Recasting sustainable summer holidaying: scripts, time experiences, freedom, place change and environmental imprints

Abstract

In the summer of 2020, COVID-19 border closures, travel restrictions, infection risks and other uncertainties forced many people to cancel or adapt their holiday plans. This disruption created an exceptional context to study home-based holidaying experiences, representing a departure from pre-pandemic habits and routinely rehearsed summer holiday scripts. Responding to a longstanding bias in tourism research towards (high-carbon) international travel and a neglect of near-home holidaying, an explorative quantitative survey elucidated what novel or altered experiences may disclose about summer holidaying attitudes and transitions towards more sustainable forms of tourism. Theoretically informed by conceptualisations of holiday time, place change, role change, and routinisation of holiday practices, a SEM analytical framework revealed two primary inclinations. One was receptive to summer home holidaying and was associated with recognition of the environmental footprint of regular leisure travel and a willingness to recast vacation plans accordingly. The other was averse to home-based holidaying, driven by the view that it was unfulfilling and by a desire to resume international travel when restrictions were eased.

Keywords:

• Home-based summer holidaying
• travel disruption
• COVID-19
• recasting
• holiday script
• travel discontinuity

Introduction

Established holiday travel practices were disrupted and/or suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic (Tremblay-Huet, 2020), triggering enforced habit discontinuities (cf. Verplanken et al., 2008) and defying the possibility of vacation normality. Both formal and informal pandemic journeying restrictions (including border closures and recommendations against travel), along with uncertainties and additional travel labours (e.g., COVID-19 testing regimes) compelled many people to rethink their 2020 summer holiday plans; the alternative being to holiday at or close to home. The unprecedented disruption caused by the suspension of travel freedoms gave rise to widespread speculation that the pandemic could change the system of global tourism (Gössling et al., 2020). This period of unparalleled disruption was considered to potentially include transformations of future holidaying interests and intentions (cf. Galvani et al., 2020; Verplanken & Whitmarsh, 2021), perhaps extending to renewed concern for and consideration of the carbon footprint and other environmental impacts of leisure travel (e.g., Gössling & Higham, 2020). The pandemic thus presented a unique opportunity to envisage innovative forms of holidaying close to home, as a pathway to (more) sustainable consumption and production (Sustainable Development Goal 12: “Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns”) and climate action (Sustainable Development Goal 13: “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”) in tourism (UNEP, 2021).

Home-based summer holidaying has been dealt with to a very modest degree in previous research, mainly in surveys of welfare issues (e.g. Haukeland, 1990; Kitterød, 1988) and in a small number of conceptual studies (e.g. Opaschowski, 2002) and qualitative inquiries (e.g. Besson, 2017; Heimtun, 2017). During the global financial crisis of 2007–2008, the term ‘staycation’ entered the tourism vernacular (Molz, 2009; Sharma, 2009), understood to be days off work/studies spent in or near one’s primary residence, commonly as varieties of holidaymaking as leisure/recreation but also sightseeing-like experiences (Besson, 2017). Tourism research has regularly dealt with industry aspects and the private domain, while recreation studies have been oriented more towards public sector concerns (e.g. Crompton & Richardson, 1986; Hall & Page, 2014). In home-based vacationing explorations, it might be fruitful to combine these approaches.

Holidaying has partly been interpreted through scripts, that is, institutionalised behaviour frames and conceptions (e.g. Adler, 1989; Dann, 1996; Goffman, 1959) that might also be seen as holidaying genres. Scripts can be understood as social conventions, norms, values, and practices; societal contexts that may influence individual action either in compliance or in opposition (e.g. Crang, 2004; Edensor, 2000). For instance, guidebooks can be scripts for tourists (Adler, 1989) as can vacationers posing for photographs on sunny beaches and in front of iconic landscapes, buildings, or cityscapes, as rendered desirable through social media platforms such as Instagram (Cohen et al., 2022). Summer holiday scripts may denote roles or action types (e.g. Bowman & Pezzullo, 2010) that may become entrenched over time through long-term habit formation. Enduring travel habits or genres have been widely shared and often go unquestioned (e.g. Löfgren, 1999) and might therefore be challenging or time-consuming to modify in the absence of significant disruption (e.g. Verplanken & Whitmarsh, 2021).

The quantitative explorative survey research presented in this paper was undertaken to understand attitudes toward home-based holidaying, building on people’s assessments after having cancelled planned trips and taken summer days off based in their primary residence due to COVID-19 restrictions and uncertainties. As Lohmann (1996) has argued, considering travel as a necessity for holidaying should be subject to critical research. Questioning deeply engrained and embedded high-carbon travel behaviours has become a critical priority in times of climate emergency (e.g. Seeler et al., 2021; UNEP, 2021). Enforced home-based holidaying might thus provide reflections on journeying habits that differ from the norm. Yet, few studies have explored this viewpoint and how it might trigger reflections on long term changes to holidaying habits. As Yang et al. (2021) maintained, much early COVID-19 research investigating prospects emerging from the pandemic experiences for more environmentally friendly and climatically sustainable tourism has not been theoretically driven or empirically based.

Against this backdrop, we posed the following research questions: (1) Which experiences and reflections of spending summer holidays based at home explain positive (compliance) and negative (aversion) attitudes to spending a future holiday at home? (2) Do certain characteristics of the holidaymakers themselves and their envisioned travel types or destinations influence their perceptions of home-based days off, and thus attitudes towards home-based holidaying and flying to destinations abroad?

To answer these questions, this explorative project was informed by evolving theories of relationships between home, travel, work, time perceptions, enduring memories and overall leisure/recreation, in relation to the unprecedented disruption of established travel behaviours caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The theoretical basis for the empirical part of this explorative study is outlined in Appendix A. Our theoretical framing recognised that routinisation may not be bounded only to mundane practices at home and at work but may also apply to heavily institutionalised or scripted summer holidaying (Dann, 1996) that may be difficult or expensive to change, despite pandemic questioning of what is normal and the urgency of finding low-carbon alternatives (e.g. Gössling et al., 2020). In doing so, through this paper we seek to contribute new theoretical conceptualisations and enhanced understanding of holiday time perceptions, place change, role change, routinisation of holiday practices, and enforced habit discontinuities, related to home or near-home holidaying during an exceptional period of global tourism crisis. Moreover, it will also provide empirical insights on the impacts of the pandemic on the possible recasting of summer holiday travel while compensating for the longstanding neglect of near-home holidaying and thus more environmentally friendly leisure mobilities in tourism research.

