ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Cultural Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1592027
This article is part of the Research TopicRegenerative Tourism and WellbeingView all articles
Japanese Perspectives on Transformative Travel Experience: Humility, Limitations, and Dark Tourism
Provisionally accepted
- Department of Psychology, College of Contemporary Psychology, Rikkyo University, Niiza, Japan
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Research indicates that cultural background can influence the nature of transformative travel experiences, yet this topic remains underexplored. This study examined transformative travel experiences among Japanese travelers through a cross-sectional survey of 864 adults, including those with and without transformative travel experiences. The findings revealed that Japanese travelers encounter transformative travel experiences triggered by factors similar to those identified by Western travelers in previous studies. However, unique outcomes were observed, such as increased humility and a more profound recognition of personal limitations. Additionally, destinations associated with dark tourism generate transformative travel experiences. Finally, this study validated the Transformation Scale for Japanese adults and identified a factor structure that differed from the original, likely due to cultural variations. These findings provide valuable insights into how culture impacts transformative travel experiences.
Keywords: transformative travel experience, Japan, culture, Transformation scale, dark tourism
Received: 13 Mar 2025; Accepted: 02 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Nakajima and Oguchi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Miho Nakajima, Department of Psychology, College of Contemporary Psychology, Rikkyo University, Niiza, Japan
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