Wikipedia

Vacation

For other uses, seeVacation (disambiguation).

Avacation(American English) orholiday(British English) is either aleave of absencefrom a regular job or school or an instance of leisure travel away from home. People often take a vacation during specificholidayobservances or for specificfestivalsor celebrations. Vacations are often spent withfriendsorfamily.[1]Vacations may include a specific trip or journey, usually for the purpose ofrecreationortourism.

Vacationers at the beach inBroadstairs,Kent,United Kingdom
Average number of vacation days over time in various countries

A person may take a longer break from work, such as asabbatical,gap year,Holiday entitlement[2]orcareer break.

Theconceptof taking a vacation is a recent invention, and has developed through the last two centuries. Historically, the idea of travel for recreation was a luxury that only wealthy people could afford (seeGrand Tour). In thePuritanculture of earlyAmerica,taking a break from work for reasons other than weekly observance of the Sabbath was frowned upon. However, the modern concept of vacation was led by a later religious movement encouragingspiritual retreatand recreation. The notion of breaking from work periodically took root among the middle and working class.[3]

Etymology

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In theUnited Kingdom,vacationonce specifically referred to the long summer break taken by thelaw courtsand then later the term was applied to universities.[4]The custom was introduced byWilliam the ConquerorfromNormandywhere it facilitated the grape harvest.[citation needed]In the past, manyupper-classfamilies moved to asummer homefor part of the year, leaving their usual home vacant.[citation needed]

Regional meaning

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See also:Tourism

Vacation,in English-speakingNorth America,describes recreationaltravel,such as a short pleasure trip or a journey abroad. People inCommonwealthcountries use the termholidayto describe absence from work as well as to describe a vacation or journey. Vacation can mean either staying home or going somewhere.

Canadiansoften usevacationandholidayinterchangeably referring to a trip away from home or time off work.[5]InAustralia,New Zealandand theUK,holidaycan refer to a vacation or apublic holiday.

In the 1800s,New York Cityindustrialists such as theVanderbilts,Rockefellers,Carnegies,andHuntingtonsbuilt their own "great camps" in theAdirondack Mountainsofupstate New Yorkwhere they could spend time with their families in private luxury, declaring that they would "vacate" their city homes for their lakeside summer retreats; thus the term "vacation" replaced theBritish"holiday" in common parlance in the United States, with influence from guidebook authorWilliam Henry Harrison Murray.[6]

InHungarian,the wordvakációcan mean both a recreational trip, an officially granted absence from work (generally in warmer months), and the summer (longest) school break. For absence from work, the wordszabadság(freedom/liberty) can be used, possibly asbetegszabadság(sickness freedom/sickness liberty) when the reason of absence is medical in nature.

Family vacation

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Family vacation refers to recreation taken together by the family. Family vacation can be ritual—for example, annually around the same time—or it can be a one-time event. It can involve travel to a far-flung spot or, for families on a tight budget, a stay-at-home staycation.[7]Some examples of favorite family vacations might include family cruises, trips to popular theme parks, ski vacations, beach vacations, food vacations[8]or similar types of family trips.

Vacation research

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Research on the effects of vacations on health, well-being and work performance started in the 1990s. The first meta-analysis on the effects of vacations was published in 2009.[9]A 2013 literature review on the health and wellness benefits of travel experiences revealed beneficial effects of vacationing.[10]More recent studies report on the positive effects of vacations as both a passive recovery process due to removal from job stress and as the active pursuit of rela xing, pleasurable andphysical activities.[11][12][13]

Anticipation effects

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Anticipation effects of vacations refer to the changes that may occur in the time leading up to a vacation. Anticipation effects can be positive and negative. They can manifest in stress from workload or homeload (house work such as cleaning) leading up to a vacation. Research shows that health and well-being levels decrease from the second last week before vacation to the last week before vacation. This is explained by a higher workload leading up to vacation. Increasing homeload before vacation also explains a decrease in health and well-being prior to vacation, but only for women.[14]

Moreover, research on Christmas holidays found that positive well-being effects such as enthusiasm rose in the weeks leading up to Christmas, whereas negative well-being effects such as nervousness decreased in the same time period. These effects can be explained by the pleasant expectations, called "Vorfreude" in German, that arise in the time leading up to the Christmas holidays.[15]

