Despite limited empirical support, vacations are marketed as beneficial for romantic partners. Using the self-expansion model as a foundation, we tested how self-expanding (e.g., novel, interesting, challenging) vacation experiences are associated with passion, physical intimacy, and relationship satisfaction. Study 1 (n = 238 partners) found that higher individual self-expanding experiences on vacations predicted higher post-vacation romantic passion and relationship satisfaction for couples traveling with their partners, but not those that did not travel together. Study 2 examined 102 romantic dyads that traveled together and found that higher self-expanding experiences on vacations predicted more post-vacation physical intimacy. Our findings advance self-expansion research and provide evidence for the tourism industry to design and promote self-expanding vacation experiences for couples seeking improved relationships and meaningful vacations.
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Due to the increase in the number of elderly and people seeking medical care, the hotel market with a blend of care and leisure experiences is expected to grow in the future (Han, 2013; Karuppan & Karuppan, 2010; Laesser, 2011). The role of care hotels as an intersection between the care and the tourism sectors makes a vacation in a care hotel an interesting social practice to study. In this contribution a social practices approach (Spaargaren, 1997) is applied to investigate how demand and supply interact during a care hotel vacation. Semi-structured interviews are used to identify successful and less successful interactions or practices between senior guests and personnel in five Dutch care hotels. These interactions are related to materials (care and leisure facilities), competences (skills and empathy of the personnel) and meanings (motivations and aspirations of guests) in the care hotel practice (see Shove et al., 2012). The results show that a social practice approach combined with a qualitative research method may be more suited to analysing the complex encounters between guests and personnel during care hotel vacations than more traditional theories from service or experience quality studies. Simultaneously, this study makes clear that we need to develop alternative qualitative (and/or quantitative) research methods to study more privacy-related or intimate practices or rituals as in the case of care hotels.
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The Refined Core and Balance Model of Family Leisure Functioning was used to guide our study of the link between vacation experiences of romantic couples and satisfaction with their relationship life. Results revealed that romantic couples who had more shared or joint experiences during their vacations in the previous year reported higher levels of satisfaction with their relationship life at the end of the year. This association was mediated by relationship functioning (i.e., couple cohesion and flexibility). The number of vacations was not a significant predictor of romantic couples’ satisfaction with relationship life; what mattered most was the extent to which partners were engaged in joint experiences during their vacations such as having fun together, mindful conversations, physical intimacy, and trying new things together. These findings demonstrate the need to continue to study less frequent, extraordinary leisure vacation experiences that may help maintain the love within romantic relationships. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed
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Informed by the Core and Balance Model of Family Leisure Functioning, we investigated the contribution of one type of family leisure—couple vacations—in enhancing couples’ cohesion and flexibility (i.e., functioning). Studying dyadic data from 112 couples (224 individuals) from across the United States of America, results of multilevel models showed that the variable “shared experiences during vacations” was positively associated with couples’ day-to-day functioning at home. Couples who engaged in higher levels of shared experiences during their vacations, such as effective communication, showing affection, or experiencing new things together, reported higher levels of couple flexibility and cohesion following their vacations, regardless of the number of vacations. We discuss the implications of these results for couples who spend quality time together away from home, as well as future use of our study model when examining benefits of vacationing for families.
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Work during vacation is publicly and theoretically seen as detrimental to vacationers' quality of life. This study investigated whether work during vacation affects vacationers' quality of life in terms of intensity of felt emotions and needs fulfillment. A sample of international tourists in the Netherlands (N = 374) took part in a street survey. Findings indicate that workers' and nonworkers' emotional experience is not statistically different during vacation. The fulfillment of needs is also identical between workers and nonworkers. Ninety-seven percent of workers are satisfied with the balance between work and leisure time during vacation. These findings suggest that working tourists effectively combine work and leisure. Some dissatisfaction did arise from the lack of certain work facilities. Implications for the tourism industry and suggestions for further research are provided.
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During the last twenty years, a remarkable new type of service has been developed in the world of sports, which can be described as the indoorisation of outdoor sports. Typical outdoor sports like climbing, skiing, surfing, rowing, and skydiving, which used to be exclusively practiced in a natural environment of mountains, oceans, rivers and the air, are now being offered for consumption in safe, predictable and controlled indoor centers. The present article emphasizes the rise of indoor lifestyle sports, such as rafting, snowboarding, skydiving and surfing. It discusses the conditions under and ways in which commercial entrepreneurs in the Netherlands have created this market, the meanings that they have ascribed to their centers and the dilemmas with which they have been confronted. It is argued that the rise of this economic market cannot be understood if it is solely interpreted as the result of economic, technological or natural developments. These economic activities were also embedded in and influenced by shared understandings and their representations in structured fields of outdoor sports, mainstream sports and leisure experience activities. A better understanding of the indoorisation of outdoor lifestyle sports can be achieved by recognizing how these structures and cultures pervaded the rise of this new market.
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How well-being changes over the course of a vacation is unclear. Particular understudied areas include the eudaimonic dimension of well-being, the comparison between eudaimonia and hedonia, and the role of activity type. Using an integrated model, two studies which combined survey and experiment were conducted to examine the change patterns of eudaimonia and hedonia, the difference of change patterns between eudaimonia and hedonia, and the moderating role of activity type. Hedonia and eudaimonia both significantly changed via a ‘first rise then fall’ change tendency over the course of a vacation. Compared to hedonia, eudaimonia has lower change intensity over the course of a vacation; eudaimonia achieved in a challenging (vs. relaxing) activity is more. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.
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In spite of renewed attention for practices in tourism studies, the analysis of practices is often isolated from theories of practice. This theoretical paper identifies the main strands of practice theory and their relevance and application to tourism research, and develops a new approach to applying practice theory in the study of tourism participation. We propose a conceptual model of tourism practices based on the work of Collins (2004), which emphasises the role of rituals in generating emotional responses. This integrated approach can focus on individuals interacting in groups, as well as explaining why people join and leave specific practices. Charting the shifting of individuals between practices could help to illuminate the dynamics and complexity of tourism systems.
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For twenty years, typical outdoor lifestyle sports like rafting, snowboarding and rock climbing, which used to be exclusively practised in natural environments, are being offered in controlled artificial settings. This process can be described as 'the indoorisation of outdoor sports'. With this development, questions of authenticity arise. Are these new, commercial forms still authentic lifestyle sports? And can we consider the participants in these indoorised lifestyle sports as authentic? There has been a discussion about authenticity in lifestyle sports since its worldwide popularisation and it is worth to reconsider this discussion against the background of new, commercial versions of lifestyle sports. Therefore, in this paper a qualitative analysis is offered about the consumption of a constructed authenticity in a cultural context increasingly characterized by artificialization.
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