title: An investigation of wellness retreat tourism experiences: a mixed-methods study from perceived value perspective

authors: Mai, Xuan Tai

subjects: wellness retreats

abstract: In recent years, wellness tourism has developed into a rapidly growing segment of the global tourism industry, particularly driven by increasing public interest in achieving and maintaining physical, mental, and spiritual wellbeing. Despite this growth, wellness retreats—a distinctive and transformative subsector of wellness tourism—remain underexplored in academic literature. Grounded in the increasing urgency of mental health as a global development priority (United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 3: Good Health and Well-being), this study investigates how wellness retreat experiences foster tourists' holistic wellbeing and their loyalty to the destination through the lens of customer perceived value.

Drawing on Sheth, Newman, and Gross (1991)’s theory of consumption values and supported by the concept of Transformation Economy (Pine & Gilmore, 2011), and multidimensional wellness frameworks, this study aims to (1) explore the dimensions of perceived value in wellness retreat experiences, (2) develop and validate a multidimensional measurement scale of perceived value of wellness retreat experiences, (3) investigate the association between tourists’ perceived value and destination loyalty, and (4) identify combinations of value dimensions that foster high levels of destination loyalty. An exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach was employed, incorporating qualitative thematic analysis of 936 qualified reviews of wellness retreat visitors on TripAdvisor and Google Maps Reviews, followed by quantitative surveys of 159 wellness retreat attendees at the Resolution Retreats, New Zealand. To analyse the collected quantitative data, this study employed Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) as a symmetrical analysis method and fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) as an asymmetrical technique. This integration served to strengthen the findings and construct a composite picture of customer perceived value dimensions on the destination loyalty of wellness retreat attendees.

The findings of the Exploratory Factor Analysis revealed five dimensions of perceived value: Nutritional, Functional, Emotional, Social and Educational, and Ecological Healing. PLS-SEM results confirmed that perceived value significantly drives destination loyalty, while customer-employee interaction negatively moderates this relationship, challenging prior assumptions about the role of interpersonal engagement in tourism and hospitality contexts. Moreover, fsQCA identified five distinct configurations of value dimensions that are sufficient for high loyalty, demonstrating that different combinations can lead to similar positive desired outcomes, depending on visitor experiences and value propositions.

Theoretically, this research advances the wellness tourism literature by differentiating wellness retreats as a distinct niche, thereby deepening the conceptualisation of eudaimonic value within tourism experiences. Furthermore, it applies the consumer perceived perspective to enhance the prediction of tourists’ decision-making processes. This study also addresses the existing methodological gaps by demonstrating the transformative potential of mixed-methods approaches within the tourism and hospitality discipline. By integrating PLS-SEM and fsQCA to capture both linear and non-linear patterns in visitor behaviour, this study underscores how methodological advancements can improve our understanding of complex research phenomena. Practically, the research provides a robust measurement instrument for assessing wellness retreat experiences and offers strategic guidance to wellness managers, tourism developers, and policymakers on designing and promoting transformative tourism products. It also emphasises the need for wellness-focused governance frameworks, workforce protection, and community engagement to ensure equitable and sustainable development in wellness tourism.

text: An investigation of wellness retreat tourism experiences: a mixed-methods study from perceived value perspective In recent years, wellness tourism has developed into a rapidly growing segment of the global tourism industry, particularly driven by increasing public interest in achieving and maintaining physical, mental, and spiritual wellbeing. Despite this growth, wellness retreats—a distinctive and transformative subsector of wellness tourism—remain underexplored in academic literature. Grounded in the increasing urgency of mental health as a global development priority (United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 3: Good Health and Well-being), this study investigates how wellness retreat experiences foster tourists' holistic wellbeing and their loyalty to the destination through the lens of customer perceived value.

Drawing on Sheth, Newman, and Gross (1991)’s theory of consumption values and supported by the concept of Transformation Economy (Pine & Gilmore, 2011), and multidimensional wellness frameworks, this study aims to (1) explore the dimensions of perceived value in wellness retreat experiences, (2) develop and validate a multidimensional measurement scale of perceived value of wellness retreat experiences, (3) investigate the association between tourists’ perceived value and destination loyalty, and (4) identify combinations of value dimensions that foster high levels of destination loyalty. An exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach was employed, incorporating qualitative thematic analysis of 936 qualified reviews of wellness retreat visitors on TripAdvisor and Google Maps Reviews, followed by quantitative surveys of 159 wellness retreat attendees at the Resolution Retreats, New Zealand. To analyse the collected quantitative data, this study employed Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) as a symmetrical analysis method and fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) as an asymmetrical technique. This integration served to strengthen the findings and construct a composite picture of customer perceived value dimensions on the destination loyalty of wellness retreat attendees.

