Holiday attachment: the construction and measurement
Author:Lecturer Ph.D. Babu P. George; Conf. univ. dr. Nedelea Alexandru
JEL:
DOI:
Keywords:Holiday attachement;
Holiday utility;
Holiday identity;
Scale development;
Validity and reliability;
Implications of the scale.
Abstract:
Given that it is not the individual
components constituting a holiday in isolation
or in simple additive relationship that
determines tourists’ sense of satisfaction with
that holiday, the absence of an instrument to
capture the effect of the holiday experience in
its entirety is but odd. Not only that, the
current approach of inferring the whole
complex of holiday experience as the simple
additive sum of the knowledge of its
constituent parts is epistemologically
problematic, too. Beginning with a brief
inventorying of the current approaches to the
measurement of place attachment, which is
being used by researchers to assess tourists’
attachment to holiday destinations, the present
paper attempts to develop a more holistic
instrument, Holiday Attachment, which can
comprehensively measure tourists’ attachment
with the composite holiday experience. The
holiday attachment instrument has successfully
demonstrated the essential tests of validity and
reliability. The paper is concluded with a brief
discussion of the current limitations and the
developmental dimensions of the instrument,
as well as its implications and potential
applications.