ARTICLE IN PRESS

Tourism Management 29 (2008) 1141–1151

www.elsevier.com/locate/tourman

An empirical structural model of tourists and places: Progressing

involvement and place attachment into tourism
Michael J. Gross, Graham Brown
School of Management, University of South Australia, Elton Mayo Building, City West Campus, North Terrace, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia
Received 13 December 2006; accepted 17 February 2008

Abstract

Research which examines the relationship between involvement and place attachment has started to emerge in the leisure literature and
this paper reports the findings of a study, which applied these constructs within a tourism context. A survey was conducted with tourists
in five South Australian tourism regions that measured respondents’ attitudes towards tourism experiences in South Australia.
Involvement was conceptualised as a multidimensional construct consisting of the dimensions of attraction, centrality to lifestyle,
self expression and food & wine. Place attachment was also conceptualised as a multidimensional construct of place dependence and
place identity. The study developed and tested a structural model that was found to reliably and validly measure predictive relationships
between the constructs of involvement and place attachment. The findings indicated that the combined use of involvement and place
attachment is applicable in tourism. The implications for destination management are discussed.
r 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Involvement; Place attachment; Tourism experiences; Structural equation modelling

1. Introduction activity or product and pleasure derived from participation or

Tourism knowledge has advanced by applying theories
developed in other disciplines and so it is surprising that
some research streams have been developed, tested and
widely reported in leisure journals without attracting the
interest of tourism researchers. This is characteristic of the
situation that exists with regard to research about
involvement, place attachment and, more recently, the
combined use of the two constructs.
Involvement was developed in consumer behaviour and
can be defined as: the perceived personal importance
and/or interest consumers attach to the acquisition,
consumption, and disposition of a good, service, or an
idea (Mowen & Minor 1998, p. 64). When applied in leisure
research, it has often consisted of three dimensions: the first
is attraction, conceived as the perceived importance of an
Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 8 8302 0350; fax: +61 8 8302 0512.
E-mail addresses: michael.gross@unisa.edu.au (M.J. Gross),
graham.brown@unisa.edu.au (G. Brown).
use (Funk, Ridinger, & Moorman, 2004). The second is self
expression, the degree to which participants express their self
concept or individuality through the situation or object of
study. Participation acts as a message of who the subjects are,
and the situation or object acts as a vehicle through which
one projects and enhances one’s self image (Selin & Howard,
1988). The third is centrality to lifestyle, the extent to which
participants’ social networks revolve around an activity, and
whether participants’ lifestyles are meaningfully impacted by
their participation (Havitz, Dimanche, & Bogle, 1994). Place
attachment was first developed in environmental psychology
and is conceived as an affective bond or link between people
and specific places (Hidalgo & Hernandez, 2001). The place
attachment construct typically consists of two dimensions: the
first is place dependence, which refers to a functional
attachment to a place, and the second is place identity, which
refers to a symbolic or affective attachment to a place
(Backlund & Williams, 2003).
The use of the place attachment and involvement
constructs in combination has occurred only recently in

