Are Rich and Diverse Emotions Beneficial? The Impact of Emodiversity on Tourists’ Experiences

Abstract

Emotion is an important topic in tourism research; however, its complexity has prevented researchers from providing a complete picture. Prior research has covered aspects such as valence and specific emotion, but diversity of emotions (i.e., emodiversity) is missing. Emodiversity becomes particularly important in tourism, considering that people experience more diverse emotions during vacation than when at home. We introduce the concept of emodiversity and demonstrate how and why it is beneficial for tourists’ well-being. The effect of emodiversity is valid for both positive and negative emotions. The findings shed light on a new way to perceive emotions; rather than simply selling positive emotions for the sake of pleasantness, tourism managers should reconceptualize tourism as “emodiversity-seeking” instead of “pleasure-seeking” experiences.

Tourist Mental Health Drives Destination Choice, Marketing, and Matching

“…Lengieza, Hunt & Swim 2019;Pyke et al 2016;Smith & Diekmann 2017;Su, Tang & Nawijn 2020;Uysal et al 2016;White et al 2016. Emotion, affect Ballantyne, Packer & Sutherland 2016Buckley 2016Buckley , 2018aBuckley , 2020aChen & Li 2018;Gao et al 2019;Hetland et al 2019;Knobloch, Robertson & Aitken 2017;Niedermeier et al 2017;Pestana, Parreira, & Moutinho 2020;Prayag et al 2015;Rahmani, Gnoth & Maher 2019;Wang, Hou & Chen 2021. Recovery, rescue Buckley 2019Buckley & Westaway 2020;Clough et al 2016;Fenton et al 2017Fenton et al , 2018Frühauf et al 2016;Holland et al 2018;Iwasaki et al 2014;Levi et al 2018 Araújo et al 2019;Bélanger et al 2019;Chekroud et al 2018;Pasanen et al 2019;Sturm et al 2020Public health Hartwell et al 2012Lehto & Lehto 2019…”

“…We propose that at the broadest scale, the principal driver of destination decisions by leisure tourists and holiday-makers, is to maintain and improve their self-perceived mental health and wellbeing (Buckley, Zhong & Martin 2020;Wang, Hou & Chen 2021). This applies to tourists in general, not only a targeted wellbeing subsector.…”

Space and Money: How and Why Crowding Influences Tourists’ Sensitivity to Price Magnitude

“…In total, 304 US participants (44.7% female, M age = 36.6 years; see Table 1 for participant profiles in all three studies) on Amazon Mechanical Turk completed the study during the third week of July 2019. Amazon Mechanical Turk is a crowdsourced online platform hosting more than 500,000 registered members from various backgrounds and has been widely used in tourism research (Mason and Suri 2012; Paolacci and Chandler 2014; Wang, Hou, and Chen 2020; Zhang et al 2020). This study employed a correlational design.…”

Does Vivid Imagination Deter Visitation? The Role of Mental Imagery Processing in Virtual Tourism on Tourists’ Behavior

“…This focus becomes even more important for virtual tourism, which may intensify emotions through the use of digital technologies (Yung, Khoo-Lattimore, and Potter 2020). Even though people seek pleasure through travel, they may also encounter negative emotions (Wang, Hou, and Chen 2020). Prayag, Hosany, and Odeh (2013) found that tourists to a World Heritage site expressed emotions of disappointment, regret, and displeasure.…”