Getting Away From It All: Development of a Scale to Measure Escapism

Abstract

For many decades, tourism researchers have identified escape from daily life as a prime motivation for taking vacations. However, the construct of escapism—a state experienced during vacations—remains misunderstood, in part because it has been investigated mainly as a motivation or state within a simplistic experience economy framework. The current research therefore presents a newly developed scale that reflects the multidimensionality of escapism. Developed through several rounds of qualitative and quantitative data, this first fully validated scale measures escapism in tourism, identifies escapism’s three dimensions (escaping dailyness, escaping self, and time pressure), and demonstrates how escapism relates to other variables such as memory and well-being. The scale items in turn offer guidelines for managers to design services that free vacationers from reminders of daily life and identify elements that are more conducive to escapism.