0261-5177/$ - see front matter r 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2008.02.009
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
1142 M.J. Gross, G. Brown / Tourism Management 29 (2008) 1141–1151
leisure studies, and in the context of recreation. The pioneers
in this area have been Kyle and his co-scholars, who studied
involvement (Kerstetter, Confer, & Graefe, 2001; Kyle &
Chick, 2002; Kyle, Kerstetter, & Guadagnolo, 1999, 2002;
Scott & Shafer, 2001) and place attachment (Kyle, Absher,
& Graefe, 2003b; Moore & Graefe, 1994; Moore & Scott,
2003) on separate research tracks until combining them in a
key 2003 study that measured the relationships between
leisure activity involvement and place attachment among
hikers on the Appalachian Trail (Kyle, Graefe, Manning, &
Bacon, 2003a). The research reported in their paper sought
to examine the utility of combining involvement and place
attachment in tourism. This is important to determine
because it cannot be assumed that factors associated with
recreational activities will be equally relevant in tourism
contexts where variables associated with the destination
attributes may be more influential.
Considerations of the corresponding and contrasting
qualities of activities undertaken in recreation and tourism
contexts have engaged the interest of the respective
research communities. In the 1980s the work of Mieczkowski
(1981) and Murphy (1985) helped to establish frameworks
for understanding how tourism co-exists situationally with
leisure and recreation. Their conceptual maps placed
recreation entirely within the leisure domain, while tour-
ism, due to its relationship with business travel, overlapped
with and extended beyond recreation and leisure (Fennell,
2002; Poria, Butler, & Airey, 2003; Smith & Godbey, 1991;
Tribe, 1995). Hall and Page (1999), supported by Williams
(2003), modified the model, extending recreation beyond
leisure in recognition of Stebbins’ (1982) work on serious
leisure (Fig. 1).
While definitional debates of specific areas continue, a
consensus has formed around at least one aspect of the
relationship: leisure travel undertaken for recreation
purposes is a form of tourism, and is distinct from leisure
tourism. Taking the example of a park setting, recreational
travellers may seek the intrinsic values of the park, and
their behaviour will reflect those values through engage-
ment with the natural environment in such activities as
Work
Leisure
Tourism
Business Leisure Recreation
travel travel
Serious
leisure
Fig. 1. Relationship between leisure, recreation, and tourism (Source: Hall
& Page, 1999, p. 4).
camping, hiking, and climbing. Leisure tourists in the same
setting may seek more extrinsic recreational facilities and
would be more likely to access and pay for infrastructure
and enhancements of the attraction such as accommoda-
tion, food and beverage outlets and other man-made
attractions. An understanding of the relationship in
different contexts is important in order to be able to
determine where recreation ends and tourism begins
(McKercher, 1996). The extent to which people exhibit
different levels of involvement and place attachment with
destinations as the settings for activities may be valuable in
this determination. The body of literature combining
involvement and place attachment is described below.
2. Literature review
The combined use of involvement and place attachment
was first used by Williams, Patterson, Roggenbuck, and
Watson (1992) in their study of visitors to four American
wilderness areas. They examined the emotional/symbolic
view of recreation places through an analysis of the
relationships between use history of the place, perceived
substitutability, sociodemographic and trip characteristics,
and sensitivity to wilderness impacts and levels of attach-
ment. Citing the specialisation literature as a source, they
incorporated some of Wellman, Roggenbuck, and Smith’s
(1982) scale items into a wilderness attachment scale. They
found that stronger place and wilderness attachment was
associated with previous visits, rural residence, a setting
focus, visiting alone, visiting on weekdays, hunting in the
area, and sensitivity to site impacts and horse encounters.
Place attachment was associated with a lack of non-
wilderness substitutes, lower income, and lower education.
Wilderness attachment was associated with membership in
wilderness and conservation organisations, visits to more
wilderness areas, a preference for longer visits, participa-
tion in nature study, and sensitivity to sight and sound
intrusions in hiker encounters.
Moore and Graefe (1994) used the conceptual frame-
works of activity specialisation and place attachment to
study recreation trail users in three American states,
hypothesising that place identity with a particular setting
was a function of how long a person had been associated
with the site and how dependent they were on it (which was
itself a function of frequency of site visit). They found
predictive relationships that were moderated by frequency
of use, specifically that place identity was best predicted by
how long users had been associated with the trail, the
importance they ascribed to their trail activity, and their
level of place dependence. Level of place dependence was
best predicted by the distance between the trail and the
user’s home and user’s frequency of trail use. Their study
represented the first combined use of involvement and
place attachment in the leisure literature, although only the
importance dimension of involvement was used. Graefe
later extended this work in a conference paper with
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
M.J. Gross, G. Brown / Tourism Management 29 (2008) 1141–1151
colleagues (Mowen, Graefe, & Virden, 1997) that com-
bined place attachment and activity involvement to create
a typology to understand visitor evaluations of recreation
experiences in a national recreation area in Virginia. They
found that as attachment increased in intensity, evaluations
of setting and experiences were more positive. Their study
represented the first combined use of the two dimensions of
place attachment (place dependence and place identity)
with the McIntyre (1989) modified CIP scale using the
involvement dimensions of attraction, self expression and
centrality to lifestyle.
In a 1998 study seeking to determine which approach
was most appropriate for segmenting trail users within a
particular geographic context, three segmentation ap-
proaches of activity type (hikers, bicyclists and horse
users), trail type (rail-trail and non-rail-trail), or an
interaction of activity type and trail type were tested
(Mowen, Graefe, & Williams, 1998). The same dimensions
of involvement and place attachment as in the Mowen et al.
(1997) study were employed and it was found that
differences in socio-demographic characteristics, visit
patterns and visitor attitudes were best explained by
activity type, and that horse users spent more time in their
activity than bicyclists and held the highest levels of activity
involvement and place attachment.
Bricker and Kerstetter (2000) studied whitewater recrea-
tionists, using involvement to measure levels of specialisa-
tion and levels of place attachment to a California river.
A lifestyle dimension was added to place dependence and
place identity as part of a three-dimensional place attach-
ment construct. The study also included a centrality to
lifestyle dimension as part of an involvement construct,
which was measured by behavioural items of memberships
to paddling clubs, subscriptions to whitewater magazines,
and books related to whitewater sports. A relationship was
noted between dimension levels of specialisation and
place attachment, as the authors found that centrality to
lifestyle was one of five specialisation dimensions that
confirmed their hypothesis that individuals possess a
range of specialisation. The place attachment lifestyle
dimension was measured by three items suggesting a deep
sense of attachment specific to the place and connected
to an individual’s lifestyle. They contended in their
findings that the lifestyle dimension constituted a viable
third dimension of place attachment, although acknow-
ledging that it was not important for most whitewater
recreationists.
Kyle et al. (2003a) conducted a key study of hikers on
the Appalachian Trail that included the use of a structural
modelling method to examine place attachment’s
antecedent processes that lead to recreationists’ attachment
to settings. It was hypothesised that hikers’ type of use
(day use, overnight use, sectional use and hiking entire
length of the trail) would impact the relationship between
activity involvement and place attachment such that, as the
length of hikers’ visit along the trail increased, so too
would be the strength of the effect of activity involvement
