سهم مرخصی در کیفیت زندگی

The contribution of vacations to people’s life satisfaction and Quality of Life (QOL) has recently attracted substantial attention among tourism researchers. Yet, most QOL scales do not include vacations: 7% explicitly measure vacations whereas 42% only include items relating to vacations within the broader Leisure domain. Leisure and vacations, however, differ substantially in nature with leisure referring to regular home-based activities and vacations being infrequent leisure activities away from home. As a consequence of the common amalgamation of vacations with leisure, there is limited knowledge about the specific contribution of vacations to people’s QOL. The present study (1) presents empirical evidence for the contribution of vacations to QOL, (2) determines the extent of this contribution, and (3) investigates variation in the extent to which vacations contribute to the QOL of different people. Results indicate that vacations contribute to the QOL of the majority of people, are as important a QOL domain as Leisure and People, and that QOL means different things to different people at different points in their life, representing an individual and dynamic concept.

Vacations are an integral feature of modern life for many people in developed nations and represent a possible avenue for individuals to pursue life satisfaction (Rubenstein, 1980). Hobson and Dietrich (1994) observed that there is an “underlying assumption in our society that tourism is a mentally and physically healthy pursuit to follow in our leisure time” (p. 23), and therefore a factor in increasing QOL. Yet it remains unclear whether vacations—as opposed to leisure time at home—contribute to people’s QOL, to which extent, and whether people differ in the extent to which vacations contribute to their QOL. This is the contribution of the present study. Specifically, we will (1) provide empirical evidence for the contribution vacations make to people’s QOL, (2) assess the extent to which, for the general population, vacations contribute to people’s QOL, and (3) for the first time, investigate whether vacations affect the QOL of different market segments in different ways, indicating domain heterogeneity in the marketplace and, consequently, opening up opportunities for successful target marketing by tourism destinations and industry.