Jeroen Nawijn

How Do We Feel on Vacation? A Closer Look at How Emotions Change over the Course of a Trip

The emotions of 39 American and Dutch vacationers were investigated. Their emotions were tracked daily during their vacation using a diary. Findings indicated that fluctuations in emotions are related to length of vacation. Vacationers on an 8- to 13-day trip experienced significant changes in the balance of their emotions over the course of their trip. In general, they felt good; but this feeling began to decline at the end of the vacation. The findings demonstrate that there is no clear peak in holiday happiness, which presents challenges to tourism suppliers. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Resident Attitudes to Tourism and Their Effect on Subjective Well-Being: The Case of Palma de Mallorca

Subjective well-being in host–guest relations has only been considered from the viewpoint of the guest. This study addresses the host perspective and assesses the association between perceived tourism impacts and residents’ subjective well-being in a mass tourism destination. Findings indicate that perceived tourism impacts are associated with life satisfaction, the cognitive component, and not with hedonic level of affect, the affective component. The life domains of health, interpersonal relationships, friends, and services and infrastructure, in particular, are positively affected.

Holocaust concentration camp memorial sites: an exploratory study into expected emotional response

This study explored Dutch peoples expected intensity of emotional responses of a potential visit to a concentration camp memorial site in the Netherlands. A total of 1050 online panel members participated in a questionnaire that contained a 33-item emotion scale. Results reveal that individuals with a closeness to the Holocaust expect to feel most emotions more intensely, specifically emotions that are traditionally considered ‘positive’, such as pride, love, joy, inspiration, excitement and affection. Overall, respondents expect to feel disgust, shock, compassion and sadness the strongest. Those who look from the viewpoint of the offenders mainly expect to feel emotions that are traditionally considered ‘negative’, whereas those who took the point of view of the victims also expect a more ‘positive’ emotional reaction to the visit. Managerial implications address aspects of education, storytelling and authenticity.

Pre-Vacation Time: Blessing or Burden?

Vacationers generally experience higher health and well-being levels than nonvacationers. It is unclear if and how health and well-being levels of vacationers change prior to vacation and what potential determinants are. Our research questions were: (1) How do health and well-being change before vacation? (2) Which factors (i.e., vacation anticipation, pre-vacation workload, and homeload) are associated with health and well-being changes before vacation? (3) Are associations between pre-vacation work- and home-load and health and well-being changes before vacation different for men and women? In a longitudinal study, 96 Dutch workers reported their health and well-being in the two weeks prior to their winter sports vacation. Health and well-being decreased significantly from two weeks to one week prior to vacation. Anticipation did not affect health and well-being, whereas pre-vacation workload lowered health and well-being. Pre-vacation homeload was also associated with a decline in pre-vacation health and well-being but only for women.

Happiness Through Leisure

In this chapter, we start with a description of happiness, the nature of happiness, the value of happiness, and the determinants of happiness. In that context, we discuss what leisure can contribute to happiness. Although happiness is partially “set” through inherited personality traits, there is potential for improving one’s sense of happiness through leisure. Research to date focused mainly on casual leisure and leisure travel. These kinds of leisure have mostly a small positive effect on happiness. The benefits are often temporary and in the moment. We propose more longitudinal research that addresses serious leisure and project-based leisure, which may have more sustained effects on happiness than casual leisure and leisure travel.

Rose Tinted Memories as a Cause of Unsustainable Leisure Travel

Most people strive to become happier. Although a substantial increase in the cognitive component of happiness is limited due to heredity, there is still room for substantial gains in the affective component of happiness through environmental factors and behavioural choices. One way to become happier is to undertake leisure travel. The effect of leisure travel on happiness tends however to be short-lived, which may cause individuals in affluent nations to travel more often. A vast increase in leisure travel is also forecasted for developing and emerging industrialized countries. Rosy recollections of past experiences of leisure travel may trigger booking another trip. A growth in travel frequency and air travel in particular increases emissions that contribute to climate change. We argue that the main driver for leisure travel is the rose tinted memories of past leisure trips. However, these memories are valued against the context of peer pressure and social norms. Based on previous research findings the processes that contribute to the development of unsustainable leisure travel are discussed.

Negative emotions in tourism: a meaningful analysis

ABSTRACT In this paper, we critically examine the use of (negative) emotions in psychology, consumer behaviour and tourism. We find that (1) negative emotions form an integral part of the tourist experience in certain tourism contexts, particularly in dark tourism and types of travel that involve transformation of the self, (2) negative emotions can have multiple positive outcomes and (3) these positive outcomes are present in hedonic and non-hedonic tourism contexts, yet they occur occasionally in hedonic and more systematically in non-hedonic tourism contexts. We conclude that negative emotions contribute to eudaimonic experiences by affecting different types of meaning in life.

Understanding Dutch visitors' motivations to concentration camp memorials

This study examined the motivations to visit concentration camp memorial sites in the Netherlands. Nine hundred and seventy-five Dutch respondents participated in a panel survey. The data were analysed by means of an exploratory factor analysis, to yield underlying motivational factors. The findings revealed that potential visitors were motivated to visit Holocaust concentration camp memorial sites for “memory”, “gaining knowledge and awareness”, and “exclusivity”. We generalize the motivations from Dutch concentration camp memorial sites to a universal level and discuss the future stages to achieve a universally valid motivation scale for visits to concentration camp memorial sites.

Holiday travel, staycations, and subjective well-being

ABSTRACT The tourism industry thrives on the notion that holiday travel improves well-being. However, scientific evidence that holiday travel is more beneficial than spending free time at home is lacking. Using the Effort-Recovery and the Limited Resources model as theoretical basis, this study investigates whether workers behave, think, and feel differently during travel than during leisure time spent at home. In a five-week longitudinal field study, we followed 24 workers during free evenings after work, a free weekend at home, and on a free weekend of domestic travel. Within-person differences were investigated between these three occasions in behavior, cognition, and emotions. During travel, employees slept more, engaged more in physical and social activities and less in obligatory activities than during free evenings after work. Hedonic well-being was higher and ruminative thinking lower during travel than during free evenings after work. Physical distance from home and work was related to engagement in resource-providing rather than resource-consuming activities and seems to translate into mental distance from everyday worries. Differences between holiday travel and weekends at home were small. Still, the findings suggest that travel may provide feelings of remoteness in places with novel and fascinating qualities, free of chores.