The findings of the Exploratory Factor Analysis revealed five dimensions of perceived value: Nutritional, Functional, Emotional, Social and Educational, and Ecological Healing. PLS-SEM results confirmed that perceived value significantly drives destination loyalty, while customer-employee interaction negatively moderates this relationship, challenging prior assumptions about the role of interpersonal engagement in tourism and hospitality contexts. Moreover, fsQCA identified five distinct configurations of value dimensions that are sufficient for high loyalty, demonstrating that different combinations can lead to similar positive desired outcomes, depending on visitor experiences and value propositions.

Theoretically, this research advances the wellness tourism literature by differentiating wellness retreats as a distinct niche, thereby deepening the conceptualisation of eudaimonic value within tourism experiences. Furthermore, it applies the consumer perceived perspective to enhance the prediction of tourists’ decision-making processes. This study also addresses the existing methodological gaps by demonstrating the transformative potential of mixed-methods approaches within the tourism and hospitality discipline. By integrating PLS-SEM and fsQCA to capture both linear and non-linear patterns in visitor behaviour, this study underscores how methodological advancements can improve our understanding of complex research phenomena. Practically, the research provides a robust measurement instrument for assessing wellness retreat experiences and offers strategic guidance to wellness managers, tourism developers, and policymakers on designing and promoting transformative tourism products. It also emphasises the need for wellness-focused governance frameworks, workforce protection, and community engagement to ensure equitable and sustainable development in wellness tourism.

year: 2025-12-01

title: A note on steady flow into a submerged point sink

authors: Hocking, Graeme Charles

subjects: axisymmetric flow

abstract: The steady, axisymmetric flow induced by a point sink (or source) submerged in an unbounded inviscid fluid is computed. The resulting deformation of the free surface is obtained, and a limit of steady solutions is found that is quite different to those obtained in past work. More accurate solutions indicate that the old limiting flow rate was too high and, in fact, the breakdown of steady solutions at a lower flow rate is characterized by the appearance of spurious wavelets at the free surface.

text: A note on steady flow into a submerged point sink The steady, axisymmetric flow induced by a point sink (or source) submerged in an unbounded inviscid fluid is computed. The resulting deformation of the free surface is obtained, and a limit of steady solutions is found that is quite different to those obtained in past work. More accurate solutions indicate that the old limiting flow rate was too high and, in fact, the breakdown of steady solutions at a lower flow rate is characterized by the appearance of spurious wavelets at the free surface.

year: 2014

title: Volunteering at the edge of chaos: A case study on the self-organising of younger volunteers during the Rena oil spill crisis

authors: Lockwood, Sarah Jane

subjects: volunteer

abstract: This thesis investigates the self-organising of younger volunteers during the 2011 Rena oil spill crisis in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It builds on emerging research that considers the relationships between volunteering and activism and focuses on the ways in which younger volunteers carved out a ‘volunteer-activist’ space for themselves on the edge of the formal crisis responses.  
The research adopts a case study approach and uses an interpretive lens to investigate three research questions: (1) How was volunteering conceptualised by younger volunteers involved in the Rena crisis?; (2) How did the generational dynamics of younger volunteers affect the various organising responses to the Rena event?; and, (3) How was self-organising conceptualised by younger volunteers involved in the Rena crisis?
The data comprised interviews with 53 participants, 38 of whom were classified as younger volunteers (16-29 years of age) and 15 who held positions of authority in the Rena crisis response and who had high levels of engagement with the younger volunteers. By examining the intersections and overlaps of self-organising, younger generations of volunteers, and crisis events through a social constructionist methodology combined with an interpretive lens and reflexive position, the thesis makes several theoretical and practical contributions.
At a theoretical level, the thesis challenges traditional crisis management approaches dominated by command and control, formal, or top down organisational structures and arrangements. The thesis demonstrates how, as active members of society, younger volunteers developed alternate forms of participation to strengthen crisis response. 
Power tensions between younger volunteers and crisis officials were grounded in a deep sense of frustration resulting from negative societal views toward younger generational cohorts and the structural workings of a risk society. By reconciling social and institutional grievances through self-organising, younger volunteers could take advantage of their marginalised position and enact self-reflexive responses in ways that were not readily available to them in everyday life. This sense of empowerment helped younger volunteers navigate the structural uncertainties they faced as they transitioned towards a competitive labour market and also to take greater control of their lives during a crisis.
From an Aotearoa/New Zealand, perspective, the thesis also provides insights into how younger Māori participants made sense of and enacted their ‘volunteer’ experience and how this experience was influenced by culturally embedded principles. Importantly, there appeared to be no generational differences between how younger and older Māori participants made sense of their ‘volunteer’ experience. Both groups were driven by collectivist orientations, which highlights the importance of contextualising culture in volunteer sector research. 
The social constructedness of the media technologies used by participants exposed broader power structures that existed within their generation-specific social worlds. To this end, media multiplexity showed how use of different communication technologies (1) supported the maintenance of relationships between participants and (2) was fundamental to the meaning participants attached to the different forms of technologies. These findings indicate the need to move away from the current literature’s focus on the tools of communication technologies used by younger people during crisis events, towards the meanings that exist behind the use of such technologies as well as the digital relationships fostered among volunteers. 
This thesis contributes to the scholarship on volunteering and activism by showing how self-organising emerged as an alternative form of activist—or activator—approach to volunteer participation within a crisis response. This approach enabled young volunteer-activators to move beyond their perceived sense of marginalisation and avoid those formal organisational forces that limit their sense of freedom and personal development. The result was an alternative crisis response of self-organised volunteering on the edge of chaos.

