Second-home owner attachment to a destination: A driver of tourism promotion

Second-homes have become common place in many destinations. The visitation to these homes has become known as second-home tourism. Previous literature suggests that these homeowners might possess traits that would be attractive to tourism planners such as repeat visitation, word-of-mouth promotion, and the hosting of other visitors; The purpose of this study was to explore the presence of these traits in the context of international second-home owners and test a theoretical model that proposes place attachment as a driver of these behaviors. Attachment has been shown as a predictor of visitation and positive word-of-mouth in previous research. Borrowing from the visiting friends and relatives\u27 literature, a new construct known as hosting is developed and tested in the model; This study expands previous research on place attachment into a cross-cultural context by sampling residents of the United States and Canada that own a second-home in Costa Rica. Using theory and previous research findings, place attachment was proposed as a driver of homeowner visitation, word-of-mouth promotion, and hosting; data were collected and tested for model fit; Findings from the study suggest that the relationship between the dimensions of place attachment (place identity and place dependence) do not support the relationship with visitation. Place dependence and visitation were not supported in model. Place identity was supported as a driver of word-of-mouth promotion and hosting. In addition, word-of-mouth promotion was supported as a driver of hosting. Findings from this study provide insight into the behaviors of second-home owners and utilization of their home. Tourism planners should develop strategies to engage these owners by enriching their experiences at the destination to nourish their attachment

Perceived Work Status and Turnover Intentions of Casual-Dining Restaurant Employees

The current research examined the effects of perceived work status of hourly employees on the established relationships between turnover intentions and the constructs of autonomy, affective organizational commitment, perceived management concern for employees, and perceived management concern for customers in the casual-dining restaurant industry. Surveys were collected from 296 employees of a multi-unit casual-dining restaurant franchise, part of a large, national, casual-dining restaurant chain. Employeeswith perceived part-time work status revealed a generally negative trend in factors shown to contribute to turnover. Employees who perceived their work status as parttime also showed significantly lower levels of affective organizational commitment than those who perceived their work status as full-time. Additionally, the mean scores of the desirable attributes trended lower for those employees who perceived themselves as part-time. Even more, helping behaviors, so crucial in a casual-dining environment, were lower when employees perceived their work status to be part-time. The current study discusses managerial implications of the research findings and gives suggestions for future research

Timeshare Owner Preferences - An Analysis of Program and Service Relationships during Recessionary Times

Since the 1970s various industry studies have indicated that the vacation ownership industry has enjoyed unprecedented growth in unit sales, resort growth, and the number of owners (American Resort Devleopment Association [ARDA], 2007; ARDA, 2009a; ARDA, 2009b). However, due to the recent economic downturn these growth metrics are no longer obtainable. This external impact has caused developers to retrench and therefore reflect upon their existing product and service offerings, financial metrics, and consumer markets (ARDA, 2010a; ARDA 2010b). The crux of these findings indicates that the industry has shifted to maintaining and enhancing product and service offerings as a reaction to changing economic conditions. The findings reported in the body of this manuscript represent product and service preferences as collected from a random data pull of their existing ownership base. The study also revealed current preferences of timeshare owners with relation to services provided and products/amenities offered. Management implications and limitations of the current study are discussed