Tourism: A Unique Character Strengths Incubator

Abstract

In response to the challenges yet importance to promote the eudaimonic benefits of general tourism experiences, cultivating character strengths in tourism experiences emerges as a promising solution. This study adopts a mixed-methods approach to examine the potential of general tourism experiences for eudaimonia promotion through strengths cultivation. With online survey data collected from 389 US adults, McNemar’s tests first quantitatively identify the unique advantage of tourism in the tendency of cultivating each of 24 strengths for its rare users in daily life, and the weakness of tourism in the likelihood cultivating 11 strengths for their regular users. Qualitative thematic analyses then develop a more nuanced understanding by revealing the approaches and five contextual catalysts of strengths cultivation in tourism. The connected interpretation of quantitative and qualitative findings further sheds light on the generative mechanisms shaping the strength-cultivating potential of tourism. Besides being the first attempt investigating strengths cultivation patterns in general tourism experiences, this study identifies tourism as a unique strengths incubator complementing the daily strengths cultivation, which introduces a novel angle to examine the eudaimonic benefits of tourism. Practical implications further guide the strength-based tourism experience design to boost eudaimonia.