Wakayama Tourism Review 3 Special Issue
2022/3/31 発行

Journey to well-being: On the role of culture and place in Japanese spiritual tourism

Journey to well-being: On the role of culture and place in Japanese spiritual tourism
SCHMIDT Januschka Budimka Irmtraut
BOLDERMAN Leonieke
GROOTE Peter
STOFFELEN Arie
FullText File
DOI
Language
eng
Start Page
23
End Page
26
Keywords Alternative
Well-being
Domestic tourism in Japan
Sacred heritage sites
Kyoto
Abstract Alternative
In the past, research on tourist well-being has often employed a culturally universalist understanding of well-being, which ignores culturally specific aspects of well-being. To move towards a more nuanced concept of tourist well-being, we propose to consider (1) local conceptualizations of well-being, (2) place-bound well-being mechanisms, and (3) collective aspects of well-being. We do so based on our recent research on domestic tourism to Japanese sacred sites. We utilise our analyses of managerial well-being communications to explore the role of three different local well-being communications discourses (shiawase, koufuku, ikigai). Additionally, we present initial impressions from semi-structured interviews with domestic tourists at two sacred heritage sites in Kyoto, Japan, to illustrate the role places play in the well-being of individuals and their social circle. Baced on our discussions, we look at what our conceptualization of well-being would mean for the field of tourism studies.
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