Self-presentation: A Link between Tourism and Health

Shangzhi Qiu, Purdue University

Abstract

The study was conducted against the backdrop of the fast-growing interest in health-related tourism experiences from both academia and industry practitioners. At the same time there is still a debate about the benefits of tourism on physical health, which has been barely investigated from a behavioral perspective. The primary goal of this study is to develop a conceptual model that links tourism and health-related behaviors through the tourist’s self-presentational concerns, with a focus on the rural tourism experience. As such, this study aims to (1) investigate the general effects of tourism on individuals’ self-presentational concerns and consequential health-related self-presentations and (2) compare the effects of rural destinations with those of urban destinations for urban residents. The study goal has been achieved through the development of the Conceptual Model of Tourism and Health-related Self-presentation using the dramaturgical framework of self-presentation in tourism as its foundational theory. Among other findings, the study has discovered that (1) a destination environment is perceived by tourists as the back stage of the social life where their self-presentational concerns are lower than in the home environment; (2) a decrease of their self-presentational concerns leads to the change of their health-related behaviors which has multifaceted influences on their physical health; and (3) rural destinations are more effective than urban ones in relieving urban residents’ self-presentational concerns and improving their physical health because the rural environment is more like the back stage for them to engage in outdoor physical activities. These findings strongly suggest that tourists’ behaviors at destinations can be considered as the psychological reactions to the socio-physical environments of the destinations in accordance with the social meanings embedded in the environments. For urban residents, the socio-physical environments of rural destinations are associated with an escape from daily routines and outdoor physical activities. In effect, they react to the environments with a lower self-presentational concern and a higher frequency of outdoor physical activities when they stay at rural destinations. However, the socio-physical environments of urban destinations are similar to their home environments. As a result, their psychological states and health-related behaviors change less significantly at urban destinations than at rural destinations. By virtue of discovering the characteristics of self-presentations in different destination environments, this study makes some unique contributions to the development of theories of social psychology as applied to tourism. It identifies the association between the socio-physical environments of the destinations and tourists’ health-related behaviors and thereby opens the discussions on the match between destinations and tourist segments for health enhancement. Practically, the study’s findings inform that rural tourism can be developed and promoted to address the needs for tourists’ relief of daily self-presentational concerns and improvement of their physical health, such as facilities and activities that enhance the positive effect of rural tourism on urban residents’ physical health.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Cai, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Marketing|Behavioral psychology|Management

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