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Through an interdisciplinary lens of positive psychology, this paper aims to explore positive experiences for human transformation, recognising their potential for a positive impact and contribution to the future tourism industry and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

A literature review forms the basis for the present paper.

Based on an in-depth literature review, four main avenues for positive experience design are proposed: designing transformative tourism experiences and measuring long-term impact; designing digital transformative tourism experiences; facilitating and guiding transformative experiences; and training to guide transformative experiences.

This study contributes to the interdisciplinary body of literature on positive psychology, experience design, and human transformation in the context of tourism. Cutting-edge perspectives are outlined to develop a theoretical and practical understanding of how to intentionally design for positive transformative experiences in tourism and make a positive contribution to the SDG 3 good health and well-being.

本文通过积极心理学的跨学科视角, 探讨促进人类转变的积极体验, 认识到其对未来旅游业和可持续发展目标（SDGs）产生积极影响和做出贡献的潜力。

研究结果 - 基于深入的文献综述, 提出了积极体验设计的四个主要途径, 包括：1）设计变革性旅游体验并衡量长期影响; 2）设计数字化变革性旅游体验; 3）促进和引导变革性体验; 以及 4）培训指导变革性体验。

本研究为有关积极心理学、体验设计和旅游业背景下的人类转型的跨学科文献做出了贡献。本研究概述了前沿观点, 以便从理论和实践上理解如何在旅游业中有意识地设计积极的转型体验, 并为可持续发展目标 3–良好的健康和福祉做出积极贡献。

A través del prisma interdisciplinar de la psicología positiva, este documento explora las experiencias positivas para la transformación humana, reconociendo su potencial para un impacto positivo y su contribución a la futura industria turística y a los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS).

El presente documento se basa en una revisión bibliográfica.

Sobre la base de una revisión en profundidad de la literatura, se proponen cuatro vías principales para el diseño de experiencias positivas, incluyendo 1) el diseño de experiencias turísticas transformadoras y la medición del impacto a largo plazo, 2) el diseño de experiencias turísticas transformadoras digitales, 3) la facilitación y guía de experiencias transformadoras, y 4) la formación para guiar experiencias transformadoras.

Este estudio contribuye al cuerpo interdisciplinario de literatura sobre psicología positiva, diseño de experiencias y transformación humana en el contexto del turismo. Se esbozan perspectivas de vanguardia para desarrollar una comprensión teórica y práctica de cómo diseñar intencionadamente experiencias transformadoras positivas en el turismo y hacer una contribución positiva al ODS 3 buena salud y bienestar.

This paper aims to examine critically the literature on transformational tourism and explore a research agenda for a post-COVID future.

A systematic review of the transformational tourism literature is performed over a 42-year period from 1978 to 2020.

Further research is required in terms of how transformative experiences should be calibrated and measured both in qualitative and quantitative terms, particularly from the perspective of how tourists are transformed by their experiences. Similarly, the nature and depth of these transformative processes remain poorly understood, particularly given the many different types of tourism associated with transformative experiences, which range from religious pilgrimages to backpacking and include several forms of ecotourism.

Future research directions for transformational tourism are discussed with regard to how COVID-19 will transform the dynamics of tourism and travel, including the role of new smart technologies in the creation of enhanced transformational experiences, and the changing expectations and perceptions of transformative travel in the post-COVID era. In addition, the researchers call for future studies on transformational tourism to explore the role of host communities in the delivery of meaningful visitor experiences.

Transformational tourism is an emerging body of research, which has attracted a growing level of interest among tourism scholars in recent years. However, to this date, a systematic review of published literature in this field has not been conducted yet in a holistic sense. This paper offers a framework for future research in this field.

This paper asserts that sustainable tourism education is an issue of extreme importance, especially for young adolescents, ages 10 to 12. Despite little intersection between middle-school education and tourism education, these two fields can become natural allies. Today's preteens not only influence their parent's tourism choices but will shape tomorrow's tourism, both as tourists and as hosts. This study is addressing the following research questions: if transformational school trips with tourism sustainability education proposes improve or enhance students' confidence and initiative, and how middle school individuals can become familiar with responsible and sustainable tourism and act upon it. Thus, the conceptual framework offered in this article is intended to contribute to a more systematic, programmatic, theory-based approach to the study of education for sustainable tourism in middle schools, and that by empowering students through travel. Results suggest that empowering middle-school individuals is halfway to achieve tourism sustainability goals.

The purpose of this paper is to position experience as an immersive process through the documentation of student reflections of place involving the intricacies of embodied learning and experiential mobilities. This study is framed through situational positionalities and placed movements of the tourist, the non-tourist and more specifically, students of Generation Z engaged in educational experiences.

This paper explores a student fieldtrip (on the island of Corfu, Greece) as a medium of expression for situated learning, involving a case study of tourism students learning critical tourism through sensual and haptic dimensions of reflection. The students “experienced” Corfu by participating in an international tourism conference, stayed on a yacht, went on various tours, met with tourism industry representatives and reflected their experiences in a collaborative photo story book.

