How do tourism recovery experiences contribute to knowledge workers’ creativity? The moderating role of travel companion

ABSTRACTTo empirically examine the influencing mechanism and boundary conditions of tourism recovery experiences on knowledge workers' creativity, 837 valid samples were used. The results show that: (a) The tourism recovery experiences (compatibility, extent, away, fascination) could effectively stimulate the creativity of knowledge workers; (b) the perceived recovery level mediates the relationship between tourism recovery experiences and knowledge workers' creativity; (c) the travel companion intimacy has a positive moderating effect between compatibility, extent, away and perceived recovery level. The present research results provide another view of how knowledge workers' creativity is formed and expressed, but also provide practical guidance for “destination-tourist-enterprise government” to create value and achieve mutual benefit.KEYWORDS: Tourism recovery experiencesperceived recovery levelcreativitytravel companion intimacyknowledge workers Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis research was supported by the following agencies: Humanities and Social Science Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (grant number: 22YJC860003); 2022 project of Guangzhou Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning (grant number: 2022GZGJ80).