ICTs and well-being: challenges and opportunities for tourism

Well-being is becoming a central life goal that consumers increasingly seek to achieve through tourism experiences. Indeed, much evidence shows that consumers experience a higher sense of well-being prior and post their travels (Gilbert and Abdullah 2002; Vada et al. 2020). Simultaneously, information and communication technologies (ICTs) have rapidly penetrated consumers’ everyday life, creating both positive and negative spillover effects (MacKay and Vogt 2012). As a result, ICTs have become paramount for the effective supply and delivery of tourism experiences by the various players within the tourism industry (Xiang 2018; Xiang and Fesenmaier 2020). In order to benefit from both aspects, namely the heightened interest in well-being and the proliferation of ICTs, tourism marketers and managers employ many technological innovations aiming to increase consumer well-being by making tourism experiences as enjoyable, relevant/personalized and friction-free as possible (Mizrachi and Gretzel 2020; Stankov et al. 2019; Stankov and Filimonau 2019). There are also growing numbers of applications that try to help tourists be either more physically active, mentally engaged or more relaxed to harness the health benefits of vacations (Kang and Gretzel 2012; Stankov et al. 2020a, b). On the other hand, ICT use can also significantly disrupt tourism experiences and challenge wellbeing goals for the tourists and those around them (Stankov and Gretzel 2020). The relationship between ICT and well-being is thus not only crucial in everyday contexts but especially on vacation (Cai et al. 2019; Lau 2020; Stankov and Filimonau 2020). Whether the solutions are technological or involve—at least temporary— abandonment of technologies (Egger et al. 2020; Li et al. 2019), the connections