Re-interpreting negative affective encounters in diaspora tourism

Tourism studies began to acknowledge the significance of negative affect in overall visiting experience in terms of stimulating visitors' deeper affective engagement and meaningful reflections. Nonetheless, the temporal effects of affect are still understudied. This study uses diaspora tourism as the context to explore how tourists perceive negative affective encounters in ancestral village across time. Study one collected overall visiting experience of 58 Chinese diaspora tourists through qualitative interviews; study two conducted in-depth interviews with 22 participants again after eight years with a focus on their negative affective encounters at ancestral home. 68 negative affective episodes were analysed using a qualitative data analysis technique combined textual expressions and vocal expressions. The findings suggest how diaspora tourists perceive their negative affective encounters transform over time, depending on personal characteristics, such as their personal values and beliefs, how they evaluate positive and negative things in life and whether they are capable of obtaining deeper reflections and meanings. This research is among the first to examine the effects of negative affect longitudinally and argue that researchers and tourism practitioners should consider the temporal contingencies of negative affect in tourism experiences.