Literature review

Through industrial modernity, holidays have customarily been perceived as periods without work-related or similar responsibilities (Cross, 1990); initially a means of ‘re-creation’ or relaxation from salaried work. In most European countries, annual leave provisions have contributed to the on-going democratisation of leisure travel, aided by an epoch with cheaper air transport, more widespread car ownership, and the accompanying perception of summer holidaymaking as travelling (far) from one’s primary residence.

Modern-day holidaymaking as travel has often been interpreted as escape from everyday life (e.g. Krippendorf, 1987) and a break from routines (e.g. Southall, 2012). Tourism scholarship has made a distinction between two main ways of holidaying; place change and role change (Opaschowski, 2002). Place change relies on forms of mobility, while holiday role change has customarily included temporary reprieve from occupation and/or budgetary obligations (e.g. Gram, 2005), the experience value presumably being subjectively rated highest when change of location and role are possible at the same time (Opaschowski, 2002). Löfgren (1999) argued in the Scandinavian context that physical movement is a requirement for the mental transformation of a winter person into a summer person; the summer relocation enabling people to switch to a different emotional register. Larsen and Guiver (2013) found a similar intrinsic value of holiday travel distance among Danish people. Just as taking a trip is not the only way to escape everyday life, leisure travel presumably offers an imaginative or reflexive liberty (Font & Hindley, 2017) that has been mostly unavailable elsewhere in modern social life, except in brief moments (e.g. Buzard, 1993; Cresswell, 2006), although conceivably a freedom with scripts attached (e.g. Wang, 1996).

When spending days off at home, role change might be possible but challenging, particularly in metropolitan areas partly unsuited to many of their residents’ myriad of summer recreational interests (cf. Kitterød, 1988; Opaschowski, 2002). Bracketing domestic routines from one’s primary residence might be obtained by using one’s imagination to ascribe alternative denotations to summer leisure periods (Elands & Lengkeek, 2012), that is, holidaymaking as an experience or a state of mind. In this manner, aspects of home-based holidaying may offer escape from the taken-for-granted world of everyday life (Schutz, 1967/1932), possibly experiencing adventure-like situations (Simmel, 1971/1911), forgetful attitudes towards everyday life (Cohen, 1979), and flow experiences (Larsen, 2013).

Still, people who are spending their summer days off at home may slip more slowly into a holiday mood or find it impossible to achieve necessary role change (Opaschowski, 2002). Moreover, some people might find it difficult to abandon household chores and family obligations when spending the summer holiday in one’s primary residence that might have inescapable reminders of work (Kreiner et al., 2009) or of household projects that have been put off (Kitterød, 1988). Accordingly, spending the summer break away from home may generally make it easier to distance oneself from work (de Bloom et al., 2017) and relax (Besson, 2017); as the saying goes, ‘out of sight, out of mind’.

What is more, home-based holidaying has tended to be fraught with negative associations. People who spend their summer days off at home have been pitied or made to feel left behind (Frew & Winter, 2009) and compelled to explain why they are not travelling (de Bloom et al., 2017). For some, social media has heightened anxiety arising from the ‘fear of missing out’ (‘FOMO’) when others have been luxuriating while enjoying exotic (international) holidays (Cohen et al., 2022). In times of ubiquitous social media representations of (traveller) self (e.g. Munar, (2010), a conceivably unfashionable home-based leave might be regarded as not worth talking about. This could lead to a sense of lower status and/or compromised self-esteem and self-worth, especially for families with children or adolescents who have no vacation stories to tell their peers when school resumes following the long summer vacation (Skjong, 2019).

Nonetheless, people with both the ability and means to travel may still favour holidaying at home. Among the advantages of holidaying in one’s primary residence are not only relaxation (e.g. Besson, 2017) but also avoiding the stress, hassle and expense of travel (Blichfeldt et al., 2017; Hall & Holdsworth, 2016; Löfgren, 2008), exhaustion on arrival at the destination (Opaschowski, 2002), and not being worn out when the holiday is over (Lohmann, 1996). Summer holidaying at or near home might also imply that one could moderate environmentally and climate-related downsides of hypermobility (e.g. Cohen & Gössling, 2015) and lead some people to more conscious vacation travel decisions (Stankov et al., 2020).

Restlessness that may accompany idle time at home has also been thought of as important for the desire to get away (Heimtun, 2017; Krippendorf, 1987). Some people have found it boring to stay home during their summer breaks (Blichfeldt, 2008; Heimtun, 2017). Regardless of probable inimitable highlights, summer trips away from home may still become subject to ritual and routine (Dann, 1996) or various constraints (Heimtun, 2019). In Norway, widespread second home ownership and use may have contributed to institutionalised or scripted travel patterns, for instance for people who routinely vacation in their second homes (e.g. Bachke & Rye, 2011).

Looking forward to a holiday might sometimes be as pleasing as the break itself; anticipation has been regarded as a crucial source of well-being, influencing decision-making, including risk assessments (e.g. Iigaya et al., 2020). Conversely, high holiday expectations might sometimes lead to disappointment (e.g. Muller & O’Cass, 2001). Home-based holidaying can imply decreased risk (Besson, 2017), for instance for not receiving value for the money spent (cf. Roehl & Fesenmaier, 1992). On the other hand, holidaymakers may also experience risk for wasted days off from work when vacationing at home because of unpredictable and adverse weather conditions (e.g. Eugenio-Martin & Campos-Soria, 2010; Lohmann & Kaim, 1999).

Still, home-based holidaymakers can bring less pressures of expectation to have the ‘perfect’ vacation; they may feel more capable of choosing and timing their activities without having to do everything with their partners and families (Opaschowski, 2002). Summer holidaying from home may also lead to the (re)discovery of local or regional recreation opportunities. Examples might be (renewed) aesthetic enjoyment drawn from ordinary and well-known objects, sights, and activities (Besson, 2017) or just benefitting from having time to make use of familiar local opportunities (Besson, 2017; Blichfeldt, 2008).

