Rapportage groep studenten van het Smart Solution Semester, in opdracht van onderzoeker R. Nijdam van het lectoraat Regio-ontwikkeling. Het deelproject van deze studenten behelst deel 1 van een onderzoeksproject naar de ontwikkeling van een beslissingsondersteunend systeem voor ondernemers in de verblijfsrecreatieve sector om hun bedrijfsvoering zo duurzaam en circulair mogelijk te organiseren. De rapportage is gepresenteerd aan een representatieve groep vertegenwoordigers uit het werkveld (ondernemers en branchevereniging).
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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.
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This study analyses the impact of destination competitiveness (DC) factors upon the competitive identity of Brazil as a Dutch holiday destination. The identification of a relevant set of DC factors represents an important pre-condition for assessing a specific destination's competitiveness with regard to its competitor set. The findings suggest that Brazil's performance on a range of DC factors is uneven, and significant performance gaps exist between Brazil and its closest competitors. As well as contributing to the currently scarce academic literature on Brazil's competitive identity, this article also indicates a number of directions for related future research.
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Everybody has conscious and unconscious experiences during their holidays. They usually impact your life to a limited degree, but sometimes you have an experience as a result of which you will have a new outlook on life from that moment onwards: a life-changing experience.There are travelers who consciously seek a place in which they can have this type of experiences. Think, for instance of a wellness resort in Bali, in which you learn to eat healthy food and monitor your work-life balance. When returning from this holiday, you are likely to change course and take the plunge.You could also have an unconscious (spontaneous) experience during your holiday. An experience of which you did not know you would ever have it. You are being triggered, and when arriving home, you are going to take action to change things for the better. You may have visited an orphanage or a nature reserve during a round trip for which you are going to set up a fund-raising appeal after your holidays.This PhD research will seek answers to the following questions:• Can a life-changing experience be designed?• To what degree can a life-changing experience lead to a sustainable behavioural change? Partner: University of Surrey
