This book calls for positive tourism, principally grounded in theories from positive psychology (the study of what makes life worth living), and the development of a body of knowledge that explains what characterises optimal tourist experiences, what enables host communities to flourish and what encourages workers in tourism to thrive.
"In conclusion, this well written edited book achieves to further knowledge on optimal tourist experiences but more importantly has started documenting research on worker well-being and host-community well-being through the lens of positive psychology... the value of this book, particularly for researchers, lies as much in what is presented making an original contribution to knowledge as in highlighting what is missing or where our attention in tourism research should be."
Heike Schänzel, School of Hospitality & Tourism, Auckland University of Technology
Sebastian Filep is Senior Lecturer at the Tourism Department, University of Otago, New Zealand. He specialises in tourism and well-being research. He has published internationally in peer-reviewed academic journals and books on the topic of human well-being. Jennifer Laing is Associate Professor in Management in the Department of Management and Marketing, La Trobe University, Australia. Her research interests include extraordinary tourist experiences, the role of events in society, travel narratives and wellness tourism. She has co-written five and edited two books on tourism and/or events. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Management and Founding Co-Director of the Quality of Life Research Centre, Claremont Graduate University, USA. He is noted for his work on happiness, but is best known as the architect of the notion of flow.