Seeking Pleasure or Meaning? The Different Impacts of Hedonic and Eudaimonic Tourism Happiness on Tourists’ Life Satisfaction

Although hedonic tourism happiness and eudaimonic tourism happiness coexist in tourism experiences, extant research has primarily approached them and their impact on tourists’ life satisfaction separately. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate the impact on life satisfaction of the two types of happiness tourists experience in various activities they encounter in tourist venues and their asymmetric effects. A survey was conducted among tourists who had tourism experiences within a year (October 2018 to September 2019) either abroad or Jeju island, and 736 responses were used in the analysis. Results from structural equation modeling analysis show that most of the hypotheses were supported. Our findings demonstrate that pleasure and detachment experience positively affect hedonic tourism happiness, while personal meaning and self-reflection experiences positively affect eudaimonic tourism happiness. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.