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.
MULTIFILE
Tourism experiences, also called vacations, are known to boost subjective well-being, although it has been argued that the effects are primarily affective in nature and short-lived. We argue that this is a methodological artifact due to the brief duration—1 year or less—of almost all extant longitudinal studies of tourism experience effects. Based on broaden-and-build and personal resource theories, we hypothesize that tourism experiences contribute to both affective and cognitive components of subjective well-being over a multi-year timespan. Using random intercept cross-lagged panel models, we tested these hypotheses in 8 years of panel data based on a representative sample of the population of the Netherlands. We found both between- and within-individual effects of vacation frequency on cognitive as well as affective well-being. More frequent vacationers experienced higher life satisfaction and lower negative affect, while the average participant also experienced slightly higher life satisfaction and positive affect following a year with higher vacation frequency. Increases in life satisfaction also predicted more frequent vacationing in a following year, consistent with an “upward spiral” pattern of improving well-being based on accumulation of positive experiences, as suggested by the broaden-and-build theory.
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.
