At home away from home: visitor accommodation and place attachment

Second-home owners often establish deep connections with their dwellings, and the broader landscapes of which these dwellings are part. In this research, we consider whether, and to what extent, visitors to commercial tourist accommodation also experience feelings of place attachment and home. These issues were investigated via a case study approach, centred on a youth hostel located in a high-amenity coastal area of New Zealand. The hostel's publicly available visitor books were analysed to draw out expressions of people-place relationships, as well as key demographic information. Five themes were identified in visitors' written reflections: repeat visits; home experience; identity and feeling; escape; and social landscape. Like the second home, the hostel provided a set of experiences considered very distinct from the typically city-based primary home, centred on a sense of freedom, relaxation and proximity to nature. It was paradoxically regarded as a place to seek change as well as familiarity. We conclude that for first-time visitors home-like experiences appear to be stimulated by social encounters and the physical environment, while for returnees they are underscored by familiarity and endorsement of identity over time.