18 TOURIST JOURNEYS AND A LIFE PURPOSE SEEKING TRIP – Contributions by Beatriz C
18 TOURIST JOURNEYS AND A LIFE PURPOSE SEEKING TRIP – Contributions by Beatriz Casais
Research Motivation
I am Beatriz, a marketing professor and researcher at University of Minho, in Portugal. I am a woman who has always been looking for insightful knowledge and life experiences to understand the world and guide my own decisions, with independence and critical thinking. I am very intuitive and impulsive at the same time, resilient and optimistic.
In a certain morning I woke up and realised that my life had changed completely since the previous day and all the life plannings I had made before would not make sense anymore. In a restarting process of my life, I became a wanderlust, escaping whenever I could to meet new places, new cultures and new people, to learn from the travel experience and try to find a life purpose for myself, integrating the gifts and the learning moments I had received. This process included the experience of both travelling with friends to develop my social skills and activate friendship, and investing in solo-travelling moments to explore big cities or rural towns, living like a local and sharing experiences with other tourists, staying at Peer-to-Peer (P2P) accommodation. I also entered into pilgrimage experiences, hikes and bike journeys in a slow tourism process of deceleration of work stress and anxiety of career achievements.
As a woman, I had to face all the social pressures associated with the expectations of female roles in society; as a researcher, I felt the academic pressure to fulfil career expectations of publishing fast and in high impact journals; as a tourist, I tried to be a researcher with the female concerns of feeling safe on my own and get the required information about the offering conditions of destinations and hospitality services in order to get a memorable experience.
The care I gave to those who have been part of my wanderlust journey and the rewards and learnings I received made me a better person and contributed to my life purpose seeking trip, inspiring my research in the field of tourism.
Research Field
The information I needed for preparing my tourist journey inspired my research about the digital information source to help booking decisions, and the importance of online reviews to influence tourist behaviours. In this topic, I have researched accessible tourism, which is also particularly important for senior tourists and the attraction of tourists with disabilities. The digital information is particularly relevant for the new digital tourist who plan trips online and use digital devices in the whole touristic journey.
My traveling experience also inspired the research of tourist-to-tourist interaction both during the journey experience as in the online environment, with the co-creation process of reviews, with outcomes in tourism innovation and place branding. Also, as a person aware of the importance of place and destination branding, I have also been researching the role of internal sta