Popular summer holiday activities before the pandemic have included visiting friends or relatives or receiving visitors, both among those who go on trips and those who spend all or most of their summer holiday at home (Central Bureau of Statistics, 1988; Kitterød, 1988). Spending more summer days off work in one’s primary residence could thus imply (more) time for maintaining or strengthening social bonds (e.g. Backer, 2019; Besson, 2017), including parents’ relations to their children (Zabriskie & McCormick, 2003).

Many Scandinavians have travelled long distances to escape unappealing or unpredictable summer weather at home (e.g. Higham & Cohen, 2011). The allure of warm beaches and constant sunshine has been crucial to numerous Northern Europeans’ summer destination choices and often directed them to the Mediterranean or other southerly shorelines (Lohmann & Kaim, 1999). Families with children consistently prefer seaside destinations with beaches during the summer (Cullingford, 1995), where playing in sand and water can create memories for children (Payne & Riddell, 1999). Notwithstanding their childrearing responsibilities, it has been argued that parents of young children can find respite from the pressures of day-to-day household chores and routines by taking summer holidays away from home (Gram, 2005; Larsen, 2013).

Contributing to creating memorable experiences has been considered pivotal for tourism destinations (Tung & Ritchie, 2011) and for home holidaying (Wixon, 2009). For instance, Larsen (2007) depicted holiday experiences as events strong enough to enter long-term memory. A propensity for time to fly while generating lasting memories has been labelled the ‘holiday paradox’ (Hammond, 2012), illustrated by the space devoted to journeying in family photo albums and social media accounts (Munar & Jacobsen, 2013); leisure travel narratives being vital in people’s lives and in their presentations of self. Thus, it is no wonder that days off at home has been considered as a surrogate (Opaschowski, 2002) that might be resisted because it is not considered a ‘real’ holiday (Besson, 2017; van Oppedijk & Verhallen, 1986).

Taken together, this literature suggests that to answer our research questions it is necessary to understand how individuals experienced home-based holidaying and elicit drawbacks and benefits encountered, how their social relations were affected, and their perceptions of risks. Moreover, it is important to explore reflections on time experiences and holidaying attitudes and intentions—at home or away—helping to inform efforts to recast post-COVID-19 leisure travel in accordance with urgent social, economic, and environmental outcomes.

Study region and context

The Oslo metropolitan area of Norway, among the 50 largest urban regions in Europe (Statista, 2023), was chosen for this study since its residents are relatively affluent (Statistics Norway, 2022a). The region’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is the second highest in the Nordic region and analogous to those of Los Angeles (United States) and London (United Kingdom) (OECD, 2020). As inhabitants in the area have entrenched frequent leisure travel patterns, both domestically and internationally (e.g. Higham & Cohen, 2011; Hjorthol et al., 2014), there is a need for many people to recast their leisure mobilities to reduce carbon emissions (e.g. Gössling & Higham, 2020).

The urban region has a variety of features that can set the scene for recreational experiences, including seashores, beaches, parks, and forest groves. Still, about one in four inhabitants in Norwegian metropolitan areas have no safe recreational or playground areas close to their home (Statistics Norway, 2022b), having deficient opportunities for home-based summer recreation.

Travel limitations for Oslo area residents (and other inhabitants in Norway) in the summer of 2020 included quarantine requirements and entry restrictions from countries/regions with a high level of infection, uncertainty about travel insurance coverage and quarantining, as official travel advice might be changed on short notice subsequent to altered infection situations in countries/regions (cf. Askim & Bergström, 2022). There was a national advice against unnecessary travel from 15 July 2020, and more restrictions and limitations followed in August of the same year. At the same time, recreational opportunities at and close to home were limited. Social gatherings in people’s homes were subject to distancing, requiring at least one metre distance between participants, who also had to be in good health, thus restricting indoor socialising to a large degree. In early August, a ban was reintroduced on serving alcohol in restaurants after midnight. Perceived infection risks added to reluctance towards social gatherings and travel even when it was permitted.

In Norway as elsewhere, the impact of COVID-19 on international and domestic leisure travel in 2020 was evident. The number of summer holiday trips (i.e. third-quarter July to September trips of four nights or more away from home) abroad fell by 86% from 2019 to 2020, while the number of domestic trips rose by 115% (Statistics Norway, 2022a). In comparison, there was a global drop of 74% of international arrivals from 2019 to 2020—by far the largest recent annual (2020) and inter-annual (2020–2022) decline in worldwide travel and mobility (UNWTO, 2021).

Method

Sampling and data

Data collection took place via the public opinion survey bureau Norstat, using a pre-recruited online panel of respondents who had volunteered to participate in surveys. This nationwide population-representative panel had been frequently used both for political opinion polls, marketing and academic research, and similar respondent panels have been used in 15 countries. Invitations to the survey (i.e. online questionnaire links) were e-mailed from the bureau to a sample of 2415 potential respondents in Oslo and Bærum municipalities. The stratified gross sample of 2415 panel invitees were designed by the bureau to be representative of the study area population in terms of gender and age composition. To reduce memory bias (cf. Müggenburg, 2021), the data collection was carried out from September 8 through October 9, 2020, commencing a few days after the main Norwegian summer holiday season (which runs from late June to late August).

Of those 2415 invited, 1043 people (43%) responded to the invitation and initiated the screening section of the survey. Among those who started the survey, only people who had spent at least two consecutive summer holiday weeks at their primary residence from June through August (not for work or home improvement projects), and who had originally planned to travel on a summer holiday trip during that period, were allowed to continue and complete the survey. This procedure resulted in 506 respondents being screened from further participation because they had no home-based holiday or had not planned to travel, yielding a net sample of 537 responses (equals 1043 initiated, minus 506 screened). However, 193 of those had missing values on at least one of the variables included in the estimation model leaving us with a set of 344 complete cases. To avoid the loss of such a large share of data (193/537 = 36%), we employed the nearest neighbour imputation technique (Tutz & Ramzan, 2015) recommended by Mehmetoglu and Venturini (2021) for estimating the study’s model.

