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Reflection is a form of deep thinking that is evident in everyday lives – private and professional – and this article offers insights for key parties about reflecting on research outcomes to ensure enhanced tourism impacts post-pandemic. Using a hermeneutic perspective on reflection, the authors reflect on research outcomes since the pandemic began. Three types of reflection are deployed: anticipatory, active and recollective. While the ultimate effects of the pandemic remain uncertain, a scholarly rush to collect new data has been observed. Earlier research predictions seem unlikely to materialise. Taken collectively, the reflections suggest that researchers should slow down and allow for collection of more research data over extended time periods to generate stronger theoretical contributions. Scholars may apply anticipatory, active and recollective reflection to applicable research contexts. Documentation of the reflective process alerts practitioners to economic and social trends which may impact on global tourism post-pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the conceptually related fields of sustainability and psychological well-being have been informed by extensive research in recent years, efforts to integrate these fields are yet to be systematically advanced. This lack of integration has left the nexus between sustainability and well-being largely underexplored and conceptually underdeveloped. Tourism offers a novel context within which to explore the intersection. Consequently, this paper critically assesses the relationship between sustainability-related decisions and tourist well-being. It is informed by the analysis of thirty semi-structured in-depth interviews that critically explored the holiday experiences of tourists while travelling internationally. Analysis revealed that both responsible and irresponsible tourist behaviours are interconnected with tourists' psychological well-being and are influenced by external barriers and internal conflicts. Responsible behaviours were found to contribute to eudaimonic well-being through a heightened sense of perceived integrity. Conversely, irresponsible behaviours trigger negative self-appraisals, enacting coping mechanisms and generating guilt. This manuscript presents the triple helix model detailing the complex and interconnected relationship between (ir)responsible behaviour and psychological wellbeing in tourism experiences. Future research should consider the intricate connections between tourists' sustainability-related decisions and psychological well-being as central to the developing sustainable tourism research agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourists are increasingly seeking personal development through spiritual, or mystical and divine, tourist experiences. Yet, spiritual tourism research is still largely in its infancy. This paper reports on a research study that aimed to investigate how spiritual tour guides manage and organise, or broker, spiritual tourists' experiences. To address the aim, research was conducted with eleven spiritual tourism guides via semi-structured, in-depth, interviews. Thematic analysis of the interview data revealed that spiritual tourism guides broker the experiences of tourists through provision of physical access to sites, facilitating encounters within and beyond the travel group, and through facilitating understanding, empathy and self-development. Within the self-development theme, data were further categorised into five chronological brokering stages, ranging from pre-tour to post-tour. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to developing spiritual tourism and tour guiding theory and practice. Suggestions for future research are also proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourism research on topics such as happiness, quality of life of tour-ists, and tourist well-being has flourished in recent years. This literature clarifies the subjective value of tourist experiences, provides new direc-tions for tourism branding and promotion, and opens doors to fresh re-search on the potential benefits of tourist experiences to mental health. Subjective well-being theory has been typically used by tourism re-searchers to help conceptualize and measure tourist happiness. In lay terms, this theory suggests that happiness is life satisfaction and pleas-ure; the theory is popular and useful but cannot explain tourist happi-ness. To craft a more complete picture of tourist happiness, a deeper qualitative appreciation of meaningful tourist experiences and special and engaging tourist moments is required. This brief critique highlights the problems of conceptualizing tourist happiness and suggests an al-ternative approach to the subjective well-being theory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines a newly created approach to exploring travel motivations, the Travel Career Patterns (TCP) model. Through an analysis of the TCP model, the authors advance travel motivation theory by making three contributions: a refinement of the definition of travel experience; the use and evaluation of essays as a qualitative tool for interpreting travel motives; and an extension of the TCP model to a new setting. The first contribution is made by defining travel experience as a function of general experience with a de-emphasis on the use of age as a predictor of tourist experience. As part of the second contribution, essays are used to provide an insightful and emic understanding of travel motives through descriptions of a perfect day at a destination. It is demonstrated that such descriptions can effectively replicate results from quantitative approaches. The third contribution is made by extending the TCP model to the study of the motivations of study-abroad university students. These contributions improve the TCP model in light of the following elements of a sound theory of tourist motivation: ease of communication, ability to measure travel motivation, and employment of a dynamic approach. Contextual recommendations for future research include further TCP studies with small tourist groups, studies of eccentric tourist groups, and studies of complex, higher order motives such as self-actualisation and the 'flow' state. Methodological recommendations arising from this paper encompass the application of projective techniques to study motives using TCP and the use of software for qualitative analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]