1143
Attraction
Place
Dependence
Self Expression
Place
Identity
Centrality
Fig. 2. Hypothesised structural model (Source: Kyle et al., 2003a).
on place attachment. The structural model showing the
hypothetical relationships is shown in Fig. 2. The involve-
ment construct is represented by the dimensions of
attraction, self expression, and centrality, and the place
attachment construct is represented by the dimensions of
place dependence and place identity.
The findings indicated that the place identity dimension
was best predicted by the self expression and attraction
dimensions, whereas the only predictor of place dependence
was self expression. This was a significant study, as the
authors’ structural modelling analysis has provided the
basis for a number of subsequent studies along similar lines
of enquiry, all of which have contributed insights into the
underlying motivations for recreationists’ engagement in
specific leisure pursuits and visitation to specific recreation
settings. The structural model used in their study provided
the basis for the method and form of analysis employed in
the present study which sought to examine whether
respondents undertaking tourism-specific activities would
yield comparable results to those associated with recrea-
tion-specific activities and settings such as hiking on trails.
Kyle and Graefe collaborated with Bricker and
Wickham the following year (Kyle, Bricker, Graefe, &
Wickham, 2004a) using variations of the same model to
further examine the relationship between involvement and
place attachment for hikers along the Appalachian Trail,
boaters on a California river and anglers in New England.
Building on past findings that had shown that the potential
for variation among activity and setting types was high,
they sought to compare the three samples to determine
their respective performances in a predictive model. Again
testing a model that suggested involvement as an ante-
cedent of place attachment, they hypothesised that each
dimension of involvement would have a positive and
significant effect on the dimensions of place attachment.
The results illustrated that recreationists’ relationships with
activities and settings indeed did vary among the three
sample groups. The overall results suggested that leisure
involvement and the centrality dimension, in particular,
were a better predictor of the place identity dimension of
place attachment than of place dependence.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
1144 M.J. Gross, G. Brown / Tourism Management 29 (2008) 1141–1151
A sample of Appalachian Trail hikers was used to
examine place attachment’s effect on several variables
purportedly related to the construct (Kyle, Graefe, &
Manning, 2004c). The hypothesised direction of influence
was reversed, using the place attachment dimensions as
independent variables. Respondents were clustered into
three groups by place dependence and place identity mean
scores, then the three groups were examined in relation to
the variables of demographics, visit motivations and
preferences, and activity involvement. Rather than analys-
ing the relationships using their 2003a structural model,
they used a combination of confirmatory factor analysis
(CFA), cluster analysis and one-way analysis of variance to
test the relationships. Variations among groups based on
level of attachment were observed for trip motivations,
evaluations of setting conditions, evaluations of manage-
ment actions, level of experience and level of involvement.
This study served as further confirmation of the predictive
validity and reliability of the two-dimensional conceptua-
lisation of place attachment.
Kyle, Graefe, Manning, and Bacon (2004b) used a
reduced portion of their 2003a sample of Appalachian
Trail hikers to look at the effect of activity involvement
and place attachment on recreationists’ perceptions of
setting density. Using frameworks offered by social
judgment and cognitive development theories, they
hypothesised that hikers’ evaluations of setting density
along the trail would be influenced by their degree of
activity involvement and place attachment. The two-
dimensional place attachment construct was expanded to
include a third dimension of social bonding. The structural
model results indicated that only place identity and place
dependence were significant predictors of respondents’
perceptions of place density. While respondents scoring
high on the place identity dimension were more inclined to
report feeling crowded, respondents scoring high on the
place dependence dimension were inclined to evaluate
setting density more favourably.
A study of visitors to a national park in Taiwan, found
that both involvement and place attachment had positive
effects on perceived service quality and satisfaction
(Hwang, Lee, & Chen, 2005). This has been the only
involvement and place attachment combination study to
include a specific tourism element, using a sample frame of
tourists and ‘visiting a national park’ as the involvement
attitude object (personal communication, 2005). Building
on Bricker and Kerstetter’s (2000) analysis, the authors
structured a similar instrument and, although it was not
reported, centrality did not survive the test of statistical
significance as one of the four involvement dimensions of
importance/pleasure, self expression/sign, risk probability,
and risk consequence in the resulting theoretical structural
model. Similarly, their findings did not support the lifestyle
dimension found by Bricker and Kerstetter (2000) as part
of place attachment, although the other two place
attachment dimensions of place dependence and place
identity were confirmed.
The studies described above support the value of
combining involvement and place attachment as a method
to examine the degree to which involvement in tourism
may be influenced by the places where the experiences are
gained. As the studies examined recreation activities and as
a predictive relationship between involvement and place
attachment has been established in leisure and recreation
contexts, the purpose of the present study was to determine
if the relationship could be established in a tourism context
with tourism activities and settings.
3. Research method
The objective of this study was to examine the utility of
combining involvement and place attachment to measure
destination-specific tourism experiences. Five locations in
South Australia were selected as the settings for the study.
Hypotheses for the measurement model were proposed (see
Gross, Brien, & Brown, 2006) and a questionnaire, based
on prior research from the involvement and place attach-
ment literature, was developed. It consisted of multiple-
item scales using a five point Likert-type response format
(1 ¼ Strongly Disagree to 5 ¼ Strongly Agree). The
rationale for the selection and number of items comprising
each dimension followed Kyle et al.’s (2003a) study, which
had proved to be reliable and valid. The first section of the
questionnaire was designed to measure the consumer
involvement construct for the dimensions of attraction,
centrality to lifestyle, and self expression. The second
section was designed to measure the place attachment
construct of place identity and place dependence. The third
section was designed to measure destination attributes.
South Australia is strongly identified with food & wine and
these attributes featured prominently in the pilot study
(Gross, 2005).
The main survey was conducted from November 2004
through May 2005 and 476 questionnaires were completed.
The target population consisted of adult tourists, staying at
least one night away from home and attending a Visitor
Information Centre (VIC) or an Attraction (e.g. wine cellar
door or resort) in one of five tourism regions of South
Australia; Adelaide, Barossa, Flinders and Outback,
Kangaroo Island, or McLaren Vale/Fleurieu.
Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of the data generated
six dimensions. Tourism involvement was conceptualised
as a multidimensional construct consisting of attraction,
centrality to lifestyle, and self expression. Place attachment
was also conceptualised as a multidimensional construct
consisting of place identity and place dependence. Food &
wine was included as the destination-specific measure.
CFA was used to develop and test a measurement model
for the six dimensions contained within the constructs of
involvement and place attachment, substantiating that the
survey instrument resulted in a summated scale that reliably
and validly measured the six separate dimensions. Internal
consistency of the scale’s dimensionality was established
through tests of reliability and validity (content, convergent,
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
M.J. Gross, G. Brown / Tourism Management 29 (2008) 1141–1151 1145