Respondents were asked to express the degree to which they agreed or disagreed with a set of statements (see Appendix A) pertaining to their experiences of and attitudes to holidaying at home on a scale from 1= ‘strongly disagree’ to 5= ‘strongly agree.’ In addition, participants were asked to state the degree of likelihood that they would spend at least two consecutive weeks of their summer holiday in their primary residence and of flying abroad for their summer days off over the course of the next three years (2022–2024) ranging from 1= ‘not at all likely’ to 5= ‘very likely’.

Data analysis

To test the current study’s research model depicted in Figure 1, we employed the partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) technique (Wold, 1975) instead of the maximum likelihood or covariance-based structural equation modelling (CB-SEM) approach. The first reason for this choice is the fact that PLS-SEM is recommended for testing exploratory models including rather new and less-established scales or instruments (Hair et al., 2012). The second reason is that PLS-SEM is suggested to be used when working with small samples (Reinartz et al., 2009). The third reason is that PLS-SEM is more oriented towards optimizing predictions (Esposito Vinzi et al., 2010). The fourth and final reason is that PLS-SEM is preferable to CB-SEM when multivariate non-normality is the case (Cassel, Hackl, & Westlund, 2000; Squillacciotti, 2010) due to bootstrap approach. We employed SEM (including PLS-SEM and CB-SEM) for this study as SEM is a system of interdependent regression equations that estimates a network of links among latent variables and the links between the manifest variables and their respective latent constructs (Esposito Vinzi et al., 2010) as well as allowing for estimating indirect effects. The study’s model was subsequently estimated simultaneously (including both direct and indirect effects) using the open-source user-written package called plssem (Venturini & Mehmetoglu, 2019) within the framework of Stata software.

Figure 1. The hypothesised model of the study. Note: Reference to variable labels in Table 2 and Table 3.

Measures

Our research model (Figure 1) included a set of five observed/manifest predictors: age showing the age in years, women representing whether one is a woman or not, fullemp indicating whether one is fully-employment or not, nokid reflecting whether one has children or adolescents under the age of 20 in the household or not, and seasunb indicating whether one had thought of travelling to a seaside/sun/beach destination but had to stay home due to COVID-19 restrictions or not. The research model further included two observed target/outcome variables: Q7a measuring likelihood of spending a summer holiday at home whereas Q7b measuring likelihood of travelling less by air. The research model additionally included two latent variables on attitudes towards staycations, based on items designed to measure home-holidaying experiences.

As there were no scales measuring staycation available in the literature, we created a pool of 29 questions to measure this concept for the purposes of the current study. These items were developed based on our theoretical framework and literature review and supplemented by personal interviews with a sample of study area residents, as shown with corresponding literature references in Appendix A. In other words, we adopted an exploratory approach. As such, these 29 items were firstly subjected to an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to be able to ascertain a statistically and theoretically justifiable factor structure. Prior to the EFA, 5 of the items were left out from the analysis as they contained a considerable number of missing values (70–313). The initial parallel analysis of the remaining 24 items suggested a two-factor solution. Having removed the items with low and cross-loadings as well as taking into consideration theoretical reasoning, we obtained two factors named HOME AVERSE and HOME COMPLIANT, including 8 and 3 items respectively (see Table 2 for details). These were subsequently added to the research model shown in Figure 1. The EFA model was incidentally estimated using the psych package (Revelle, 2019) in R software. Due to space limitations, we chose not to present the details of the results from the initial EFA.

Table 2. Measurement model.

CONSTRUCTS	INDICATORS	Loadings	CR (D.G. rho)	AVE
HOME AVERSE (HomeA)	Q6r4 (I thought that time passed slowly during the home holiday)	0.636	0.914	0.573
	Q6r10 (Home holiday made it take longer to get into holiday mood)	0.717
	Q6r12 (I often felt restless during the home holiday)	0.797
	Q6r13 (It was boring to stay at home for several weeks during the summer holiday)	0.843
	Q6r21 (Home holiday gave me less feeling of freedom than if I had gone away)	0.718
	Q6r24 (Home holiday implied greater risk for wasted days off)	0.760
	Q6r25 (I do not think home holiday was something to tell others about)	0.730
	Q6r26 (Home holiday is not real holiday for me)	0.834
HOME COMPLIANT (HomeC)	Q6r27 (Home holiday made me reflect on whether one should travel so much)	0.840	0.875	0.700
	Q6r28 (Home holiday gave me a clearer conscience in environmental issues)	0.836
	Q6r29 (Home holiday made me desire more future summer holidaying at home)	0.833

CR: Composite Reliability (Dillon-Goldstein’s Rho); AVE: Average Variance Extracted.

Table 3. Structural model including direct and indirect effects (with standardized coefficients, t-values and 95% confidence intervals).

