Happiness Through Vacationing: Just a Temporary Boost or Long-Term Benefits?

Abstract

Does vacationing add to our happiness in the long run? This question was addressed in a study of 3,650 Dutch citizens who reported their leisure travel every 3 months during 2 years and rated their happiness at the end of each year. Participants who had been on vacation appeared to be marginally happier, in terms of hedonic level of affect, than those who had not. This difference in Affect balance between vacationers and non-vacationers is probably due to a very minor causal effect of vacationing on hedonic level of affect. Possibly, vacationing is positively reminisced and these memories allow for the prevalence of more positive affect in people's lives. Happiness did not predict vacationing. The effect of holiday trips on vacationers' happiness is mostly short-lived; among vacationers, happiness was unrelated to the number of trips and days spent on vacation. A separate analysis of vacationers, who value vacationing most, yielded the same results. Implications for future research are discussed.

Happiness Through Leisure

“…Recent research has mostly supported the direct way in which vacationing adds to individuals' happiness (Boelhouwer & Stoop, 1999;De Bloom et al, 2010;Hagger, 2009;Nawijn, 2010;Nawijn, 2011b;Nawijn, Marchand, Veenhoven, & Vingerhoets, 2010). For instance, people who had recently had a holiday trip score higher on overall happiness than those who did not (Boelhouwer & Stoop, 1999), which supports the afterglow hypothesis.…”

“…Vacationers also experience higher levels of hedonic level of affect than non-vacationers several weeks before the trip starts (Nawijn et al). While on holiday, vacationers are generally in a good mood (Nawijn, 2010), which is much better than their mood in everyday life (De Bloom et al;Nawijn, 2011). The long-term effect of vacationing on overall happiness and hedonic level of effect is virtually nonexistent (Nawijn, 2011a).…”

A relação entre a felicidade e o desejo por hospitalidade mediada pela autoimagem do turista e a imagem do seu destino

“…Porém essa alteração do humor e os índices de felicidade causadas no viajantes são aspectos temporários que devem ser enfatizados sempre, mas que existe em maior grau em pessoas que viajam do que aquelas que não viajam, o que pode ser explicado pelo fato de as memórias positivas remanescentes afetaram positivamente a vida das pessoas (Nawijn, 2011).…”

“…Quadro 2-Principais estudos para constituição teórica das hipóteses H 2 e H 3 Autores do estudo O que analisou Gouveia (2013) Destino turístico e demandas psicológicas Ahn et al, (2013) Imagem do destino turístico Hosany & Martin (2012) Congruência Nawijn (2011) Memórias positivas Carvalho, Salazar, & Neves (2011) Destino turístico e demandas psicológicas Zhang & Bloemer (2008) Congruência na escolha de marcas García, Morales, & Gonzalez (2007) Demandas psicológicas, autoimagem e destino turístico Kamins & Gupta (1994) Imagem do destino turístico e avaliação do consumidor Fonte: elaborada pelos autores (2017)…”

Happiness and limits to sustainable tourism mobility: a new conceptual model

“…Third, a synthesis of theories derived from psychology and tourism (e.g. Diekmann & Preisendörfer, 2003;Fridgen, 1984;Nawijn, 2011b;Nawijn, Mitas, Lin, & Kerstetter, 2013;Tung & Ritchie, 2011a;Uriely, Ram, & Malach-Pines, 2011) is described to present a new conceptual model that explains why leisure tourist mobility is difficult to change. The conclusion portrays the practical and theoretical contributions of the suggested conceptual model as well as its limitations.…”