Savouring tourist experiences

Currently, there are no major models of savouring in leisure and tourism studies. This paper reports on an exploratory study that investigated how tourists reminisce about or retrospectively savour, their holiday experiences. We aimed to identify which positive emotions are experienced by tourists when they reminisce about past holiday events and what types of tourist experiences are associated with their positive emotions. Using thematic content analysis, we examined 181 written travel blogs of a group of Chinese independent tourists following their trip to Australia. The emotion of joy was the most savoured emotion, followed by interest, contentment and love. Joy, interest and contentment were most commonly linked to experiences that involved observations of natural scenery, while love was the emotion that was linked to acts of kindness with the locals. The study reported in the paper supports existing knowledge on the relationship between experiencing positive emotions and being in nature.