Mindfulness and Tourism

Tourism research has acknowledged the importance of mindfulness as a theoretical concept with important implications for tourism practice, but it has done so from a very specific point of view. The most common way to think about mindfulness in tourism research is through the lens of applied social psychology. This way of thinking focuses on ideas like heightened awareness, focused attention, and flow. From a purely cognitive point of view, mindfulness is linked to processing information and learning, but sometimes it is also linked to the possibility of having more meaningful experiences. However, the broad phrase ‘mindfulness’ encompasses a variety of behaviours, pursuits, and character attributes. Mindfulness was originally developed from an Eastern concept, but then modified for use in Western therapeutic procedures, and more recently the definition of mindfulness had become altered for a variety of common uses. Thus, mindfulness refers to the capacity of an individual to be present in the moment and pay attention to what is going on around and within an individual. Drawing upon this notion of meditative mindfulness, this chapter seeks to provide an overview of its relevance in/for tourism.