What is Recreation

Since tourism is an experience-intensive field, the experiences offered by tourism activities to individuals are very important. Understanding the psychological processes underlying the experiences of the individuals is essential for the effectiveness of tourism activities. An important phenomenon that explains the internal processes experienced by individuals in tourism activities is the flow experience originating from positive psychology. Flow experience is the individual's intense focus on the activity he/she is performing with his/her own inner will, without any external reward, and integrates with the activity by being isolated from the environment. Also, the flow experience can be expressed as an internal process that includes losing the perception of time and feeling happiness. Today, some research shows that the flow experience can be experienced in many areas of daily life and tourism activities. In this chapter, the flow experience has been discussed with its various dimensions, and evaluations have been made in the context of examples of some tourism activities.