Vacation effects

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In a series of studies from 2010,[16]2012[17]and 2013,[18]a team of researchers from the Radboud University Nijmegen analyzed the effects of vacations on subjective wellbeing in approximately 250 employees. The researchers examined employees before, during and after their vacation. Via telephone interviews during vacation, the researchers found that self-reported health and wellbeing improved during vacation. However, within the first week of returning to work, employee's wellbeing lapsed to pre-vacation levels, irrespective of the duration or type of vacation. The research team also found that subjective vacation experiences, such as relaxation and control over one's activities boost vacation effects.[19]

Creativity

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According to a scientific study from 2014,[20]vacations have an effect on an individual's creativity. Researchers examined creativity by way of an idea-generation task (Guilford's Alternate Uses) in 46 Dutch employees before and after a three-week summer vacation. Participants had to generate creative uses for common daily things such as a brick or piece of paper. The results showed that ideas were just as original after the vacation as they were before. However, employees did produce a wider range of ideas after a vacation as opposed to before, showing greater mental flexibility as a result from taking a vacation. Specifically, it seems that after a vacation employees consider a greater range of aspects of thoughts and avoid routine solutions as opposed to before going on vacation.

Romantic relationships

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In a study from 2012,[17]researchers found that a vacation may act as a relationship booster by offering the opportunity to increase interactions with a partner and by enhancing spouse support. This finding highlights the importance of high quality contact between partners during a vacation. Specifically, vacationers who conversed extensively and positively with one another felt more relaxed, derived more pleasure from vacation experiences and felt more detached from their work during their holiday trip.[21]Another study found that satisfaction with vacations can explain couples' relationship commitment and suggests that vacation may serve as a means for strengthening relationships.[22]Another team of researchers found that shared experiences during vacations, such as effective communication, showing affection, or experiencing new things together, were positively associated with couples' day-to-day functioning at home.

Vacation mechanisms: why vacations are beneficial

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Leisure is an important ingredient for overall well-being. It provides people with freetime and possibilities to engage in non-obligatory activities. This helps people to recover from job stress.[23]In 2007, researchers developed four measures for assessing how people recuperate and unwind from work during leisure time. This study showed that four recovery experiences help to lower stress and aid recovery from strain: psychological detachment from work, relaxation, mastery, and control. Meaning and affiliation were later added, leading to the DRAMMA-model: Detachment, Relaxation, Autonomy, Mastery, Meaning and Affiliation.[24][25]

  • Detachmentrefers to mental distancing from work-related tasks. Shifting focus and thinking about something other than work can be achieved by reading a book or engaging in physical activities, for example.[13]
  • Relaxationrefers to low levels of physical and mental activation coupled with a positive mood. Relaxation activities calm the body and mind: for example progressive muscle relaxation, a massage, or taking a warm bath.[13]
  • Autonomyrefers to a sense of being in control of your surroundings. This concerns, for example, being able to reserve certain periods of the day for enjoyable activities of your own choice.
  • Masterycan be achieved by activities that challenge you and provide opportunities to improve skills and knowledge, giving a sense of accomplishment. This can involve learning new skills like playing an instrument or sports. improving existing skills, or gaining new knowledge.[13]
  • Meaningrefers to leisure activities that give people a sense of making a difference in the world and contributing to a greater cause. Examples are volunteering, cultural activities or making art.
  • Affiliationrefers to the sense of belongingness and the sense of feeling connected to others. Activities that can lead to affiliation are for example going to parties with friends, playing games or cooking and eating together.

Each of these mechanisms serve as a mediating link between any form of leisure activities and subjective well-being. Autonomy, Mastery and Affiliation are similar to the core mechanisms inself-determination theory.

Methodology

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Vacation research design

Conducting research on vacations is challenging because vacationing concerns a process that stretches across longer time periods and people are often traveling and therefore hard to reach for research purposes.Randomized controlled trialsin which people would be assigned to certain travel types are costly to realize and most people would probably not like to be assigned to a specific type of holiday. Accordingly, researchers have described a few important features of vacation research that help to generate reliable and valid results.[26]

  • Measures before, during and after vacation: Repeated measures in the same persons are required to study vacationing as a process that unfolds its effects over time.
  • On vacation measurements: It is important to not only use pre- and post-vacation measurements but to also obtain information during vacation. This is because post-vacation measurements are biased by work resumption and fade-out may already have begun. On vacation measures could be done via live phone calls/interviews or time-stamped assessments via smartphone apps.
  • Pre-vacation measurements: Research has shown that health and well-being slightly decrease shortly before vacation compared to two weeks before vacation.[27]Therefore, vacation effects are defined as the difference between on-vacation measurements compared to pre-vacation measurements conducted at least two weeks prior to the holiday.
  • Fade-out measurements: It is also useful to compare several post-vacation measurements with pre-vacation measurements to determine whether and how fast vacation effects diminish.[28]

Vacation policy

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In nearly all countries worldwide, there are minimum requirements as to theannual leavethat must be afforded to an employee (see alsoList of minimum annual leave by country).

