Resumen de Understanding Individuals’ Attachment to Selected Destinations: an Application of Place Attachment
Charles Changuklee, Lawrence Allen
Tourists develop emotional associations with destinations they visit. However, very limited research has been conducted to determine the emotional associations or meanings tourists attach to the places they visit and experience. The purpose of this study was to begin to understand tourists’ emotional attachment by attempting to predict tourist attachment to coastal destinations in South Carolina. Using a systematic random sampling process, 1008 residents of the Greater Seneca-Clemson area in South Carolina were selected. The results of this study, with a response rate of 48.5%, suggested a strong predictive model for destination attachment-with an explanatory power of 51% for the city of Charleston and 50% for the Myrtle Beach/Grand Strand area. A significant predictive model was found for Hilton Head Island; however, because of the small number of respondents visiting this tourism destination, none of the predictor variables were found to make an independent contribution to the model. The study revealed that tourist attachment to both the Myrtle Beach/Grand Strand area and the City of Charleston was highly related to traditional travel-related variables such as destination attractiveness and the perception of traveling to a destination as a family tradition. In addition, there were factors contributing to tourist attachment unique to the type of destination. Implications for destination marketing and future research were also discussed.
