Federation University’s Associate Professor of tourism and management Dr Elisa Backer has found visiting or being visited by relatives or friends can actually improve quality of life.

“The research revealed that in general, people greatly treasured the opportunity to catch up with important people in their lives and create precious memories,” she said.

The downside occurred when hosts did not have space to host visitors.

Even when space was a problem, people treasured the social connection and the memories made during visits and this attitude allowed them to enjoy the positives.

Dr Backer said understanding the potential stress could also lead to a different attitude.

“We may elect to stay in commercial accommodation when visiting friends or relatives to ensure the experiences provide more positive benefits and provide us with less conflict and stress,” she said. 

​Dr Backer is regarded as the leading world expert in visiting friends and relatives travel (VFR) research and her study of 552 people across Australia is the first to examine the relationship between quality of life and VFR travel.

For much of the past decade her work has focused on the economic impact of VFR travel, which accounts for about half of Australia’s domestic travel movements. But attending conferences and talking to peers, she realised there was another element to the research.

“We make these jokes about boring relatives and in-laws coming to stay … but we don’t actually know what the impact is on our quality of life,” she said. 

“The World Health Organisation now sees quality of life as one if its key indicators.

“It used to focus on physiological health but we now realise health is more complex than just blood pressure or how your heart it going … it’s about wellbeing, happiness, loneliness, stress, and how we feel about our own health.”