Even in the United States, where no federal requirements as to minimum annual leave exist, many large corporations have vacation policies, some allowing employees to take weeks off and some even allowing unlimited vacation.[29]Unlimited vacation arrangements may nonetheless come with implicit expectations, for instance, it may be implied that an employee should not take more than about the average number of vacation days taken by others. They normally also have the consequence that employees who leave the company receive no monetary compensation for leave days not taken.[citation needed]

According to the U.S. Travel Association, Americans collectively did not use 662 million vacation days in 2016. More than half of all working people in theUnited Statesforfeited paid time off at the end of the year.[30]Two-thirds of people still do work while they are on vacation.[31]

Unlimited paid vacation policies

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In order to go on a vacation in the first place, workers make use of paid time off granted by their employers. Recently, unlimited paid time off policies (UPTO) are rising in popularity. In a study from 2022, researchers propose two competing processes and boundary conditions when it comes to unlimited paid time off.[32]These processes can at the same time "unlock the best" and "unleash the beast". On the one hand, unlimited time paid time off can increase employees' feeling of control, accountability, and work engagement. On the other hand, unlimited paid time off may set detrimental social processes in motion which could also lead to self-endangering work behaviors, long working hours, and exhaustion. Workers may feel discouraged from taking time off, because they lack social norms on leave taking, feel insecure about taking leave or feel guilty towards their team when taking time off during busy periods at work. Absence of formal rules may lead to newly emerging informal rules which are not communicated and can increase social conflicts. The researchers also argue that leave changes from an individual trading good into a collective good under unlimited leave policies.

Impact of digital communications

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Recent developments in communication technology—such as internet, mobile, instant messaging, presence tracking—have begun to change the nature of vacation. Vacation today now could mean absence from the workplace rather than temporary cessation of work. For a minority subset of workers in North America and the United Kingdom, it is now the norm to carry on working or remain on call while on vacation rather than abandon work altogether. Some people doremote workwhile on vacation. Antithetically, workers may take time out of the office to go on vacation, but remain plugged-in to work-related communications networks. While remaining plugged-in over vacation may generate short-term business benefits, the long-term psychological impacts of these developments are only beginning to be understood.[33]

Workcations

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Since the pandemic started and working life became more flexible, working from various locations became more common. Specifically, workcations that combine aspects of work and travel can offer periods of detachment and relaxation in the same way vacations do, although those periods are shorter than during a traditional vacation.[34][35]

A study published in 2020 regardingdigital nomadsexplains how the borders between work and leisure disappear.[36]Digital nomads can travel and work because they are not bound by normal work structures such as offices and 9-to-5 life. However, creating one's own structures, routines and work communities can also be experienced as burdensome.

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Family vacation and vacation in general has become a common theme in many books and films. Writers often draw on common occurrences that take place during a vacation such asdisastersand bonding.

