This qualitative research note reports two neglected themes in research on virtual reality tourism experiences, i.e. its potentially addictive nature and temporary sense of isolation. Existing work on virtual reality tourism experiences has applied existing knowledge and theories and has solely tested how VR applications can positively mediate or moderate the tourist experience. This study adopted an inductive approach, analyzing contents of reviews and blogs, and consequently uncovered a temporary sense of isolation and the addictive nature of virtual reality as hidden themes within virtual reality tourism experiences. We stress the importance of further work on addiction and a sense of isolation in terms of their nature, role, and effects
The student well-being study of the Study Success Research Group has mapped out how students are doing. Among other things, they researched how healthy and engaged the students are and how they experience their study resources and personal energy sources, such as resilience and selfefficiency. The research shows that students predominantly think that they have a healthy lifestyle and consider themselves to be healthy. However, a large part of the students experiences stress on a regular basis (to a large extent) during their time as students. This infographic shows the top 10 of suggestions that students have for the students themselves, their teachers and for changes within education/the curriculum that could contribute to reducing stress and could promote the well-being of students.
How happy are tourists during a day of their holiday and what makes them happy? These questions were addressed in a study of 466 international tourists in the Netherlands. While on vacation, tourists are generally high on hedonic level of affect, with positive affect exceeding negative affect almost fourfold. Affect balance is higher than generally observed in everyday life, whereas tourists’ life satisfaction is not significantly different compared with life satisfaction in their everyday life. Vacationers’ socioeconomic backgrounds and life satisfaction only partially explain their affective state of the day. Most of the variance is explained by factors associated with the holiday trip itself. During a holiday, holiday stress and attitude toward the travel party are the most important determinants of daily affect balance. These findings imply that on the whole, the tourism industry is doing a good job. The industry could probably do better with more research on experiences during the holiday.
LINK
