Travel and Happiness: What the Booking.com Survey Actually Asked

A holiday can be a wonderful thing to look forward to. But can research really tell you that it will make you happier than being married? The headline sounds irresistible. The answer needs a little more care.

The widely shared claim began with a travel survey, not an experiment comparing the long-term effects of holidays and marriage. That distinction does not spoil the pleasure of a trip. It helps us understand the story without turning a cheerful finding into a promise it cannot keep.

Where the headline came from

Booking.com published the findings on November 29, 2016. Its methodology notes describe 17,157 adults across 17 markets, all of whom had taken at least one domestic or international holiday in the preceding year. The data were collected between September 9 and October 4, 2016.

The company reported that 49% rated planning and taking a holiday above their wedding day for happiness. It also reported that 77% booked holidays when seeking a happiness boost, while 72% felt excitement from researching a destination. These are responses reported in the company’s original press release.

The finding concerns people’s reported feelings and comparisons. It does not establish that travel improves a marriage, replaces a relationship or creates a particular chemical response in the brain.

A wedding day and a marriage are different questions

A wedding is an event. A marriage is an ongoing relationship, with everyday experiences that cannot be reduced to how somebody remembers one celebration. Replacing “wedding day” with “marriage” quietly changes the question.

It is easy to see why that matters. A person could love a holiday, remember their wedding as stressful and still place enormous value on their relationship. Another person could enjoy planning a trip together as part of married life. There is no need to make those experiences compete.

When reading a striking comparison, try replacing the headline with the actual question underneath it. Does it concern a moment, a memory, a preference or a lasting change? Those are all interesting subjects, but they are not interchangeable.

How to read a travel survey without losing the fun

A survey can be useful when you know what kind of answer it offers. These are the questions worth bringing to the next eye-catching story:

• Who answered? A sample of recent travelers tells you about that group. It should not automatically become a claim about every adult.
• What was measured? Reporting excitement is different from a medical test or a long-term measure of life satisfaction.
• Who commissioned it? Commercial research can contain useful information. Knowing the sponsor helps you understand the setting in which it was produced.
• When was it conducted? A study can be interesting years later, but it should keep its original date.
• How far does the conclusion go? A memorable headline should not claim more than the underlying evidence can support.

Those questions are useful far beyond travel. They let you enjoy an interesting result and still decide how much weight to give it.

There is a better question: what do you enjoy about a trip?

For some people, the pleasure begins with the map. For others, it is the first relaxed breakfast away, a conversation with a guide or the chance to spend time with someone they love.

Separate research offers an interesting angle on the waiting itself. In the 2014 paper Waiting for Merlot, researchers compared anticipation of experiential and material purchases. Across four studies, waiting for experiences tended to be more enjoyable than waiting for possessions. That is a narrower and more useful idea than declaring one kind of life universally happier than another.

Our companion guide to enjoying the anticipation of a trip turns that idea into practical suggestions, with a clear distinction between research findings and our own planning advice.

Use your own priorities to shape the holiday

Before choosing a destination, finish this sentence: “I would come home pleased if I had time to…” Perhaps the answer is swim, explore a new city, eat well, take photographs or simply rest without watching the clock.

Then check whether the proposed trip actually gives you that time. Three hotel changes may work beautifully for a journey built around exploration and poorly for a break intended to be restful. Neither choice needs a scientific headline to justify it.

If you are planning with a partner or friends, each person can name one priority and one thing that makes a trip tiring. That small conversation gives you more to work with than an argument about what a holiday is supposed to look like.

Traveling alone? Our first solo trip guide helps turn your preferences into a manageable itinerary.

A more accurate way to share the story

The useful message is that holidays and the anticipation around them can be meaningful sources of enjoyment. The research discussed here does not rank the worth of people’s relationships or prescribe how to live.

You can be excited about your next trip without asking it to outperform the biggest moments of your life. Sometimes a good journey only needs to give you a few days you are glad you made time for.

Which part do you look forward to most: planning, arriving or having a whole day to explore?

Who answered the survey matters

The methodology note gives a more precise total than the rounded headline: 17,157 adults across seventeen markets, surveyed between 9 September and 4 October 2016. Participants had taken at least one domestic or international holiday in the preceding year. This was therefore a survey of recent holidaymakers, not a random comparison between all people who travel and all people who do not.

The reported 49% wedding-day comparison concerns respondents’ answers about an occasion. It does not measure the quality of a marriage over time, and it cannot establish that a holiday is a better long-term source of wellbeing than a relationship. The release did not report measuring endorphins; a mood description should not be rewritten as a hormone result.

Keep the comparison useful to your own plans

A wedding, a new job and a holiday have different demands and durations. Ranking memories of them can make an engaging survey question, but it leaves out much of what makes each experience meaningful. A trip can be wonderful while also tiring; an important family event can be stressful while still deeply valued.

Instead of using the headline to choose between major parts of life, ask which features of a holiday you enjoy. It might be shared time, novelty, rest or freedom from everyday scheduling. Those features can guide the shape of a trip without requiring anyone to declare that travel matters more than their partner or family.