Exploring travel and spirituality: The role of travel in facilitating life purpose and meaning within the lives of individuals
type: CreativeWork
description: This thesis is a phenomenological study of individuals who engaged in tours provided by Hands Up Holidays, a tour operator marketing their travel as ‘spiritual’. Hands Up Holidays views spirituality as being a broader concept than religion and attracts both religious and non-religious individuals who are seeking personally meaningful experiences. With the exception of the religious tourism literature, there is a paucity of research exploring ‘spirituality’ within a tourism framework and, specifically, what role travel plays in the search for meaning and life purpose within the lives of individuals. Spirituality is presented by scholars as conceptually representing every individual’s personal search for meaning in life; in this way, although closely related, it is conceptually different from religion; while every person is argued to be spiritual, only some are religious. The thesis aims to explore spirituality and travel; specifically, the role of travel in facilitating life purpose and meaning in the lives of individuals. To inform this study, the thesis takes a journey through a range of conceptualisations and thinking about spirituality amongst scholars. This journey reveals that each description of spirituality comprises three core constructs, these being that spirituality involves a search for meaning and life purpose, transcendence and connectedness in life. This thesis thus bases its conceptual platform on these three core constructs of spirituality. Through the analysis of 11 in-depth individual research portraits, research participants give their voice within this thesis; in addition to recounting their travel experience with Hands Up Holidays, individuals write themselves into the research in a manner that held significant personal meaning to oneself, such as through sharing one’s reflective stories, photographs and/or diaries. Key research findings were drawn from thematic analysis of each of the 11 in-depth research portraits and from my personal reflecti…
abstract: This thesis is a phenomenological study of individuals who engaged in tours provided by Hands Up Holidays, a tour operator marketing their travel as ‘spiritual’. Hands Up Holidays views spirituality as being a broader concept than religion and attracts both religious and non-religious individuals who are seeking personally meaningful experiences. With the exception of the religious tourism literature, there is a paucity of research exploring ‘spirituality’ within a tourism framework and, specifically, what role travel plays in the search for meaning and life purpose within the lives of individuals. Spirituality is presented by scholars as conceptually representing every individual’s personal search for meaning in life; in this way, although closely related, it is conceptually different from religion; while every person is argued to be spiritual, only some are religious. The thesis aims to explore spirituality and travel; specifically, the role of travel in facilitating life purpose and meaning in the lives of individuals. To inform this study, the thesis takes a journey through a range of conceptualisations and thinking about spirituality amongst scholars. This journey reveals that each description of spirituality comprises three core constructs, these being that spirituality involves a search for meaning and life purpose, transcendence and connectedness in life. This thesis thus bases its conceptual platform on these three core constructs of spirituality. Through the analysis of 11 in-depth individual research portraits, research participants give their voice within this thesis; in addition to recounting their travel experience with Hands Up Holidays, individuals write themselves into the research in a manner that held significant personal meaning to oneself, such as through sharing one’s reflective stories, photographs and/or diaries. Key research findings were drawn from thematic analysis of each of the 11 in-depth research portraits and from my personal reflecti…
author: Willson, Gregory Brian
keywords: spirituality, tourism, meaning
license: https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstreams/3f56d0fa-8ce6-4bbb-90c8-f1d734ed6b0b/download
date published: 2010
date modified: 2026-07-24T05:57:27Z
provider: University Waikato
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Waikato