Tourism and love: How do tourist experiences affect romantic relationships?

Abstract

A holiday may provide working people with outstanding opportunities to reconnect with their partners and engage in fulfilling social interactions in a stress free atmosphere. In a longitudinal study, following 35 Dutch employees before, during and after their summer vacation, we investigated if and how tourist experiences affect romantic relationships and happiness during holidays. Our findings show that vacationing not only enables working people to spend quality time with their partners, but also boosts working people's romantic relationships in terms of relationship satisfaction and relatedness, which positively affects their overall level of happiness.