err
7 q7centr
causal relations, it does show whether the causal assump-
err
6
err
q6centr 0.83
0.78
tions embedded in a model match a sample of data (Bollen,
12 q12centr
0.38
0.37 err q11centr
0.47
0.59
1989, p. 4). Since Reisinger and Turner (1999) noted that
11
0.27
0.51 err
10 q10centr
0.64
0.50
Centrality to SEM had not yet been applied widely in the tourism
err Lifestyle
15
err
q15centr
0.80 discipline, its use in recent years in establishing the predictive
0.21 8 q8centr
err q14centr
0.53
nature of conceptual relationships has been increasing in
14 0.74
tourism contexts (Gursoy, Jurowski, & Uysal, 2002; Gursoy
err q5attrac
5
err q1attrac
0.80
0.77
& Rutherford, 2004; Kang, Jeon, Lee, & Lee, 2005; Lee &
1
err
2 q2attrac
0.76
Back, 2006; Quan & Wang, 2004; Ryan & Huyton, 2000;
0.78
Attraction 0.67
err
3 q3attrac
0.63 Swanson & Horridge, 2004; Yoon, Gursoy, & Chen, 2001;
err q4attrac
4
err
0.58
Yoon & Uysal, 2005; Zins, 2002). Generally, a structural
9 q9centr

