Smelling into the past

In studies within the tourism domain, the fade-out effect is most often regarded as an unchangeable factor within the course of vacationing. However, virtually no research has been performed on the combating or mitigation of this effect, rendering the claim of it being unchangeable a doubtful one. With one’s sense of smell being one of the most powerful means of creating memories, a pleasantly smelling perfume was chosen as the intervention tool.

The aim of this research is to examine the functionality of a perfume intervention in the mitigation of the tourism fade-out effect, ameliorating levels of mental well-being. To support this research, the following null hypothesis has been drawn up: ‘The perfume intervention does not mitigate the tourism fade-out effect.’ Performance of the data collection and the data analysis have been executed based on a conceptual framework, which was designed after performing a literature review on the topics: tourism fade-out effect, odor-evoked memories, and mental well-being.

To either accept or reject the null hypothesis, an experiment was performed in which guests of vacation parks around the Netherlands filled in daily surveys about their emotions. The control group received no intervention, whereas the experimental group received the perfume intervention. From answers given in these surveys it was attempted to assign significance to the role of the perfume intervention as a mitigating factor to the tourism fade-out effect, in which the fade-out effect was tested on its mediating properties controlling for the perfume intervention. Statistical tests indicated no significant contribution of the perfume intervention to the mitigation of the of the fade-out effect, nor did the perfume intervention have a significant impact when comparing pre- and post-vacation levels of mental well-being.

Based on this research, it could not be concluded that a perfume intervention contributes to the mitigation of the fade-out effect and, consequently, to higher levels of well-being. However, although not significant, mediating properties of the fade-out effect on mental well-being could be observed. Future research is therefore suggested to include alterations of certain research practices employed within this paper, such as enlargement of the research sample. Moreover, the importance of research into other means of memory creation is highlighted, as it cannot be assumed that only odor-evoked memories possess the ability to influence the tourism fade- out effect.