Journey to well-being: On the role of culture and place in Japanese spiritual tourism

In the past, research on tourist well-being has often employed a culturally universalist understanding of well-being, which ignores culturally specific aspects of well-being. To move towards a more nuanced concept of tourist well-being, we propose to consider (1) local conceptualizations of well-being, (2) place-bound well-being mechanisms, and (3) collective aspects of well-being. We do so based on our recent research on domestic tourism to Japanese sacred sites. We utilise our analyses of managerial well-being communications to explore the role of three different local well-being discourses (shiawase, koufuku, ikigai). Additionally, we present initial impressions from semi-structured interviews with domestic tourists at two sacred heritage sites in Kyoto, Japan, to illustrate the role places play in the well-being of individuals and their social circle. Based on our discussions, we look at what our conceptualization of well-being would mean for the field of tourism studies.