0.09
equation model is a complex composite statistical hypoth-
0.51
err
19 q19expre
0.76
0.49
esis. It consists of two main parts: the measurement model
err q18expre
18
err q20expre
0.72
0.68
0.29 that represents a set of observable variables as multiple
20 Self 0.07
err
17 q17expre
0.65
Expression indicators of a smaller set of latent variables, and the path
0.67 0.37
0.29 err
16 q16expre
0.61 model that describes relationships of dependency between
err q33lifst 0.08
33
the latent variables (McDonald & Ho, 2002). In this study,
err 0.18
35
err
q35lifst 0.79
0.81 0.26
the observable variables were represented by the scale items
q34lifst
34 Food &
-0.75 err
31 q31lifst
0.80
Wine 0.26 generated by the survey of tourists, and the latent variables
0.51
err
30 q30lifst were represented by the four involvement dimensions of
err
26 q26depen 0.94 0.31 attraction, centrality to lifestyle, self expression, and food &
0.24
err
27 q27depen 0.90
0.86
Place wine, and the two place attachment dimensions of place
err

0.47
25
err
q25depen
0.72
Dependence
0.23 dependence and place identity. The term structural model
28 q28depen
is reserved in this study for the composite structural
err q21ident 0.86
21
err q22ident 0.91
equation model, i.e. the combined measurement and path
22 Place 0.68
err
23 q23ident
0.85
Identity models.
0.42
err
29 q29lifst SEM was performed using the AMOS 5 statistical
program on the 32 scale items represented by the
Fig. 3. Measurement model (Source: Gross et al., 2006).
involvement and place attachment constructs. Maximum
likelihood (ML) estimation was used to estimate all
models. ML is regarded as considerably more robust than
and discriminant). The measurement model showing other estimation methods such as generalised least squares
coefficients in standardised form is presented in Fig. 3, or weighted least squares (Olsson, Foss, Troye, & Howell,
where ovals represent latent variables, rectangles represent 2000), given a sufficiently large sample size of 200 or more
observed variables, and circles represent measurement error (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001, p. 74). Another guideline for
associated with observed variables. A six-factor measure- stable ML estimation is that sample size should have a
ment model of centrality to lifestyle (8 items), attraction ratio of at least 10:1 or 15:1 to the number of observed
(6 items), self expression (6 items), food & wine (4 items), variables (Thompson, 2000). These conditions for sample
place dependence (4 items), and place identity (4 items) was size were satisfied for the 32-item structural model with a
developed. A list of the survey scale items is provided in sample size of 476. The path diagram used to illustrate the
Appendix A. relationship between the two constructs of involvement
and place attachment was based on the Kyle et al. model
3.1. Structural equation modelling shown in Fig. 2.
The model fitting process followed the approach
Having established a reliable and valid measurement advocated by Byrne (2001, pp. 79–88) to assess model fit.
model in the preceding work, the next logical step in the The method used for examining the relationships between
present study to test the predictive relationship between latent variables was inspection of the standardised coeffi-
involvement and place attachment in a tourism context was cients for the regression paths (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001,
to proceed to the full structural model. Structural equation p. 673). The statistical significance of parameter estimates
modelling (SEM) is a method of multivariate statistical for the structural model was examined through the critical
analysis that is simultaneously capable of measuring the ratio (c.r.) test statistic. That is, the c.r.’s for paths between
concepts generated by EFA, and the paths of the the latent constructs in the structural model should fall
hypothesised relationships between the concepts (Klem, outside the threshold range of 71.96. Non-significant
2000). It is a statistical inference method that tests the parameters, with the exception of error variances, can be
assumption that parameters are not just descriptive mea- considered unimportant to the model, and in the interest of
sures of association, but rather that they reveal a predictive scientific parsimony, they should be deleted from the model
relationship. While the method does not necessarily discover (Byrne 2001, p. 76).
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
1146 M.J. Gross, G. Brown / Tourism Management 29 (2008) 1141–1151
3.2. Hypothesised structural model
Consistent with the study objective, and based on the
CFA findings, one a priori hypothesis was proposed for
the structural model. The hypothesis was drawn from
a combination of theoretical, practical, and methodological
considerations as described below.
The hypothesis proposed for the structural model was
that (H1) each dimension of involvement would have a
positive and significant effect on each dimension of
place attachment. In other words, the four dimensions
of centrality to lifestyle (8 items), attraction (6 items),
self expression (6 items), food & wine (4 items) would
positively predict the two dimensions of place dependence
(4 items), and place identity (4 items). The involvement and
place attachment literature in a leisure and recreation
context, primarily represented by Kyle et al., has examined
the relationship between involvement and place attachment
using the involvement constructs as predictor variables
in structural models (Kyle et al., 2003a, 2004a; Kyle,
Graefe, Manning, & Bacon, 2004d; Kyle & Mowen, 2005).
These studies have produced findings that suggest, in
the present study context, that as respondents’ scores on
the dimensions of involvement (attraction, centrality to
lifestyle, self expression and food & wine) increase, so
too will their scores on the dimensions of place attachment
(place dependence and place identity). If present study
findings supported H1, this would suggest that similar
positive and significant relationships between involvement
and place attachment might exist in a tourism context
to those that have been reported in the leisure and
recreation literature. The four involvement dimensions
were used as independent (exogenous) variables and the
two place attachment dimensions were used as dependent
(endogenous) variables in the hypothesised structural
model.
4. Results
Analysis of the AMOS output indicated that
the independence model that tests the hypothesis that
all variables were uncorrelated was easily rejectable,
w2 (chi-square) ¼ 9512 (n ¼ 476, df ¼ 496, po.01). The
hypothesised model was tested next and reasonable
support was found for the hypothesised model, w2 ¼ 1291
(n ¼ 476, df ¼ 440, po.01), comparative fit index
(CFI) ¼ .906; root mean square error of approximation
(RMSEA) ¼ .064. A w2-difference test indicated a significant
Table 1
Summary of structural model fit statistics
Model Chi-square DF Chi-square/DF
Initial SEM 1291 440 2.934
Final SEM 1177 414 2.843
improvement in fit between the independence model and the
hypothesised model.
Post hoc model modifications were undertaken in an
attempt to develop a better fitting, more parsimonious
structural model. All c.r.’s for regression weights, covar-
iances and variances for the structural model fell within the
acceptable range, with the exception of three regression
paths: attraction-place identity, self expression-place
dependence, and self expression-place identity. These three
regression paths were therefore deleted.
In an effort to identify further areas of misfit, the
standardised residuals and modification indices (MI) were
examined. An examination of the standardised residuals
identified one possible item that was a candidate for either
respecification or deletion. This was item 30 ‘‘The
distinctive food of the region is something that attracted
me here’’, which displayed multiple covariance discrepan-
cies well exceeding a threshold value of 72.58, which is
considered to be large (Byrne, 2001, p. 89). The MI were
examined to determine what, if any, action should be taken
on item 30. Examination of the regression weights
suggested that substantial parameter improvements
(MI ¼ 51.27, par change ¼ .660) could be made by deleting
item 30 from the food & wine factor, and the item was
deleted. Deletion of this item also had the effect of
removing the correlation of the errors between item 30 in
the food & wine dimension and item 29 ‘‘The distinctive
lifestyle of the region is something that attracted me here’’,
in the place identity dimension, an error correlation that
had been established during development of the measure-
ment model. Configuration of the hypothesised structural
model had positioned this error correlation as one between
independent and dependent variables; however, the error
correlation would have been removed anyway on theore-
tical grounds, as such a correlation is theoretically
untenable in a structural model (DeShon, 1998). Turning
attention to the MI covariance section, the MI’s represent-
ing error covariances were examined, and no substantial
model fit improvements were indicated for allowing any
further error terms to correlate. Following this, model
estimation was considered complete with a final 31-item
structural model that was identified and that showed an
acceptable fit with the data.
All of the measures in the final structural model
possessed acceptable psychometric properties. The differ-
ence between the initial model and the final model in the
w2 was 114, the difference in the degrees of freedom (DF)
was 26 and po0.01. Therefore, model estimation resulted
in an improved model fit as demonstrated by Table 1.
p-Value CFI RMSEA 90% C.I. RMSEA
.000 .906 .064 (.060, .068)
.000 .912 .062 (.058, .066)
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
M.J. Gross, G. Brown / Tourism Management 29 (2008) 1141–1151 1147

