Last week, the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research reported that happiness is rising around the world. A few months ago, the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index reported that travelers are decidedly unhappy about their travel experiences.
It’s the best of times — and the worst of times. Go figure.
The latest survey suggests Denmark is the happiest nation while Zimbabwe is the unhappiest. The United States ranks 16th, immediately behind New Zealand. The results will be published in July in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science.
The customer satisfaction survey painted a dramatically different picture, as Christopher Elliott pointed out on his blog.
Airline scores have plummeted to a post-9/11 low, according to the latest ACSI ratings, which are scheduled to be released this morning. Customers gave the airline industry a collective grade of 63 on a scale of 100. That’s down 3 percent from last year, and close to the industry’s historic low of 61 hit in 2001.
What’s going on here?
It’s possible that people have discounted travel in their answers. The latest survey asked two questions:
1. “Taking all things together, would you say you are very happy, rather happy, not very happy, not at all happy?”
2. “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?”
By combining the responses from these two questions, University of Michigan political scientist Ronald Inglehart, who led the study, created “an index of subjective well-being that reflects both happiness and general life satisfaction.”
Maybe people have dismissed their dissatisfaction with travel and moved on. Then again, maybe they’ve stopped traveling altogether.
