Introduction

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

—Marcel Proust

Over the past years, more and more of us have traveled for pleasure and business than ever before. Tourism has, in fact, become a huge worldwide industry. For instance, data from the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO 2020) indicated that in 2019 there were 1.5 billion people who traveled internationally. This represented a four percent increase from the previous year and a 68-fold increase from data available in 1950 (Roser 2020). Not only were more of us traveling, in general, but we were taking more frequent trips throughout our lifetimes (Opperman 1995), with many of us embarking on more than one holiday per year. Export earnings generated from travel are significant, topping 1.7 trillion dollars in 2019 (UNWTO 2019). Of course, the current coronavirus pandemic has temporarily interfered with our ability to travel, and how that will alter travel patterns in the future is unknown. What is clear is that the desire for travel will never diminish, nor will our wanderlust to explore our world decrease. Travel is a dream for a significant number of us that will never die. While many of our trips are undoubtedly very enjoyable, a significant number fail to live up to the often unrealistically high expectations we have for them. Many of us, in truth, are sometimes secretly disappointed that our dream vacations are not always completely perfect, or we feel a sense of letdown after our much-anticipated trips are over and we have to go back to our pre-trip lives. This may occur despite the fact that we are spending more and more money on traveling than ever before (Fox 2019), and more and more resources are available to help us plan our trips (Adams 2016).

In this book, we talk about why we may so often be disappointed even with seemingly picture-perfect travel agendas and the most wonderful travel accommodations. This is a book about how we and those in the travel industry can work together to curtail this disappointment and maximize positive travel experiences. It is a book about the kinds of behavior and thinking that people (both travelers and travel providers) often engage in during traveling that either promote satisfaction and happiness or lead to discontent and misery. We explore what can be done to increase the happiness and decrease the discontent. Our exploration will be grounded in research from the fields of tourism studies and positive psychology, the latter of which looks at the conditions under which individuals experience optimal functioning and flourishing in life (Gable and Haidt 2005; Seligman 2011).

At its heart, traveling well is all about increasing our responsiveness to what is positive in our surroundings and enhancing our ability to encounter authentic moments. Guaranteeing success in travel is not about creating ideal places or the most exotic travel environments. Rather, it is about learning how to build settings and promote experiences that allow us to thrive on our own terms.

Structure of the Book

The book is divided into two main sections and 18 chapters. In Section I, which serves as a foundational base for the rest of the book, a brief overview of the background and history of travel is given, and the nature of the positive travel outcomes that we seek are defined.

In Section II, we turn to an examination of how achievement of the outcomes for travel discussed in Section I can best be facilitated by those in the travel industry and to an analysis of what types of obstacles have to be overcome to make this happen. This second section is presented in three parts, each with multiple chapters. In Part I, the anticipatory phase of travel is explored, and ways that travel providers can work with us to help make this aspect of travel positive and productive are discussed. In Part II, strategies that travel providers can use to increase our satisfaction during our actual trip experiences are examined. The post-trip experience is turned to last in Part III.

Throughout the book, questions for discussion and hypothetical case study problems are included. The purpose of these exercises is to facilitate your ability to make links and connections between the chapter material and your own experiences, either as a traveler or as someone in the travel industry. There are no right or wrong answers to these questions or case studies. Rather, they are provided to help you extend and apply the theories and concepts that you read about to real-life travel issues. Working on them will deepen your understanding of the key ideas in the book, so they should not be skipped!

We will start with a general overview of travel in Chapter 1.

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