	Direct effect on likelihood of spending a summer holiday at home (Q7a)	Indirect effect on likelihood of spending a summer holiday at home (Q7a)	Direct effect on likelihood of travelling less by air (Q7b)	Indirect effect on likelihood of travelling less by air (Q7b)	Direct effect on HOME AVERSE	Direct effect on HOME COMPLIANT
Direct effects
Age					−0.253* (−6.025) [−0.335,−0.170]	−0.064 (−1.374) [−0.156, 0.027]
Women					0.002 (0.048) [− 0.080, 0.084]	0.073 (1.687) [− 0.011, 0.157]
Fullemp					-0.036 (−0.818) [− 0.121, 0.049]	−0.016  (− 0.357) [−0.105, 0.072]
Nokid					−0.080 (-1.864) [-0.163, 0.004]	0.050 (1.145) [−0.035, 0.134]
Seasunb					0.109* (2.668) [0.028, 0.189]	− 0.099* (-2.488) [− 0.177, −0.021]
HOME AVERSE	−0.284* (−7.233) [−0.360, −0.206]		-0.080* (−2.079) [−0.155, −0.004]
HOME COMPLIANT	0.331* (7.883) [0.248, 0.413]		0.561* (16.315) [0.493, 0.627]
Indirect effects
Age via HOME AVERSE		0.072* (4.634) [0.041, 0.102]		0.020* (1.978) [0.000, 0.040]
Women via HOME AVERSE		−0.001 (-0.048) [−0.025, 0.023]		-0.000  (− 0.046) [−0.007, 0.007]
Fullemp via HOME AVERSE		0.010 (0.823) [− 0.014, 0.034]		0.003 (0.720) [− 0.005, 0.011]
Nokid via HOME AVERSE		0.023 (1.720) [−0.003, 0.048]		0.006 (1.326) [−0.003, 0.016]
Seasunb via HOME AVERSE		−0.031* (−2.330) [−0.057, −0.005]		-0.009 (-1.459) [−0.020, 0.003]
Age via HOME COMPLIANT		-0.021 (-1.343) [−0.053, 0.010]		-0.036 (-1.354) [−0.089, 0.016]
Women via HOME COMPLIANT		0.024 (1.557) [−0.006, 0.055]		0.041 (1.642) [−0.008, 0.090]
Fullemp via HOME COMPLIANT		-0.005 (-0.371) [−0.034, 0.023]		−0.009  (−0.374) [−0.057, 0.039]
Nokid via HOME COMPLIANT		0.016 (1.092) [−0.013, 0.046]		0.028 (1.106) [−0.021, 0.077]
Seasunb via HOME COMPLIANT		−0.033* (−2.113) [− 0.064, −0.002]		−0.056* (−2.210) [−0.105, −0.006]
Adj.R^2	0.258		0.358		0.071	0.013

*Statistically significant at 0.05. Two-tailed tests are used.

[ ] shows bootstrap 95% confidence intervals.

() shows t-values.

Sample characteristics

Respondent ages ranged from 18 to 88, with an average of 43 years. Some 59% of the respondents who responded to this question were in full employment whereas the remaining 41% were either unemployed or part-time employed. Nearly 60% of the respondents indicated that they had offspring who were 20 years of age or older whereas the remaining 40% had children or adolescents under the age of 20 in their households. There were 38% men and 62% women in the sample; but the analysis revealed no gender effects on the inclinations towards home holiday, implying that a possible gender bias is of limited concern.

Some 13% of the respondents in the net estimation sample had planned but cancelled a domestic trip, while the others had cancelled tours abroad; 39% to southern Europe (Table 1). One third of the respondents had cancelled a seaside/sun/beach holiday, 11% a second home stay, and 22% a visit to friends and/or relatives. Half of the respondents had not had any home-based summer holiday of two weeks or more during the two previous years. Two out of five respondents owned or had access to second home that could have been used during the home holiday period. Two thirds of the interviewees had balcony, roof terrace or similar at home and one third had a private garden/yard, while 29% reported that they had enough space for indoor activities for all household members. Moreover, almost one in three respondents who were not already accustomed to home-based holidaying prior to the pandemic considered flying less internationally for future summer breaks.

Table 1. Sample characteristics (N = 344).

Respondent characteristics	Category	Percent	n	Variable
Gender	Female	62	212	Women
	Male	38	132
Age category	18-29	33	113	Age
	30-39	20	70
	40-49	17	59
	50-79	30	102
Children or adolescents in household	Children or adolescents aged 19 or younger No children or adolescents	20 80	69 275	Nokid
Employment status	Full time employment Part-time employment, retired, student or other	63 37	216 128	Emp
Planned but cancelled trip destination	Home country	13	46	Q2
	Other Nordic countries	11	37
	Southern Europe	39	133
	Rest of Europe	20	69
	Other region	17	59
Type of cancelled trip	Sun/bath holiday Second home holiday Visit with friends or relatives	32 11 22	109 36 74	Q3(s.sun.)
	Other type of holiday	36	125
Summer holiday other than at home	Domestic tour(s)	60	207	Q1#1
	Abroad tour(s)	6	21	Q1#2
	No other holiday	36	124	Q1#3
Home holiday two weeks or more previous years	Home holiday in 2019	45	156	Q5#1
	Home holiday in 2018	28	95	Q5#2
	No home holiday in 2019 or 2018	51	176	Q5#3
Ownership/access to second home that could	Own or have access to second home	40	139	Q14#2
have been used during home holiday period	No ownership/access or N/A	60	205
Home facilities	Have balcony, roof terrace or similar	65	224	Q13#1
	Have private garden/yard	33	112	Q13#2
	Have shared garden/yard	28	95	Q13#3
	Have space for indoor activities for	29	99	Q13#4
	all household members
	None of the home facilities	8	28	Q13#5

Results

Although PLS-SEM estimates both the measurement and structural model simultaneously, the assessment of the full model included two stages, in accordance with the recommendation by Anderson and Gerbing (1988). Whereas the measurement model allowed us to see whether the constructs were measured with satisfactory accuracy, we could assess the structural model by the incidence of significant relationships among the constructs as well as by the explained variance of the endogenous/outcome constructs (Cool, Dierickx, & Jemison, 1989). The measurement model should, however, be proven psychometrically sound (i.e. valid and reliable) prior to interpreting the parameter estimates from the structural model. The results from the estimation of our research model were presented accordingly (depicted in Figure 1).

Measurement model

As the measurement model contained only two reflective constructs, we used the following criteria to examine psychometric properties of each of these constructs (see Table 2): item loadings’ size, construct reliabilities (CR), average variances extracted (AVE), and discriminant validity (see for instance Liang, Saraf, Hu, & Xue, 2007). First, the individual reliabilities of the items were adequate in that all the standardised factor loadings (apart from only one which was 0.636) were clearly above the threshold of 0.70. Secondly, the reliabilities of the constructs were evaluated using Dillon-Goldstein’s rho (D.G. rho). All the constructs were consequently confirmed as reliable because the D.G. rho for each of the constructs in the model exceeded the recommended level of 0.70. Thirdly, the AVE values for all the constructs were above the suggested level of 0.50, demonstrating the convergent validity of the construct items. Finally, as the AVE values (0.573 and 0.700) for the two constructs (HOME AVERSE and HOME COMPLIANT) were above the squared correlation (0.143) between them, there was also support for the discriminant validity. The heterotrait-monotrait ratio of correlations (HTMT) computed was significantly lower than the critical value of 0.9, offering additional support for discriminant validity. This indicated that each factor explained more of the variance of its respective items than that of the adjacent factor. This validation technique as performed in PLS-SEM is similar to a multitrait-multimethod analysis (see Sosik, Kahai, & Piovoso, 2009). Overall, this assessment provided sound support for the reliability and validity of the measurement model used in the subsequent structural models.

