Residents’ Place Satisfaction and Place Attachment on Destination Brand-Building Behaviors: Conceptual and Empirical Differentiation

Abstract

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.