Tourists' emotional solidarity with residents: a segmentation analysis and its links to destination image and loyalty

It is nearly impossible to consider a destination without also acknowledging its people and the relationships visitors have with such residents. Extant research on emotional solidarity has treated visitors as a homogenous group, failing to identify differences in the way people develop solidarity and perceive a destination. This study addresses this gap by clustering tourists based on their emotional solidarity with residents; and identifying whether tourist subgroups share different perceptions of the destination and levels of loyalty. Analysis was based on a sample of 400 Serbian visitors who had visited Greece. Three groups were identified with different levels of emotional solidarity, termed Appreciator, Lover, and Emotionally Distant. All groups exhibited dissimilar cognitive and affective images and diverse levels of loyalty

Explaining conative destination image through cognitive and affective destination image and emotional solidarity with residents

It is nearly impossible to consider a destination without also acknowledging its people as well as the relationship visitors have with such residents. Employing a hierarchical structure of destination image, this study examined how emotional solidarity along with cognitive and affective image explain conative image of Greece among Serbian visitors who had recently visited. Targeting Serbians living in Novi Sad, survey data were collected on-site as well as through online means, resulting in 401 completed questionnaires for analysis. Structural equation modeling revealed that five of the six proposed hypotheses were supported from the developed theoretical model. Overall, emotional solidarity, cognitive image and affective image were able to predict 70% (R2 = 0.70) of the variance in conative image. Implications for theory and practice along with limitations and future research opportunities are discussed at the close of the paper

Destination loyalty explained through place attachment, destination familiarity, and destination image

This study explores how familiarity and attachment, along with cognitive and affective image explain destination loyalty across visitors with divergent degrees of frequency of visitation (low vs. high). Serbians (n = 401) who have previously visited Greece comprised the sample population for this study and were surveyed using a self-administered questionnaire. Findings reveal that overall familiarity shapes cognitive and affective destination image, while each image component uniquely explains destination loyalty (R2 = 0.51). Differences also exist in the magnitude of the relationships tested among the two groups. Implications for theory and practice, along with limitations and research directions, are discussed

Tourists' destination loyalty through emotional solidarity with residents: an integrative moderated mediation model

This study proposes a theoretical model integrating two lines of tourism research: emotional solidarity and destination loyalty. In order to test the proposed model, a survey of visitors to Cape Verde islands was undertaken. Structural equation modeling and moderated mediation analysis were implemented to assess the relationships involving visitors’ emotional solidarity with residents, satisfaction and destination loyalty. The three dimensions of emotional solidarity were considered in the study: feeling welcomed, sympathetic understanding and emotional closeness. Results indicate that visitors’ feeling welcomed and sympathetic understanding directly influence loyalty. In particular, the relationships involving visitors’ feeling welcomed by residents, emotional closeness with residents and sympathetic understanding with residents and loyalty were all mediated by satisfaction. Additionally, gender was found to moderate the conditional indirect effects of emotional closeness and feeling welcomed on loyalty (via satisfaction). Such relationships were stronger among male visitors. Implications as well as future research opportunities are offered

Social determinants of place attachment at a World Heritage site

While the work on place attachment is extensive, it neglects to focus on residents' and tourists' perspectives of the construct concurrently. Additionally, the role that social factors play in forging attachment to place is lacking within the tourism literature. This work focuses on whether residents' (n = 469) and tourists' (n = 461) degree of place attachment at the Osun Oshogbo Cultural Festival (Nigeria) were significantly different. Examining the psychometric properties of the place attachment scale in an international context was a second aim. The final purpose of this work was to assess whether social factors (i.e., frequency of interaction and emotional closeness) between residents and tourists could explain the resulting CFA place attachment factors. MANOVA results revealed tourists demonstrated a significantly higher degree of attachment. Each social determinant predicted the attachment factors for both samples, with the two independent variables explaining higher degrees of variance among residents

Residents' attitudes and the adoption of pro-tourism behaviours: the case of developing island countries

This study considers both economic and non-economic factors to examine how residents perceive tourism and ultimately develop pro-tourism behaviour. The concepts used in model creation are Social Exchange Theory and the Theory of Reasoned Action. Based on data derived from 418 residents of the Cape Verde Islands (off the coast of western Africa) a structural equation model is used to test how perceived personal benefits and general economic conditions shape perceptions of tourism, and in turn how these perceptions determine pro-tourism behaviour. Additionally, the concept of welcoming behaviour is included in the model. It is found the perceived tourism impacts mediate between welcoming and pro-tourism behaviours

The effect of residents’ personality, emotional solidarity, and community commitment on support for tourism development

Residents' personality and their perspectives about community and those visiting can play an important role in forming overall support for tourism development. This study examined how residents' personality, emotional solidarity, and community commitment impact perceptions of tourism, which ultimately explain support for tourism development. To test the theoretical framework, survey data were collected from 340 residents living in two Malaysian tourism destinations. Structural equation modelling was utilized to assess the proposed model. Results revealed that sympathetic understanding and welcoming nature were the strongest factors influencing residents' attitudes towards tourism development while the effect was different among males and females with differing personality traits. Further analysis showed that the effect of welcoming nature and emotional closeness on residents’ attitude towards tourism development was different among residents with personalities of high agreeableness and extraversion, while openness to experience, conscientiousness, and neuroticism did not have a significant effect on these relationships

Bridging farmers’ non-cognitive and self-conscious emotional factors to cognitive determinants of climate change adaptation in southwest Iran

Farm-level adaptation is an effective strategy to cope with global climate change. Farmers can effectively manage the negative effects of climate change with adaptive decisions. Cognitive, non-cognitive and emotional factors influence adaptive decisions against climate change. However, little research addresses the extent to which a set of integrated factors influence a farmer's intention to adapt. To address this gap, this study aims to determine, first, the relationship between cognitive factors, including awareness, attitude, subjective norm and perceived behaviour control; non-cognitive factors including habits and moral norms; as well as emotional factors, including anticipated pride and guilt surrounding adaptation intention. Second, it evaluates an integrated structural model using SmartPLS, a software commonly used in partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), wherein all these factors are examined simultaneously. A survey was conducted to fulfil these objectives, involving 250 farmers from Susangerd city in the Khuzestan province of southwestern Iran. Results reveal that positive emotions (pride), cognitive constructs, (perceived behaviour control and awareness), as well as non-cognitive factors, (behavioural habits and moral norms) affect adaptation intention. Findings provide guidance to policymakers, and agricultural experts who are considering different factors in designing and implementing policies and innovations related to climate change adaptation