Subjective Well-Being on Nature and City Vacations—A Comparative Analysis of the DREAMA Mechanisms and a Discussion of the Implications for Regenerative Tourism

Summary

The discourse on regenerative tourism development currently focuses primarily on destination-based transformation processes and the well-being of local communities, while the subjective well-being (SWB) of vacation travelers has so far been given insufficient consideration. This paper therefore examines the mechanisms through which vacation travel contributes to SWB and to what extent these mechanisms differ between nature-based and urban forms of travel. The empirical basis for the analysis consists of data from a Germany-wide representative survey of vacation travelers. To measure the impact of vacation travel on SWB, the DREAMA model by Filep, Moyle, and Skavronskaya (2024) is empirically operationalized for the first time. The results show that vacation travel, on the whole, satisfies key psychological needs underlying SWB to a high degree. Nature-based vacation travel exhibits stronger effects compared to city-based vacation travel, particularly with regard to the eudaimonic dimension of SWB, such as meaning and connection to nature. Hedonistic components of SWB, particularly relaxation and autonomy, are, however, fulfilled to a comparable extent regardless of the type of trip. A moderation analysis also shows that these effects are not significantly influenced by characteristics of the trip’s organization. This paper underscores the relevance of vacationers’ SWB as a previously neglected yet central dimension of regenerative tourism processes and discusses implications for a more holistically oriented further development of the regenerative tourism paradigm in research and practice.