Place attachment has become an important concept in tourism-related research, with substantial relevance for the nature of the human-place relationship and behavioural intentions and outcomes. Following a review of the place attachment literature in tourism, this article reviews the studies on the conceptualisation of place attachment, its antecedents and influencing outcomes, and explores its potential in the areas of sustainable tourism, destination resilience, and destination competitiveness.

Place attachment has become a popular concept in tourism and environmental psychology. However, little research has explored its role in predicting place-related behaviors, compared to alternative place-related constructs such as place satisfaction. This article clarifies the differential impacts of place satisfaction and place attachment on a series of residents’ place-related behaviors (i.e., destination brand-building behaviors), providing empirical evidence from a quantitative survey study. A sample of 358 residents from Sydney, Australia, was included for partial least square (PLS) based structural equation modeling testing. Results of a number of model testing suggest that compared with place satisfaction, dimensions of place attachment affect residents’ destination brand-building behaviors differently in a unique pattern. Place satisfaction strongly predicts residents’ intention to stay or leave, while place attachment more strongly influences residents’ word of mouth, ambassador behavior, and participation in tourism planning for a destination.

This study explores the impact of the valence (positive/negative) and emotional intensity (strong/weak) of online reviews on potential Chinese visitors’ travel intentions and trust of a destination. An experimental design was used to test the hypotheses. Findings suggest that online review valence and emotional intensity affect travel intentions and that destination trust can partially mediate this relationship. Changes in destination trust and travel intention due to positive/negative review emotional intensity changes are not equivalent. Furthermore, online review trustworthiness moderates the valence and destination trust and travel intention relationships, but not the effect of review emotional intensity on the same outcomes.

The purpose of this study is to examine and compare the effect of residents’ different dimensions of place attachment on their word-of-mouth (WOM) behavior in two cities: Sydney, Australia and Shanghai, China. A six-dimensional construct of place attachment is proposed based upon a detailed literature review: four attitudinal dimensions (place identity, place dependence, affective attachment, social bonding) and two interactional dimensions (place memory, place expectation) are proposed to reflect different aspects of a resident's attachment to a place. To test the dimensionality of place attachment and relationships between constructs, a survey was completed by 691 residents in the two targeted cities (361 from Sydney and 330 from Shanghai), and a structural equation modeling instrument was applied to analyze the data. The findings of the empirical study statistically support the dimensionality of place attachment proposed, and reveal that, in general, interactional dimensions of place attachment have an effect on WOM behavior. The results suggest that WOM behavior of residents of the two cities is influenced by different attitudinal dimensions of place attachment: Shanghai resident's place identity and social bonding predict one-to-one WOM, while Sydney residents’ affective attachment to Sydney influences their one-to-one WOM behavior. This analysis provides insights into residents’ psychology and behavior in different tourism destinations, as well as important inputs for the sustainable development of destination branding and C2C tourism communication in these two cities.

Age has a significant influence on environmental attitudes and behaviour but there is no consensus on the effect that generational cohort has on these attitudes and behaviour. Using the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) as the theoretical lens, this study evaluates whether Gen Z is similar or different to three other generations (Gen X, Y and Baby Boomers) on their environmental attitudes toward travel. The sustainability practices that these generational cohorts undertake during their travel are also evaluated. Based on 615 useable surveys of international visitors to the Canterbury region of New Zealand, we identify segments of visitors based on environmental attitudes and behaviour toward travel and generational cohort using a two-step clustering procedure. The results confirm inter-generational differences in environmental attitudes and travel behaviours but also highlight intra-generational differences. Gen Z tourists are more likely to belong to “Environmental” or “Mixed-Bag Environmental” segments that are more likely engage in sustainable practices related to resource saving and buying local food compared to other generations. The findings have implications for destination marketing and management.