Determinants of Daily Happiness on Vacation

Abstract

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.

Consumer behaviour in tourism: Concepts, influences and opportunities

“…Some recent studies attempt to examine what influences emotional responses, notably the attributes (or environmental factors) that might explain emotions Nawijn, 2011). Hosany (2012) instead examines the extent to which selected cognitive appraisals (pleasantness, goal congruence, self-compatibility and novelty) influence joy, love and positive surprise.…”

Holiday recovery experiences, tourism satisfaction and life satisfaction – Is there a relationship?

“…It is not surprising that vacations, holidays, and other forms of leisure travel can make people happy (Nawijn, 2011). Gilbert and Abdullah (2004) found that people who go on holidays experienced higher life satisfaction than those who didn't, both before and after their trips, and the gap between the traveling and non-traveling groups increased post travel.…”

The Build of Tourism Well-being Index System

“…2002). Jeroen Nawijn (2010Nawijn ( ,2011 conducted comparative study on tourists and non-tourists ,and found that in the preparation phase before traveling tourists have stronger sense of happiness than non-tourists, after returning from tour the two groups , happiness undifferentiated, and travel stress and attitudes towards tourism directly determines tourists happiness (Jeroen Nawijn, 2011)(Jeroen Nawijn, 2010). Salvatore Bimonte (2012) from the perspective of tourism and happiness economics studied tour types of tourists and their tourism happiness(Salvatore Bimonte, Valeria Faralla.…”