Conspicuous Consumption in the emergent VanLife Community

Abstract

As the worth of experiential consumption increases, so does the importance of experiential conspicuous consumption. Traveling is an outstanding example for experiential consumption, which resulted in increased research interest in travel as means of conspicuous consumption. The emergent VanLife community is a prime example of experiential consumption, but to this date no connection to conspicuous consumption has been made. This paper explores the underlying motivations for choosing VanLife as a vacation mode and possible connections to conspicuous consumption. For this purpose, a qualitative study was conducted. While the participants could not be directly linked to conspicuous consumption, indirect evidence of conspicuous consumption in the broader VanLife community could be found.