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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Vacations offer a break from daily stressors but at the same time introduce challenges away from home. While the positive aspects of vacationing, especially individual benefits, are well documented, the challenges couples face and their psychological mechanisms and outcomes remain unexplored. This study investigated the effects challenges and challenge resolution might have on shared experiences and on relationship quality. We collected data from 100 romantic couples at major tourist destinations in the Netherlands in Spring 2024. Random intercept regression models showed that novelty is positively associated with positive emotions, passionate love, and feelings of connection with partner; and that challenges would take away some of these benefits. Interestingly, challenges were associated with self-expansion, a major predictor of long-term love and passion, especially when partially resolved. Positive emotions mediated some of these relationships. These findings highlight the importance and value of studying challenges and challenge resolution on vacations for relationship and experience quality.
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We recently published the remarkable findings that German vacationers who planned their vacations further ahead of time, and spent more time planning, actually enjoyed their vacations less and reported lower wellbeing afterward. Furthermore, we found that this unfavorable planning behavior is driven by the personality of some people, known as “maximizers,” to “maximize” all kinds of choices in their lives. They are clearly the least satisfied with their vacations and with life as a whole, as their in-depth planning causes them to have very exact and overinflated expectations. They probably make their most satisfying choices when they have only a few options to choose from. These findings are based on a large-sample questionnaire, as well as a smaller number of in-depth interviews, as explained in our article “The Best Experiences Cannot Be Planned.”
Vacation travel is an essential ingredient in quality of life. However, the contribution of vacations to quality of life could be improved in two ways: by optimizing the decisions people make when planning and undertaking their vacations, and by travel industry testing and implementing––based on evidence from the experience lab––innovative experience products which touch customers' emotions.
Vacation travel is an essential ingredient in quality of life. However, the contriubtion of vacations to quality of life could be improved in two ways: by optimizing the decisions people make when planning and undertaking their vacations, and by travel industry testing and implementing––based on evidence––innovative experience products which touch customers' emotions. Secondary analysis of two longitudinal panel datasets will address the impact of people's decisions in planning and undertaking their vacations, on their quality of life. Field experiments in cooperation with travel industry partners will address the effects of innovative experience products, such as apps designed to help vacationers meet fellow travelers, or personalized memory books designed to help people relive their vacations after return home. Experience data in these field experiments will be collected using technology of the Breda University of Applied Sciences' Experience Measurement Lab, a unique facility for measuring emotions continuously from research participants' body and mind. Thus, the project will contribute to general understanding of quality of life, will feed valuable knowledge about experience design, measurement, and implementation to the Dutch travel industry, and will support the Breda University of Applied Sciences' key research theme of Designing, Measuring, and Managing Experiences. Inspiring examples from the project will reinforce research methods courses in the academic Bachelor of Science in Tourism, the HBO Master in Tourism Destination Management, and the academic Master of Science in Leisure Studies. Wearable emotion measurement from the field experiment will be a cornerstone of the fourth-year HBO-bachelor module Business Intelligence, where students will conduct their own research projects on experience measurement using consumer wearables, based on knowledge from this postdoc project. Finally, a number of methodological and content questions within the project will serve as suitable thesis assignments for graduation students in the above educational tracks.