Table 2 shows experiences and reflections that are behind positive (compliance) and negative (aversion) attitudes towards home-holidaying. HOME AVERSE is related to negative perceptions (time perceptions, and boredom) of and associations (not being a real holiday or something to tell others about, and loss of freedom) to home-holidaying. This attitude was also measured by items suggesting that it was challenging to attain a holiday mood due to the perception of time passing slowly, feelings of restlessness, and greater risk of wasting summer vacation days. HOME COMPLIANT was associated with two journeying aspects, considering travelling less and having clearer environmental consciousness, as well as the fresh appeal of home-based summer holidaying.

Structural model (direct effects)

The structural model included four equations all of which (containing direct and indirect effects) were estimated simultaneously through PLS-SEM with bootstrapping procedure using 1000 replications. However, the main dependent variables in our research model were 1) likelihood of spending a summer holiday at home (Q7a), and 2) likelihood of travelling less on holiday by air (Q7b). Both these two dependent variables were predicted by a model including both HOME AVERSE and HOME COMPLIANT latent variables as predictors, detailed earlier.

As there are no equivalent fit measures in PLS-SEM as those in CB-SEM for the assessment of the structural model quality, the most common measure (in line with the optimisation criterion) that is used in the PLS-SEM domain is instead R-squared values. We observed that the R-squared values for our main dependent variables (Q7a and Q7b) were 26% and 36% respectively, which could be considered a moderate effect according to guidelines provided by Mehmetoglu and Venturini (2021). Moreover, although there is no clear consensus as to a general fit index to be used for examining the entire PLS-SEM model, relative-GoF is still recommended for this purpose (Esposito Vinzi et al., 2010). GoF index is obtained as the geometric mean of the average communality index and the average R-squared value (Tenenhaus et al., 2004). The relative GoF value for our model was 0.87, quite close to the acceptable level suggested by Mehmetoglu and Venturini (2021). Overall, this assessment provided sound support for the goodness of the structural model.

The results of the estimation for the direct effects revealed that the more HOME AVERSE vacationing attitude people had, the less likely it became that they would spend their summer vacation at home in the coming three years (β= −0.284, CI= [−0.360, −0.206]). Conversely, the more HOME COMPLIANT vacationing attitude people have, the more likely it became that they would spend their summer vacation at home in the coming three years (β = 0.331, CI= [0.248, 0.413]). This model explained approximately 26% of the variance in likeliness to home-based summer holidaying. The estimation indicated further that the more HOME AVERSE vacationing attitude people had, the less likely it became that they would travel less by air for a vacation abroad (β= −0.080, CI = [−0.155, −0.004]). Contrarily, the more HOME COMPLIANT vacationing attitude people had, the more likely it was that they would travel less by air for a vacation abroad (β = 0.561, CI = [0.493, 0.627]). This model explained nearly 36% of the variance in likeliness to travel less by air. The explained variances of the two main dependent variables can be considered a moderate effect according to guidelines provided by Mehmetoglu and Venturini (2021).

As for the prediction of HOME AVERSE and HOME COMPLIANT latent variables, the estimation results indicated that the older people were, the less averse they were to summer vacationing at home (β= −0.253, CI= [−0.335, −0.170]). Those who had thought of travelling to a seaside/sun/beach destination but had to stay home due to COVID-19 restrictions and uncertainties were on average more averse to vacationing at home than those that had planned other types of vacations/destinations (β = 0.109, CI= [0.028, 0.189]). On the other hand, neither gender nor employment status nor the number of offspring in the household had any signification association with HOME AVERSE vacationing attitude. The last dependent variable was HOME COMPLIANT vacationing attitude. The estimation showed that those who had thought of travelling to a seaside/sun/beach destination but had to stay home due to COVID-19 restrictions and uncertainties, were on average less compliant with home vacationing than those who had planned other types of vacations/destinations (β= −0.099, CI= [−0.177, −0.021]). However, age, gender, employment status, and number of offspring at home did not have any significant association with HOME COMPLIANT vacationing attitude. The explained variances represented small effects (7% and 1% respectively).

Structural model (indirect effects)

Although the study’s primary aim was not to examine the indirect effects (i.e. mediation analysis), we still found it valuable to report them here. It appeared that respondent age did have a significant positive indirect effect via HOME AVERSE on both the likelihood of spending a summer holiday based at home (β = 0.072, CI= [0.041, 0.102]) and the likelihood of flying less (β = 0.020, CI= [0.000, 0.040]), meaning that the older one is, the less HOME AVERSE, which in turn increases the likelihood of both spending more holidays based at home and flying less on holiday abroad in the future. Moreover, the variable seasunb had a significant negative indirect effect via HOME AVERSE on the likelihood of spending a summer holiday based at home (β= −0.031, CI= [−0.057, − 0.005]), which means if one had planned a seasunb holiday, the more HOME AVERSE, and then again less likely to spend more holidays based at home. Finally, seasunb did have a significant negative indirect effect via HOME COMPLIANT on both the likelihood of spending a summer holiday at home (β= −0.033, CI= [−0.064, −0.002]) and on the likelihood of travelling less on holiday by air (β= −0.056, CI= [−0.105, −0.006]), suggesting that people who had planned a seasunb holiday were less HOME COMPLIANT, which then again reduced both the likelihood of spending more home based holidays or flying less on holiday abroad in the future.

