Tourism and positive psychology critique: Too emotional?

The purpose of this paper is respond to the recent critique of tourism and positive psychology research by Nawijn (2016). Tourism academics have been actively interested in the rise of positive psychology, the study of what makes life worth living (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Positive psychology includes research on topics such as humour, positive emotions, happiness and well-being, flow, kindness, gratitude, love and other topics describing more desirable aspects of human existence. Tourism knowledge related to this field has been growing over the last few years (Filep & Pearce, 2013). In his critique of tourism and positive psychology research, Nawijn raises two core criticisms.