4.1. Structural model direct effects
An effect of model estimation was to remove three
non-significant regression paths, reducing the number of
inter-construct relationships for analysis from eight to five.
The three non-significant regression paths were:
 attraction-place identity (standardised coefficient .02,
c.r. .254)
 self expression-place dependence (standardised coeffi-
cient .08, c.r. 1.095)
 self expression-place identity (standardised coefficient
.07, c.r. .907)
The remaining five significant regression paths were:
All significant paths were positive except attraction-
place dependence, which was negative. The strongest
predictor of either place attachment dimension was
centrality to lifestyle. As tourism experiences became more
central to respondents’ lifestyle, their functional and
emotional attachment to the tourism regions visited
increased. Food & wine was also a positive predictor of
both place attachment dimensions. As respondents’ level of
involvement with the food & wine features of their tourism
experiences increased, their functional and emotional
attachment to the tourism regions visited also increased.
The sole negative relationship between attraction-place
dependence indicated that as respondents’ attraction levels
to tourism experiences increased, their functional attach-
ment to the tourism regions visited decreased.

 centrality to lifestyle-place dependence (standardised 4.2. Final structural model

coefficient .48, c.r. 5.780)
 centrality to lifestyle-place identity (standardised coef- The final structural model, showing coefficients in
ficient .36, c.r. 5.934) standardised form, is shown in Fig. 4. The final configura-
 attraction-place dependence (standardised coefficient tion of the latent constructs was of the involvement
.28, c.r. 4.087) construct consisting of the four dimensions of centrality
 food & wine-place dependence (standardised coefficient to lifestyle (8 items), attraction (6 items), self expression
.20, c.r 3.828) (6 items), food & wine (3 items), and the place attachment
 food & wine-place identity (standardised coefficient .19, construct consisting of the two dimensions of place
c.r. 3.331) dependence (4 items), and place identity (4 items).