Discussion

In this research we explored home-based holidaying experiences and reflections explaining positive and negative attitudes to spending future summer vacations at home or flying to destinations abroad. Half of the items in the HOME AVERSE factor were time perceptions (e.g. boredom and restlessness), corroborating Heimtun (2017) and Opaschowski (2002) and substantiating the holiday paradox; that time away passes faster than time spent at home while creating enduring memories (Hammond, 2012). The other half of the HOME AVERSE items were negative perceptions of and associations with home holidaying, including the loss of freedom to move and having nothing to tell others about, in line with Cresswell (2006), Font and Hindley (2017) and Skjong (2019). We also found that home-based holidaying was associated with a greater risk of wasting vacation days, as suggested by Eugenio-Martin and Campos-Soria (2010) and Lohmann and Kaim (1999).

An indirect effect via HOME AVERSE was that the older people were, the more receptive they were to spend their summer leave based at home, which is partly in line with the findings of Muller and O’Cass (2001). Less dependence on travelling during peak seasons might also have made spending summer weeks off at home more appealing to older respondents of our survey. For many of them, home-holidaying over the summer may even be preferable given the crowding and higher prices during the peak season in the destinations traditionally visited by numerous vacationing Norwegians. Additionally, earlier holidaying scripts might have faded, making older respondents more amenable to departing from previous summertime habits.

Respondents who had planned a seaside/sun/beach holiday tended to be less willing to spend their summer holidays at home than those who had prepared for other types of holidays/destinations that might have run counter to established scripts or genres, thus failing to meet expectations of what a ‘real’ holiday should look like (cf. Besson, 2017). It might additionally be related to more unpredictable summer weather in the study area than at the southerly sunny seaside destinations that many respondents hoped to visit (cf. Lohmann & Kaim, 1999). This finding also underlined the importance of place change for many people (Opaschowski, 2002), for instance to resort leisurescapes or other places enabling vacationers to switch more easily to a different emotional summer register (Löfgren, 1999).

Items associated with the HOME COMPLIANT attitude were related to reflections about personal travel and home-holidaying, indicating that the disruptions had made some people acknowledge certain advantages of home-based summering (cf. Lohmann, 1996; Verplanken et al., 2008). A clearer environmental conscience following summer days off based in one’s primary residence seemingly outweighed the advantages of place change (cf. Stankov et al., 2020). While our results suggested that place change is an important driver of the aversion to home-holidaying, we found no evidence that compliance was connected with ‘role change’ when based at home (cf. Opaschowski, 2002). Furthermore, our results did not suggest that avoiding stress and travel costs were behind the positive attitude to home-holidaying, as indicated by Blichfeldt et al. (2017), Hall and Holdsworth (2016) and Löfgren (2008). Then again, the home-based leave in the summer of 2020 was not as carefree as it might have been in a non-pandemic context.

For those who were amenable to home-based holidaying, potentially altered summer scripts during the pandemic may have changed their perceptions and narratives of what characterises a desirable and ‘real’ holiday. Although we could not directly probe respondents’ pre-pandemic attitudes or scripts among our sample of home-based holidaymakers with situationally cancelled travel plans, there were indications of habit changes from pre-pandemic summers and increased acceptance of more near-home holidaying in the future. That almost one in three respondents who were not already accustomed to home-based vacations prior to the pandemic considered flying less internationally for future summer breaks points towards some habit recasting being beneficial for more environmentally friendly holidaying.

Conclusions

This paper contributes to theory development in discourses of tourism by bringing scripts, time perceptions, memories, recreation, freedom of movement, place change, and environmental consciousness more clearly into the understanding of sustainable summer holidaying. It does so by comparing travel to home-based summer breaks, and by illuminating holidaymaker attitudes towards future more environmentally friendly summer holidaying alternatives after involuntary home-based holidays following enforced cancellations of planned holidays in the northern summer of 2020.

The research reveals both opportunities and challenges for post-COVID-19 recasting of summer holidaying among residents in an affluent high-latitude metropolitan area, following enforced travel cancellations. Regional and national tourism organisations and authorities can build on the factors affecting aversion to and compliance with home-based holidaying revealed by our analyses to strategically target regional and domestic inhabitants and to foster new forms of leisure travel and summer recreation that are less dependent on high-carbon modes of transportation. Moreover, the study identified individuals who may be more averse to home-based holidaying, making it possible to customise messages prompting reflections to encourage home-based summer holidaying. The greatest challenge is to counter the negative associations and perceptions of home-holidaying such as a need for place change and the perceived difficulties of role change, reaching a holiday mood, and having experiences creating pleasant long-term memories.

Measures relating to the COVID-19 pandemic and travel uncertainties clearly deterred some people from long-distance trips in favour of holidaymaking close to home. All at once, the pandemic might have reduced a stigma commonly associated with home-holidaying. However, travel may increase again as industry organisations and tourism businesses seek to accelerate a return to an (unsustainable) pre-COVID-19 model of summer tourism growth. This calls for policies that normalise emergent alternative (more proximate) holidaying practices instead of reinforcing the idea that international air travel is a more desirable and expected vacationing practice. Embedding new holiday scripts that emerged during this period of disruption will require deliberate policy interventions to (a) foster and encourage the continuation and perpetuation of new (low carbon) holiday practices; and (b) resist ‘revenge tourism’ (e.g. Wang & Xia, 2021) that may emerge through behavioural rebound mechanisms driving a return to high(er) frequency, high(er) volume, and high(er) carbon tourism.

Such a move could advance interests in reducing the commonly high carbon footprint of tourist transportation (Gössling & Higham, 2020) that is critical to Sustainable Development Goal 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and Sustainable Development Goal 13 (Climate Action). Moreover, rising summer temperatures on Mediterranean seashores might imply a northward push for Scandinavians’ seaside summer holidaying (cf. Rutty & Scott, 2010). Elevated climate concerns following the extraordinary summer temperatures and wildfires in southern Europe during the summers of 2022 and 2023 will likely add to a sense of urgency in shifting away from high-carbon seasonal holiday practices, assumingly calling into question the UNWTO’s (2022) post-pandemic global tourism rebound and resumed growth scenarios.

Advocates of near-home holidaying could benefit from (re)developing and expanding formerly limited local activity options and improving summer recreational options in or near city areas (cf. Opaschowski, 2002). While the reliably warm weather and blue skies in southerly destinations cannot be substituted in the commonly rainier summers in southeastern Norway, desired activities such as city excursions, second home stays, hiking, camping trips and, to some extent, beach life can be arranged close to home, in this instance in the Oslo area. Enjoyable local or regional activities might further support the ongoing recasting of customary summer holiday scripts among HOME COMPLIANT individuals, and help them to rewrite their scripts, together paving the way for more post-COVID-19 near-home holidaying.