text: Volunteering at the edge of chaos: A case study on the self-organising of younger volunteers during the Rena oil spill crisis This thesis investigates the self-organising of younger volunteers during the 2011 Rena oil spill crisis in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It builds on emerging research that considers the relationships between volunteering and activism and focuses on the ways in which younger volunteers carved out a ‘volunteer-activist’ space for themselves on the edge of the formal crisis responses.  
The research adopts a case study approach and uses an interpretive lens to investigate three research questions: (1) How was volunteering conceptualised by younger volunteers involved in the Rena crisis?; (2) How did the generational dynamics of younger volunteers affect the various organising responses to the Rena event?; and, (3) How was self-organising conceptualised by younger volunteers involved in the Rena crisis?
The data comprised interviews with 53 participants, 38 of whom were classified as younger volunteers (16-29 years of age) and 15 who held positions of authority in the Rena crisis response and who had high levels of engagement with the younger volunteers. By examining the intersections and overlaps of self-organising, younger generations of volunteers, and crisis events through a social constructionist methodology combined with an interpretive lens and reflexive position, the thesis makes several theoretical and practical contributions.
At a theoretical level, the thesis challenges traditional crisis management approaches dominated by command and control, formal, or top down organisational structures and arrangements. The thesis demonstrates how, as active members of society, younger volunteers developed alternate forms of participation to strengthen crisis response. 
Power tensions between younger volunteers and crisis officials were grounded in a deep sense of frustration resulting from negative societal views toward younger generational cohorts and the structural workings of a risk society. By reconciling social and institutional grievances through self-organising, younger volunteers could take advantage of their marginalised position and enact self-reflexive responses in ways that were not readily available to them in everyday life. This sense of empowerment helped younger volunteers navigate the structural uncertainties they faced as they transitioned towards a competitive labour market and also to take greater control of their lives during a crisis.
From an Aotearoa/New Zealand, perspective, the thesis also provides insights into how younger Māori participants made sense of and enacted their ‘volunteer’ experience and how this experience was influenced by culturally embedded principles. Importantly, there appeared to be no generational differences between how younger and older Māori participants made sense of their ‘volunteer’ experience. Both groups were driven by collectivist orientations, which highlights the importance of contextualising culture in volunteer sector research. 
The social constructedness of the media technologies used by participants exposed broader power structures that existed within their generation-specific social worlds. To this end, media multiplexity showed how use of different communication technologies (1) supported the maintenance of relationships between participants and (2) was fundamental to the meaning participants attached to the different forms of technologies. These findings indicate the need to move away from the current literature’s focus on the tools of communication technologies used by younger people during crisis events, towards the meanings that exist behind the use of such technologies as well as the digital relationships fostered among volunteers. 
This thesis contributes to the scholarship on volunteering and activism by showing how self-organising emerged as an alternative form of activist—or activator—approach to volunteer participation within a crisis response. This approach enabled young volunteer-activators to move beyond their perceived sense of marginalisation and avoid those formal organisational forces that limit their sense of freedom and personal development. The result was an alternative crisis response of self-organised volunteering on the edge of chaos.

year: 2019