Two directions for future tourist well-being research (original) (raw)
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Moving beyond subjective well being: a tourism critique
Tourism research on topics such as happiness, quality of life of tourists, and tourist wellbeing has flourished in recent years. This literature clarifies the subjective value of tourist experiences, provides new directions for tourism branding and promotion, and opens doors to fresh research on the potential benefits of tourist experiences to mental health. Subjective well-being theory has been typically used by tourism researchers to help conceptualize and measure tourist happiness. In lay terms, this theory suggests that happiness is life satisfaction and pleasure; the theory is popular and useful but cannot explain tourist happiness. To craft a more complete picture of tourist happiness, a deeper qualitative appreciation of meaningful tourist experiences and special and engaging tourist moments is required. This brief critique highlights the problems of conceptualizing tourist happiness and suggests an alternative approach to the subjective well-being theory.
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Research on tourists' eudaimonic and hedonic wellbeing has grown exponentially in the tourism literature. The paper reexamines the conceptualisation of psychological tourist wellbeing. While there is agreement that tourist wellbeing is multidimensional in nature, it is unclear what specific dimensions, or psychological domains, underpin tourists' hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing. Models that summarise these domains seemingly overlap, notably PERMA (positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and achievement) model and DRAMMA (detachmentrecovery, autonomy, mastery, meaning, and affiliation) model. Ideas on re-conceptualising tourist wellbeing are proposed. A new conceptual model re-organising hedonic and eudaimonic dimensions of tourists' psychological wellbeing is presented for consideration in future research. This new model is termed DREAMA. It consists of the following dimensions: detachmentrecovery (DR); engagement (E); affiliation (A); meaning (M); and achievement (A). The new affiliation dimension now includes both social connections and tourists' connections with the natural environments, thus reframing tourist wellbeing conceptualisation beyond human-tohuman contact.
Tourism and positive psychology critique: Too emotional
The purpose of this paper is respond to the recent critique of tourism and positive psychology research by Nawijn (2016). Tourism academics have been actively interested in the rise of positive psychology, the study of what makes life worth living . Positive psychology includes research on topics such as humour, positive emotions, happiness and well-being, flow, kindness, gratitude, love and other topics describing more desirable aspects of human existence. Tourism knowledge related to this field has been growing over the last few years (Filep & Pearce, 2013). In his critique of tourism and positive psychology research, Nawijn raises two core criticisms.
Subjective Well-Being in Tourism Research
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The "Economics of happiness" is increasingly an interest topic and subject of concern in the modern society, both in theories and practices of contemporary economics and management science. Especially, when it comes to the issue of subjective well-being, the evidence is reflected in growing number of articles published in the mainstream and reputable journals. The study in this paper uses qualitative research through the synthesis and evaluation of published articles on the issue of subjective well-being in the field of tourism to provide guidance and orientation for future research. Specifically, we focus our evaluation on the three main areas strictly related to subjective well-being: theoretical framework of subjective well-being; factors affecting subjective wellbeing; finally, limitations of current research to discover new directions for further research.
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International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2022
Although hedonic tourism happiness and eudaimonic tourism happiness coexist in tourism experiences, extant research has primarily approached them and their impact on tourists’ life satisfaction separately. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate the impact on life satisfaction of the two types of happiness tourists experience in various activities they encounter in tourist venues and their asymmetric effects. A survey was conducted among tourists who had tourism experiences within a year (October 2018 to September 2019) either abroad or Jeju island, and 736 responses were used in the analysis. Results from structural equation modeling analysis show that most of the hypotheses were supported. Our findings demonstrate that pleasure and detachment experience positively affect hedonic tourism happiness, while personal meaning and self-reflection experiences positively affect eudaimonic tourism happiness. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.
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Happiness is a concept with a long tradition in philosophy and is central to understanding the meaning of human life. Research on happiness has lately flourished in many social sciences. Yet in tourism studies this concept is underexplored. This lack of attention is surprising as tourism is increasingly seen in the literature as more than a break from everyday routines. It is today more and more seen as a health and well-being activity. The discussion in this article hence complements, but differs from, recent examinations of wellness and quality of life of tourists. In this article an exploratory picture of tourists’ happiness is created. The picture of tourists’ happiness is created by first discussing how tourists’ happiness can be interpreted; and then by discussing how tourists’ happiness can be evaluated in the main phases of the travel experience—anticipatory, on site, and reflective phases. It is concluded that tourists’ happiness is a state in which the tourist experiences positive emotions (joy, interest, contentment, and love), is engaged in and derives meaning from holiday activities. This conceptualization is based on a theory from positive psychology—a field from psychology that empirically assesses happiness. Tourists’ positive emotions, engagement, and meaning can be evaluated through analyses of tourist motivation and satisfaction in the three tourist experience phases. Examples of analysis methods are: narratives of perfect days and cognitive maps for assessments of positive emotions, special in-depth interviews to capture engagement at tourist sites, and specific qualitative measures of meaning derived from holidays. The interpretation and the assessment approaches form an exploratory picture of tourists’ happiness. This picture is important as it sheds light on the personal value and quality of tourist experiences to individuals.
The happiness factor in tourism: Subjective well-being and social tourism
New research is emerging on the relationships between tourism and quality of life (QOL) and subjective well-being (SWB). This paper develops a measure of SWB and reports findings from a two-step survey that measured changes in well-being amongst low-income individuals who had received financial support to access a holiday break ('social tourists'). This is the first study to assess well-being amongst social tourists. The findings indicate that tourism contributes to social tourist's well-being. There are greater effects in some areas including psychological resources, leisure and family life domains contributing to social well-being. Social tourists have lower levels of SWB than the general population. Further studies are needed to compare tourism's contribution to SWB amongst mainstream tourists.