Generation Z seemed to have the ability to discern the environment and decipher the role tourism plays. Their critical impressions of place in terms of infrastructure, sustainability, beauty, etc., force a rethink of traditional tourist typologies. It is necessary to reconsider the categorizations of tourism, challenging the need for tourism marketers to encapsulate experiences as both a single, yet multi-varied segment. What remains crucial is a deeper comprehension of this generation through their consumption patterns in relation to the various stakeholders of tourism.

This paper documents an engagement of self through experience as part of the “experience.” Hence, the transformative experiences of place reflections as opposed to linear post-trip representations of experience may be insightful for tourism practitioners dealing with a tourism of the future.

This research analyses the relationships between local foodscapes and tourism futures departing from furanchos as examples of a rural Spanish's authentic food tradition which reveals the transformative power of local foods and culinary practices in tourism.

Using a narrative inquiry, the qualitative case study is based on ten semi-structured interviews with local owners of furanchos in the Spanish region of Galicia.

Results show the key characteristics of furanchos, and their potential for sustainable food production and consumption. The regulatory framework and its close connection with the environment are the reasons why they provide transformative (food) tourism experiences.

Drawing from the preservation of a culinary culture, the future of food tourism will not only improve the sustainability of food systems and supply chains, but also the understanding of genuine foods and practices that represent people and places.

For the islands of the Caribbean, tourism is more than an industry to be managed. Significantly, it is a socioeconomic phenomenon that if managed effectively can address some of the challenges facing the region. Tourism higher education plays a critical role in preparing graduates to shape an improved Caribbean tourism society and in performing research. Over the years, its tourism education has been framed by “Western models” that have not taken sufficient account of the Caribbean reality. The focus of this chapter is to define Caribbean education and to propose a tourism higher education strategy for the implementation in part of this education.

Wellness tourism offers opportunities for consumers to explore the self. This paper aims to explore how identity transitions occur in a liminal tourism space – a holistic wellness retreat.

The authors adopt a qualitative methodology, including in-depth semi-structured interviews supplemented by various projective techniques. Following an interpretivist approach, eight consumers were interviewed at the commencement and the completion of a holistic wellness retreat stay. Participant observation was also undertaken during the retreat programme.

The paper shows an identity transition is facilitated by the liminal space of the holistic wellness retreat and further shaped by self-work during the retreat. As participants gain new knowledge on the self and start living “consciously”, they gain a sense of vision, clarity and direction to a new self, wherein identity transition is a starting point and a process of change rather than an end goal.

While much past research views tourism activities as mainly “play”, the findings reveal the holistic wellness retreat experiences as both identity play and identity work. This paper provides theoretical insights into the process from identity play to identity work and what makes this process effective for identity transition.

This study aims to theorise and empirically test a model based on the hierarchy of effects behavioural learning approach (“do-think-feel”) to explain how travel during a crisis assists consumer well-being. The paper also examines whether the effect travel has on well-being is serially mediated by perceived risk and resilience and moderated by the personality trait of sensation-seeking.

This research uses a quasi-experimental design involving Australian consumers based on a sample of n = 307 who had travelled and n = 277 who had not during the COVID-19 pandemic (N = 584). A replication study (N = 290) is also undertaken to assess the robustness of the hierarchy of effects uncovered in the main study. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM) and Hayes PROCESS macro.

The results reveal travellers have significantly higher levels of both hedonic and eudaimonic well-being than non-travellers, suggesting the transformative potential of travel experiences during a crisis. The transformative potential of travel is driven by perceived risk and psychological resilience, which mediate the relationship between travel frequency and well-being. Further, spotlight moderation analysis demonstrates that the effect of travel on well-being is most profound for those with lower levels of sensation-seeking. These relationships are also confirmed in the replication study.

This research is among the first in transformative service research (TSR) to test the mediators of perceived risk and resilience together in a singular study, showing how experiences such as travel are potentially transformative. It also evaluates personality traits such as sensation-seeking as a moderating factor, which is uncommon in TSR. Further, this study empirically validates a do–think–feel behavioural learning approach, as opposed to other hierarchy of effects sequences that are dominant in TSR and the wider services marketing literature.

In the emerging transformation economy, there is a shift from staging memorable experiences for many to eliciting life-transformative events for one. This study aims to understand how transformative experiences can be guided and what prerequisites are needed to elicit human transformation when designing experiences. This study borrows positive psychology as a theoretical lens to explore festivals as a prime context for liminal transformative experiences in the hospitality context.

A constructivist qualitative research design was used through 31 in-depth interviews. To ensure experience recollection, memory formation and integration of the experience into long-term transformative effects, all interviewees had attended an electronic dance music festival in the past 12 months.

Guided by the positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishments (PERMA) model, the thematic analysis revealed a series of psychological and contextual dimensions around PERMA and liminality that need to occur for transformative experiences, personal growth and self-transcendence to happen.

This study provides a guideline for event organisers and experiences designers to intentionally design and occasion positive human experiences in temporal and spatial liminal hospitality consumption contexts. Psychological and contextual dimensions are identified as critical factors in facilitating human transformation.

This paper bridges the emerging transformation economy, experience design and positive psychology. Grounded in PERMA, the study offers a novel theoretical model that serves as a framework for both transformative experience research and practical experience design.