Working on holiday: the theory and practice of workcation

Abstract

Work, leisure and sleep are the three core cyclical activities in our society. In the past work was distinct from non-work time, in fact ‘the 8-hour work, 8-hour leisure, 8-hour sleep day’ was at the very heart of past worker movements. So, the blur between work and leisure is a postmodern trend which has impacted the way we travel. This change is mainly due to the advances of technology, which have made work outside the workplace a reality even during holiday. Consequently, a hybrid tourism product called workcation has emerged and challenges the traditional concept of tourism. Both the theory and the practice of this phenomenon are in the focus of this research. Due to the lack of the tourism-focused theorization, the related literature is multidisciplinary and eclectic; therefore, this study takes a similar approach while embedding the topic into the tourism theory. The starting point is the change in work and leisure relationship, followed by the impact of technological advances on the work. Then I also formulate a tourism-focused workcation concept. For the empirical research an online survey was conducted with 340 participants. Based on the multidisciplinary literature and the result of my empirical research six types of workcation tourists were identified and described. Finally, a specific segment of workcation tourists is singled out as an attractive market for strategists and marketers planning sustainable tourism.