The relationship between alienation, meaning in life, and forms of out-there-ness through tourism

Tourism, which offers opportunities to escape from the social and psychological tensions created by the world of everday life, provides different modes of out-there-ness. This study examines the relationship between alienation, meaning in life and different modes of out-there-ness through tourism, in the process of pre-travel phase. Therefore, the aim of the study is to reveal the differentiation of different modes of out-there-ness through tourism in terms of social and psychological variables. Considering this aim of the study, the research part of the study was arranged in accordance with the relational screening model. The study population of the research consists of people living in Mersin, who have gone on a vacation for at least once in the last 3 years and who plan to go on a vacation for at least once within 6 months. Data were collected from 415 people between April 1st - May 10th of 2022 using the quota sampling technique according to age and gender groups. After removing the incompletely answered questionnaires, outlier and normal distribution analysis, the analyzes were carried out on 401 questionnaires. Results demonstrate that alienation (β: 0.203, p<0.001), search for meaning (SfM) (β: 0.183, p<0.002) and presence of meaning (PoM) (β: 0.300, p<0.000) have a significant effect on out-there-ness through tourism. In the modes of out-there-ness; results show that PoM (β: 0.182, p<0.001) and SfM (β: 0.136, p<0.05) have a significant effect on mode of amusement. Regarding the change mode, SfM (β: 0.147, p<0.05), PoM (β: 0.203, p<0.05) and alienation (β: 0.126, p<0.05) have a significant effect on the change mode. While PoM (β: 0.240, p<0.000) and alienation (β: 0.279, p<0.000) exhibit a significant effect on experiential interest mode, only PoM (β: 0.294, p<0.000) has a significant effect informational interest mode. While none of the variables significantly effects dedication mode, study illustrate that SfM (β: 0.234, p<0.000), PoM (β: 0.128, p<0.05) and alienation (β: 0.133, p<0.05) significantly affect the rapture mode. Furthermore, results manifest that the search for meaning plays a complementary partial mediator role in the relationship between alienation and out-there-ness through tourism.