Visitor Satisfaction and Place Attachment in National Parks

Abstract

This study examines the relationships between visitor satisfaction and place attachment. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to test competing models of visitor satisfaction and place attachment represented as a (i) unidimensional, (ii) first-order, and (iii) second-order factor. Data were collected from a sample of 525 visitors at the Bruce Peninsula National Park, in the state of Ontario, Canada. Results indicate visitor satisfaction is a better predictor of place attachment as a second-order construct. Findings are discussed with respect to their applied and theoretical relevance. Practical applications of the study include strategies aimed at achieving optimum visitor satisfaction and promoting place attachment in national parks.

Sense of place attitudes and quality of life outcomes among African residents in a multicultural Australian society

“…Although several studies have provided empirical insights for our theoretical propositions, much of the empirical research have focused on specific contexts, for example, with Jewish settlers' experience of Gaza (Billig, 2006;Billig, Kreitler, Zhadanovsky, & Alkalay, 2016), experience of individuals with mental illness in Sweden (Marcheschi et al, 2015), and Italian residents' perception of QOL (Rollero & De Piccoli, 2010). In addition, other studies have examined rural West community attachment perceptions (Brehm et al, 2004), neighbourhood stability in Saskatoon in relation to perceptions of QOL (Randell et al, 2008), and tourists' assessment of island destinations (Ramkissoon, 2016;Ramkissoon et al, 2014).…”

Visitors’ Experience, Place Attachment and Sustainable Behaviour at Cultural Heritage Sites: A Conceptual Framework

“…The experiential perspective on heritage consumption has examined how the heritage experience allows tourists to form a belief function that impacts their sense of affect and influences their behavioural intentions towards consumption of heritage sites [91]. Place-related constructs representing cognitive (beliefs, knowledge), affective (emotions), and conative (behavioural) commitments [23,102] have been considered as attitudes by researchers (e.g., [103,104]), providing the basis for integrating the different place components into a single framework, further analysing its influence on sustainable heritage behaviours, both general, and site-specific. Considering the respective heritage experience and place attachment sub-constructs within an attitudinal framework and their associations with site-specific and general sustainable heritage behaviour will lead to a stronger theoretical coherence, offering scholars with different avenues of research and assist heritage sites' managers in promoting sustainable behaviours among visitors.…”

Sino-western Tourists’ Place Attachment to a Traditional Chinese Urban Destination: A Tale from Hangzhou, China

“…Other various determinants of tourists' place attachment include destination attractiveness, past travel experience, satisfaction, a family tradition of travel, and age of the tourist at the first visit (Lee, 2001). Place motivation also plays an important role in shaping place attachment (Kyle, Mowen, & Tarrant, 2004), while place satisfaction is a significant causal antecedent of place attachment (Chen et al 2014b;Ramkissoon et al, 2014). To the best of our knowledge, only one study has pinpointed the importance of CD in constructing tourists' place attachment (Hou et al, 2005), with the results suggesting that the formation of place attachment differs depending on cultural similarity to the hosts.…”

“…We designed the scales of place attachment constructs based on the past literature Kyle & Mowen, 2005;Ramkissoon et al, 2013;Ramkissoon et al, 2014). Before launching the large-scale survey, we conducted a pilot survey to test the scales developed in previous studies.…”

“…Place attachment has been conceptualized as a multi-dimensional construct consisting of aspects such as place dependence, place identity, affective attachment, and social bonding (Kyle, Graefe, Manning, & Bacon, 2004;Kyle & Mowen, 2005;Ramkissoon et al, 2013;Ramkissoon, Smith, & Kneebone, 2014). Place dependence refers to a functional attachment to a particular place (Gross & Brown, 2008) and stresses the importance of social and physical resources necessary for desired activities (Kyle, Bricker, Graefe, & Wickham, 2004), whereas place identity refers to a symbolic or affective attachment to a particular place and represents personal cognitive identity in relation to the physical environment (Kyle, Bricker, et al, 2004).…”