See also

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References

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  2. ^Government Digital Service (10 October 2024)."Holiday entitlement".
  3. ^All Things Considered (17 June 2009)."The History of the Vacation Examined".NPR.Retrieved2 February2015.
  4. ^"United Kingdom University Term Times and Vacations".Archivedfrom the original on 13 January 2016.Retrieved5 January2016.
  5. ^"Difference between Vacation and Holiday".GeeksforGeeks.24 April 2023.Retrieved12 September2024.
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  9. ^de Bloom, Jessica; Kompier, Michiel; Geurts, Sabine; de Weerth, Carolina; Taris, Toon; Sonnentag, Sabine (2009)."Do we recover from vacation? Meta-analysis of vacation effects on health and well-being".Journal of Occupational Health.51(1): 13–25.doi:10.1539/joh.k8004.hdl:2066/76925.ISSN1348-9585.PMID19096200.S2CID11303866.
  10. ^Chen, Chun-Chu; Petrick, James F. (November 2013)."Health and Wellness Benefits of Travel Experiences: A Literature Review".Journal of Travel Research.52(6): 709–719.doi:10.1177/0047287513496477.ISSN0047-2875.S2CID155025589.
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  12. ^Sonnentag, Sabine; Cheng, Bonnie Hayden; Parker, Stacey L. (21 January 2022)."Recovery from Work: Advancing the Field Toward the Future".Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior.9(1): 33–60.doi:10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-012420-091355.ISSN2327-0608.S2CID242067358.
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  17. ^abde Bloom, Jessica; Geurts, Sabine A. E.; Kompier, Michiel A. J. (October 2012)."Effects of short vacations, vacation activities and experiences on employee health and well-being".Stress and Health.28(4): 305–318.doi:10.1002/smi.1434.hdl:2066/102489.ISSN1532-2998.PMID22213478.
  18. ^de Bloom, Jessica; Geurts, Sabine A. E.; Kompier, Michiel A. J. (1 April 2013)."Vacation (after-) effects on employee health and well-being, and the role of vacation activities, experiences and sleep".Journal of Happiness Studies.14(2): 613–633.doi:10.1007/s10902-012-9345-3.hdl:2066/116760.ISSN1573-7780.S2CID6635183.
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  20. ^de Bloom, Jessica; Ritter, Simone; Kühnel, Jana; Reinders, Jennifer; Geurts, Sabine (1 October 2014)."Vacation from work: A 'ticket to creativity'?: The effects of recreational travel on cognitive flexibility and originality".Tourism Management.44:164–171.doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2014.03.013.ISSN0261-5177.
  21. ^Durko, Angela M.; Petrick, James F. (September 2016)."Travel as Relationship Therapy: Examining the Effect of Vacation Satisfaction Applied to the Investment Model".Journal of Travel Research.55(7): 904–918.doi:10.1177/0047287515592970.ISSN0047-2875.S2CID142263887.
  22. ^Shahvali, Mojtaba; Kerstetter, Deborah L.; Townsend, Jasmine N. (January 2021)."The Contribution of Vacationing Together to Couple Functioning".Journal of Travel Research.60(1): 133–148.doi:10.1177/0047287519892340.ISSN0047-2875.S2CID214252424.
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  26. ^de Bloom, J.; Geurts, S. A. E.; Taris, T. W.; Sonnentag, S.; Weerth, C.; Kompier (2010)."Effects of vacation from work on health and well-being: Lots of fun, quickly gone".PsycEXTRA Dataset.doi:10.1037/e572992012-036.hdl:2066/90281.Retrieved29 April2022.
  27. ^Nawijn, Jeroen; De Bloom, Jessica; Geurts, Sabine (January 2013)."Pre-Vacation Time: Blessing or Burden?".Leisure Sciences.35(1): 33–44.doi:10.1080/01490400.2013.739875.hdl:2066/121507.ISSN0149-0400.S2CID146226846.
  28. ^Kühnel, Jana; Sonnentag, Sabine (20 July 2010)."How long do you benefit from vacation? A closer look at the fade-out of vacation effects".Journal of Organizational Behavior.32(1): 125–143.doi:10.1002/job.699.ISSN0894-3796.
  29. ^Vanderkam, Laura (3 October 2015)."Here's why unlimited vacation may be too good to be true".Fortune.Retrieved21 May2016.
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  31. ^Ashford, Kate."Why Americans Aren't Taking Half Of Their Vacation Days".Forbes.Retrieved3 December2017.
  32. ^de Bloom, Jessica; Syrek, Christine J.; Kühnel, Jana; Vahle-Hinz, Tim (2022)."Unlimited Paid Time Off Policies: Unlocking the Best and Unleashing the Beast".Frontiers in Psychology.13:812187.doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.812187.ISSN1664-1078.PMC8987765.PMID35401348.
  33. ^Williams, Ray (6 May 2012)."Why It's so Hard to Unplug From the Digital World".Psychology Today.Archived fromthe originalon 25 November 2013.Retrieved2 February2015.
  34. ^Liu, Gloria (21 April 2022)."'Workcations' Aren't an Escape. They're Practice ".The Atlantic.Retrieved28 April2022.
  35. ^Liu, Gloria (21 April 2022)."Mackinac Island".Brit On The Move.Retrieved28 April2022.
  36. ^Cook, Dave (1 September 2020)."The freedom trap: digital nomads and the use of disciplining practices to manage work/leisure boundaries".Information Technology & Tourism.22(3): 355–390.doi:10.1007/s40558-020-00172-4.ISSN1943-4294.S2CID215969391.
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