations for future research are discussed.
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