0.68
err
7 q7centr
0.60
err
6 q6centr 0.83
0.22
err
0.78
12 q12centr 0.47
0.38 0.35
err 0.59
0.37 11 q11centr
0.25
0.51 err 0.50
0.27 10 q10centr
0.41
Centrality to
0.64
err
15 q15centr 0.80
Lifestyle 0.48
0.64
err
0.21 8 q8centr 0.53 0.16
0.52
0.28
err
err
q14centr 0.36 0.72 q28depen 28
14 0.75
0.86
err
0.64 0.73
Place q25depen
0.80
25
0.90
err
5 q5attrac Dependence 0.94 q27depen err
27
0.60 0.80 0.89
err err
1 q1attrac 0.77 q26depen 26
0.57 0.76
err
2 q2attrac 0.78
0.61
err
q3attrac
0.67 Attraction -0.28 Residual
3 0.63
0.40 1
err 0.58
4 q4attrac 0.65
0.34
Residual
err
9 q9centr 2
0.09
0.58 0.49 0.18 0.31
err err
19 q19expre 0.55 q29lifst 29
0.52 0.76 0.72
0.50 err 0.85 err
18 q18expre
0.46
0.72 Place 0.91
q23ident
0.82 23
err
q20expre 0.68 Identity q22ident err
20
0.42 0.06
0.65
Self 0.86
0.74 22
err err
17 q17expre Expression q21ident 21
0.44 0.66
0.29 err
16 q16expre 0.62
0.38
err
33 q33lifst
0.19
0.70 0.20
err
35 q35lifst 0.83
0.64 0.19
err 0.80
q34lifst
34
0.53 0.73
Food &
-0.45 err
31 q31lifst Wine

Fig. 4. Final structural model.

