Vacation expectations, evaluations, and life satisfaction

The purpose of this research was to examine the taking of vacations in American culture. Topics for investigation included people's expectations for their vacations, their subsequent satisfactions, and the contribution of vacations to life satisfaction. To examine these topics, vacationers were administered a set of two self-report surveys, administered before and after an actual vacation had been taken. Measures on both questionnaires were similar, assessing vacation motivations, vacation satisfactions, characteristics of the vacation, and life satisfaction. Factor analysis revealed that expectations for the vacation fell into six areas: Social, Intellectual, Stimulus Avoidance, Competence/Mastery, Thrill-seeking, and Work Advantages. When individuals were asked to rate the difference between these anticipated and actual vacation experiences, results showed that degree of discrepancy predicted degree of dissatisfaction with the vacation. Individuals who reported fulfilling their expectations were most satisfied with their overall vacation, while vacationers who did not obtain desired opportunities for intellectual stimulation, thrill-seeking, mastery/competence, and relaxation reported being less pleased with their vacation. Other manifest aspects of the vacation, such as destination, accommodations, and amount of time available were evaluated by the participant; correlational analyses demonstrated that vacation destination and the activities performed on vacation were most predictive of overall satisfaction with the vacation. The individual also rated the perceived degree of constraint or obligation associated with these manifest aspects of vacation. Descriptive results indicated that people tended to incorporate a number of constraints and obligations into their vacations, although these were not found to relate significantly to vacation satisfaction. Vacation satisfaction bore no relationship to satisfaction with family, work, or leisure; it did contribute marginally to overall life satisfaction. Regardless of vacation satisfaction, individual evaluations of recreational opportunities and standard of living improved after vacation, while satisfaction with parental family and with others declined following vacation. This paper represents one of the few longitudinal, contextually embedded projects involving leisure research. As such, it addresses some anecdotal and experimental hypotheses about the role of vacations in American culture, and poses further questions for investigation. Finally, as an exploratory study, it also provides evidence for the potential of vacations as a topic for further study of human experience.