The findings here also indicate opportunities for tourism destinations and tourism marketing agencies to create and promote new products to proximity markets to optimise low-carbon visitor segments (cf. Oklevik et al., 2019). It will be vital to make people aware of summer recreational assets closer to their homes, as many people want certain types of holidaying rather than specific destinations (Larsen & Guiver, 2013). However, emulating holidaying scripts entailing seaside/sun/beach could commonly be uncertain in the Oslo area. Facilitating experiences and the appreciation of them during near-home holidaying may turn perceptions of, for instance, boredom, restlessness, time dragging, and perceived wasted days off, into more enjoyable recreational experiences, which should also be the focus of proximity holidaying developments and regional/domestic marketing efforts. This might create pleasant long-term memories (cf. Hammond, 2012; Wixon, 2009) and a heightened sense of ‘real’ holidaying, thus elevating the status of (near) home leave and creating narratives to share with one’s network (cf. Besson, 2017; Munar, 2010; Munar & Jacobsen, 2013)—narratives that may extend to the urgency of responding to the low-carbon tourism imperative.

Further research in comparable settings could, while recognising distinctions between the HOME AVERSE and HOME COMPLIANT inclinations towards home holiday revealed here, investigate if there could be a relationship between the two inclinations, as we have found these variables to be continuous rather than categorial. Conceivably, some people may simultaneously express home compliant and home averse attitudes, for instance being favourable to home-based summer holidaying but still yearning to travel (or vice versa). This considerable grey area between these opposing proclivities could be of interest in future research.

Furthermore, it would be useful to continue to broaden the range of experiences, time perceptions and feelings related to summer home holidaying elicited through advances of scientific instruments like further developing the scale employed in the present study. One might also scrutinise (re)considerations about physical distance from home as a requirement (cf. Larsen & Guiver, 2013; Löfgren, 1999), as well as how, and to what extent, near-home summertime days off can be thought of as ‘real’ holidaying, capable of creating experience modes providing mental distance from quotidian chores and other routine obligations, contributing to a leisure/recreation and proximity turn in tourism research and in holidaying itself. Further scholarship is needed to bring to fruition the kind of pleasurable near-home summer experiences that might be required for creating enduring positive memories worthy of telling others about, while reducing the perceived need for distance of (high carbon) travel.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the Research Council of Norway through the programme Klimaforsk, project no. 303589.

Appendix A

Table A1. Overview of background/inspiration to items for summer home-based holidaymaking experience survey.

Drawbacks

Home holiday became wearier because of more household work than during a holiday trip (Hall & Holdsworth 2016; Heimtun 2019; Opaschowski 2002)

Home holiday made it more difficult to get mental distance to work or studies (de Bloom et al. 2017; Kreiner, Hollensbe & Sheep 2009; Opaschowski 2002)

^aQ6r13 It was boring to stay at home for several weeks during the summer holiday (Blichfeldt 2008; Heimtun 2017)

^aQ6r21 Home holiday gave me less feeling of freedom than if I had gone away (Cresswell 2006; Opaschowski 2002)

Benefits

It was good not having to use time for the passage/transfer (Blichfeldt et al. 2017; Löfgren 2008; Opaschowski 2002)

I relaxed more at home than I would have done on a trip (Besson 2017; Blichfeldt 2008; Kitterød 1988; Opaschowski 2002)

I discovered more recreation possibilities in the area where I live (Besson 2017; Blichfeldt 2008; personal interviews)

Home holiday made me value more the area where I live (Besson 2017; personal interviews)

Home holiday made it possible to finish tasks that would otherwise have remained undone (Central Bureau of Statistics 1988; Kitterød 1988)

Home holiday implied more money for other purposes than journeys (personal interviews; Opaschowski 2002)

Socialising aspects

Home holiday strengthened the relation to my partner/spouse (personal interviews)

Home holiday strengthened the relation to children living at home (Gram 2005; Zabriskie & McCormick 2003; personal interviews)

Home holiday strengthened the relation to relatives I spent time with (Backer 2019; Besson 2017; Kitterød 1988)

Home holiday led to more social gatherings with friends (personal interviews; Central Bureau of Statistics 1988; Kitterød 1988)

Home holiday implied more time on my own, as I did not have to be together with spouse/family all the time (Gram 2005; Larsen 2013; Opaschowski 2002)

Risk aspects

Home holiday implied greater risk for not obtaining value for money (Opaschowski 2002; Roehl & Fesenmaier 1992)

^aQ6r24 Home holiday implied greater risk for wasted days off (Opaschowski 2002)

Home holiday had been better if the weather had been better (Eugenio-Martin & Campos-Soria 2010; Lohmann & Kaim 1999; personal interviews)

I experienced less infection risk by being home rather than going away (personal interviews)

Demand for social distancing made it less attractive to be out in the open (personal interviews)

Time reflections

^aQ6r10 Home holiday made it take longer time to get into holiday mood (Opaschowski 2002)

^aQ6r4 I felt that time passed slowly during the home holiday (Hammond 2012; Heimtun 2017)

During the home holiday, I often did not notice that the time passed (Hammond 2012; Heimtun 2017)

^aQ6r12 I often felt restless during the home holiday (Heimtun 2017; Krippendorf 1987)

Journeying and staycation reflections

^aQ6r25 I do not think home holiday was something to tell others about (Besson 2017; Munar & Jacobsen 2013)

^aQ6r26 Home holiday is not a real holiday for me (Besson 2017; Opaschowski 2002)

^aQ6r27 Home holiday made me reflect on whether one should travel so much (Verplanken et al. 2008)

^aQ6r28 Home holiday gave me a clearer conscience in environmental issues (Stankov et al. 2020)

^aQ6r29 Home holiday made me desire more future summer holidaying at home (Stankov et al. 2020)

^aVariables included in the research model, cf. Figure 1 and Table 2.