 ARTICLE IN PRESS
1148 M.J. Gross, G. Brown / Tourism Management 29 (2008) 1141–1151
5. Discussion
The involvement construct consisting of the four
dimensions of centrality to lifestyle (8 items), attraction
(6 items), self expression (6 items), food & wine (3 items),
was hypothesised in the present study to predict the place
attachment construct consisting of the two dimensions
of place dependence (4 items), and place identity (4 items).
One a priori hypothesis was proposed for the structural
model:
Hypothesis (H1). : Each dimension of involvement would
have a positive and significant effect on each dimension of
place attachment.
This hypothesis was partially supported by the data.
The broad interpretation of the final structural model is
that, in a regional South Australian context, involvement
in tourism experiences was a positive predictor for both
dimensions of place attachment for the involvement
dimensions of centrality to lifestyle and food & wine. As
the centrality to lifestyle dimension is conceived as the
extent to which participants’ social networks revolve
around an activity, and whether participants’ lifestyles
are meaningfully impacted by their participation (Havitz
et al., 1994), this meant that the more the respondents
perceived tourism experiences as representing a social
component and playing a central role in their lifestyle, the
greater the functional and emotional attachment they had
to that region. Similarly, as the food & wine dimension is
conceived as the relevance that food & wine have in tourism
experiences in the places visited, this meant that the more
the respondents perceived food & wine as relevant to their
tourism experiences in one of the regions visited, the
greater the attachments they had to that region.
Attraction was a negative predictor for place dependence
only, and had no statistically significant predictive relation-
ship for place identity. As the attraction dimension is
conceived as the perceived importance of an activity or
product and pleasure derived from participation or use
(Funk et al., 2004), this meant that the greater the
importance that respondents perceived for tourism experi-
ences in a particular region, the smaller the functional
attachment they had to that region, and that they had no
significant emotional attachment to the region. Based on
previous studies, the inverse relationship between attraction
and place dependence was not an unexpected finding;
however, the lack of a significant relationship between
attraction and place identity was unexpected.
Self expression had no statistically significant predictive
relationship for either dimension of place attachment.
Based on previous studies, this lack of relationship was
an unexpected finding. The standardised coefficient
between self expression and place dependence was .08
(non-significant), and the standardised coefficient between
self expression and place identity was .07 (also non-
significant). As the self expression dimension is conceived
as the degree to which participants express their self-
concept or individuality through the situation or object of
study (Selin & Howard, 1988), this meant that respondents
did not conceive their tourism experiences as channels for
expressing themselves through either functional or emo-
tional attachment to the five surveyed regions.
5.1. Limitations
The model developed in this study relied on data
gathered from visitors in the state of South Australia.
The generalisability of the findings is bounded due to the
geographic limits imposed by South Australia as the sole
study site. Future research applying the study method in
other destinations will help to establish the generalisability
of the model.
The tourism industry is highly seasonal, and the impact
of seasonal demand variation is one of the dominant policy
and operational concerns of tourism interests in both the
public and private sectors (Baum & Lundtorp, 2001). The
main study sampling of tourists was conducted from
November 2004 through May 2005, which corresponds to
the Australian seasons of summer and autumn. It is
possible that different sample profiles would be derived
from other seasons. Further, more longitudinal, data
gathering in future research will help to understand what,
if any, effect seasonality has on results.
6. Conclusions and implications
This study has examined whether research that has been
developed in leisure and recreation contexts could be
established in a tourism context with tourism activities and
settings. In so doing, it has attempted to overcome some of
the barriers that exist between the two research commu-
nities. It has demonstrated the viability of combining
involvement and place attachment in a tourism context and
has shown the importance of centrality to lifestyle as a
determinant of tourism outcomes. The model pioneered in
a recreation context by Kyle et al. (2003a) has been shown
to be applicable in a tourism context. It has the flexibility to
accommodate variations in different destinations. Impor-
tantly, it can be used to help understand how tourists
respond in different settings and how they evaluate
different dimensions of their destination experience. As
Kelly (2002) noted, in order to accommodate the increasing
importance of leisure travel in peoples’ lifestyles, the aim
should be to identify aspects which are unique or
particularly characteristic of a destination, and then match
product, service and experience provision accordingly. This
may engage a wide range of destination attributes that can
be connected with a variety of preferences of individuals or
groups of tourists.
These results suggest that the structural model metho-
dological approach is transferable, and that involvement
and place attachment aspects of tourism can be examined
in a similar way to experiences gained in a recreation
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
M.J. Gross, G. Brown / Tourism Management 29 (2008) 1141–1151
context. Tourism researchers have been slow to apply
the techniques that have been used by Kyle and his
co-scholars. They have performed a service for the natural
resource research and management community through
their recreation-oriented body of work. They have helped
recreation attraction managers to better understand the
nature and intensity of meanings recreationists ascribe to
specific leisure environments. The model used in their
2003a study has yielded understanding in the areas of
variation among groups of recreationists (hikers, boaters
and anglers) (Kyle et al., 2004a), perceptions of setting
density (Kyle et al., 2004b), and predictors of behavioural
loyalty (Kyle et al., 2004d). The current study has
presented evidence that a comparable model can be a
useful tool in a similar effort in the service of tourism
destination managers. We argue that the tourism research
and management community should take an active interest
in this approach. Naturally, the research agendas and
practical outcomes sought would reflect the specific needs
of tourism, and the results of the current study provide
methodological encouragement toward those ends.
The type of knowledge generated by SEM analysis may
have implications for destination marketers for whom it is
critical to be able to distinguish those attitudes that are
substitutable from those that are perceived to be unique to
a particular place. By understanding more about the extent
to which tourism experiences are rooted in place, tourism
destination managers may be able to determine the role of
involvement dimensions in the marketing of destinations.
For example, identification of a strong involvement in
food & wine in a South Australian setting in the present
study suggests to local destination managers that infra-
structure, development strategies, and marketing efforts
would be well-directed towards acknowledging and culti-
vating the high levels of involvement that tourists have
towards food & wine.
Operators should use their knowledge of respondents’
involvement and place attachment to ensure that the
product and service provision of the tourism location are
aligned with visitors’ expectations, wants, and needs. High
levels of tourist involvement and place attachment
constitute an asset for the destination. Operators need to
ensure that the tourism experiences on offer and delivered
are consistent with the recognition and nurturing of that
asset.
Although comparison of results among the five surveyed
regions was outside of the scope of this paper, it would be
expected that levels of respondents’ involvement would
vary by region. For example, respondents’ involvement
levels for a dimension such as food & wine would
reasonably be expected to vary between a wine region
such as Barossa and a nature region such as Flinders &
Outback. Destination managers and operators should
periodically (e.g. annually) survey their tourist populations
and use the information to better understand the level of
interest that tourists have in the product and service
provision in their particular location. The consumer
1149
perceptions of the location can then inform marketing
strategies through targeted promotional programs. By
monitoring changes over time, knowledge of changing
involvement and place attachment trends can be captured
and incorporated into strategic planning. Destination
marketers will benefit more by fully understanding the
role of place attachment in the consumption behaviour of
tourists, and this will be assisted by further testing of the
model in other destinations.
The intent and hope for the present study is that it will
initiate dialogue and research interest in the tourism
community around the importance of the relationship
between involvement and place attachment in tourism
contexts. We believe that the potential exists for tourism
researchers to extract benefits from the proposed method
that will assist the marketing efforts of tourism destination
managers in ways similar to those that recreation
researchers have been able to achieve for the natural
resource management community. The present study
represents a beginning of that effort.
Acknowledgement
This research is an outcome of a Ph.D. project funded
by the Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research
Centre, established by the Australian Commonwealth
Government.
Appendix A. Supplementary materials
Supplementary material associated with this article
can be found in the online version at doi:10.1016/j.
tourman.2008.02.009.
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