Better sleep, better trip: The effect of sleep quality on tourists' experiences

Abstract Given the importance of sleep to travelers and the scarcity of tourism research on this topic, our study presents a pioneering attempt to explore the relationship between sleep quality and tourists' experiences. We employed an instrumental-variable three-way fixed-effects regression model to estimate this relationship using TripAdvisor review data from three U.S. destinations: New York City, Las Vegas, and Orlando. Results suggest that sleep quality significantly and positively influences the tourist experience. Other travel-related variables, such as demographic, trip-related, and destination-related factors, are also found to moderate the effect of sleep quality on the tourist experience. Our study provides theoretical and practical implications around managing sleep quality to enhance tourists' experiences.