The importance of nature in remembered vacation trips and influence on people's well-being

What is it about?

Nature is omnipresent in tourism marketing and personal pictures of vacation trips. For this reason, the first question asked in this research is to what extent nature is present in people’s recalled trip experiences. Moreover, how does the recall of nature-based tourism experiences relate to people's subjective well-being (SWB) in the form of emotions and satisfaction with life (SWL)? To answer these questions, a dataset collected about holiday experiences that people freely recall was used. Survey participants were not asked about their nature-based tourism (NBT) experiences. Nevertheless, an important share of the participants shared their memories of nature-based tourism experiences. Based on a very broad definition of nature, findings indicate that: 1. people tend to recall vacation trip experiences that are nature-based more frequently than urban experiences; 2. a positive relationship exists between recalled active nature-based vacation experiences (NBVE) and the intensity of emotions elicited; 3. when people recall vacation trip experiences, passive experiences elicit different emotions as compared to active experiences; 4. recalled nature-based vacation experiences and emotions elicited have a positive influence on life satisfaction; and 5. the relationship between nature-based experiences and life satisfaction depends on duration and intensity of the recalled trip experience

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Photo by NEOM on Unsplash

Photo by NEOM on Unsplash