Balancing Stress and Leisure: Mothers’ Experiences During Three-Generational Family Travel

Despite having robust market influence, three-generational family tourists have received little academic attention. This paper focuses on mothers: they play diverse and central roles in these trips, often while having complex experiences. Due to its ability to explain how individuals achieve their valued states under pressure, conservation of resources theory was applied to investigate the interactions between stress, resources, satisfaction, and well-being. An exploratory sequential mixed methods approach involved in-depth interviews and a questionnaire survey with mothers in China. Parenting stress was found to negatively affect travel satisfaction and subjective well-being, while partner support and self-efficacy served as key protective factors. Theoretically, this research provides insights into mothers’ experiences during three-generational family tourism, particularly the stress–resource–well-being dynamics. The findings can inform the improvement of products, services, and facilities by travel operators to draw the growing market of multi-generational families.