Recently, one of my colleagues and I were talking about different reasons people have for leaving their homes and doing things. In the course of the conversation, we decided that each of us prefers not to leave our homes if we don't have to, but that we know people who like to leave home and go somewhere in order to get "an experience." Her example was that her daughter might on any given day suggest "Mommy mommy! Let's paint our nails and go get a hot chocolate at Macy's." At that point, I mentioned that I'm usually less interested in an experience as a single ephemeral object, and more interested in a place that's good to hang out for an indeterminate amount of time so that I can work on whatever piece of writing I'm crafting at the moment.
It occurred to me though, isn't that an experience in and of itself? It may not be "The Disneyland Experience" – but it's a good example of me having gone somewhere specific in order to experience a particular atmosphere or be in the presence of a particular type of mindset that'll allow me to get work done. I think that's what a lot of people are looking for when they go out and do something—in addition to fulfill a core need such as food, fun, or supplies of some sort. At their core though, and I suppose this is what I had been missing when I was suggesting that I wasn't looking for an experience, all of these things have a certain experience attached, even if it's fairly mundane, such as getting the groceries.
One thing that has been becoming more common in the past few years is that restaurants and retail locations are updating their appearance and design to promote a different, updated, and (hopefully) perceptibly better overall experience for their customers. It's noticeable when you go to a store that has been updated from a plain '90s, sterile, all white tiles environment to one of the newer stores like market style Safeway grocery stores.
A lot of retail stores have been focusing more on customer experience in the past few years, and some companies such as Gateway have opened retail locations more for the experience of shopping for a computer than for actually distributing their products. Apple's retail stores are a distribution point for the company, but they're also a customer service location and a gathering location for Mac (and now iOS) users and interested parties.
"Experiences" even affect education. One of the trends I've seen on my campus is that the administration are trying to create a welcoming environment with a traditional higher education "experience" to entice students who might otherwise be interested in taking classes on-line or using inexpensive massive online courses for continuing education purposes. The past several years on campus have been a transformation from classic and somewhat stuffy to "fresh" and modern, with new buildings featuring large, open hallways, atria, and group meeting spaces connected to smaller spaces that allow individuals and teams to meet quietly. Because of this, the experience of being a student at the university has changed significantly in the years since I got to the university.
Everything is an experience, it's just a matter of whether or not you want to think of it as one, and whether or not the provider of that experience is setting it up in that way. The main differences between myself and my colleague's daughter is the types of experiences we're looking for, or the involvement we have in the experience. When I go somewhere and want to do some writing, it's less because I specifically because I want the food there or I think it's a big experience in and of itself, but because I want to hang out and do some writing.