Beyond traveling and working: Place attachment of the Chinese local working tourists

Abstract

Given the scarcity of research on working tourists, this exploratory study examines lv xing yi gong’s (i.e. the local independent Chinese working tourists) place attachment to the destination based on Scannell and Gifford’s tripartite model of place attachment. Data were drawn from a netnographic study of 98 blogs following 23 in-depth interviews. Findings demonstrate Chinese local working tourists’ place attachment in three dimensions: person, process, and place. This study not only confirms the applicability of Scannell and Gifford’s model in the context of Chinese local working tourists, but also identifies some contextual differences. More importantly, this article also provides valuable insights into the under-theorized sense of place among working tourists and identifies practical implications for tourism destination authorities to better serve and manage Chinese working tourists.

Keywords

China place attachment working tourists

Introduction

The interaction between work and tourism has gained popularity worldwide (Jarvis and Peel, 2013; Meng and Han, 2018). The rise in such activities has been accompanied by a growing body of literature focused on understanding different typologies of travelers who combine work related with tourist-oriented pursuits (e.g. Nagai et al., 2018; Uriely, 2001). There are many terms used to describe the phenomenon such as working holiday makers, working holiday tourists, holiday exchange makers, and volunteer tourists. Nevertheless, no clear consensus of definitions and classifications has been reached. The research on working holidays is still narrow and sporadic and it requires further conceptualization and empirical research (Uriely, 2001). At the onset, it should be noted that it is not the intent of this study to engage in a debate regarding the variations across the interaction between work and tourism. In this research, we take a broad understanding and working tourists simply refer to individuals that involve working with travel and leisure activities to experience a long-term trip.

Existing studies on working tourists in different contexts are constrained to overseas working holiday experience (e.g. Clarke, 2004; Tsaur and Huang, 2016; Uriely, 2001; Wilson et al., 2009) and few studies have focused on working tourists traveled domestically. Moreover, youths from developed countries such as the United States, Australia, and European countries as the main force of the global working tourists have drawn most of the researchers’ attention (Clarke, 2004). Recently, the number of working tourists from developing countries such as China is increasing, and this group definitely deserves more scholarship.

Tourism researchers have increasingly acknowledged within the tourism academy that “our existing knowledge about tourism is Eurocentric and therefore ignores and negates the knowledge which emanates from other cultures and from traditionally marginalised groups” (Chambers and Buzinde, 2015: 2). Asia including China is a good example of the traditionally marginalised groups, and it is still largely the objects of tourism research rather than the producers of tourism knowledge (Chambers and Buzinde, 2015). This study is devoted to exploring lv xing yi gong (i.e. the local independent Chinese working tourists) so as to give critical tourism voices and shift the discussion from the Western ways of thinking, knowing and being. Influenced by the Western tourism trend, the recent Chinese young tourists have strong interests for travel patterns that are popular in Western countries such as working holiday, volunteer tourism, and adventure tourism. In this case, working holiday is becoming a fashion for Chinese young generation, which draws wide attention from the media (e.g. Deng, 2019). Some scholars (e.g. Tang and Xu, 2019; Xu and Tang, 2015; Wu et al., 2015) investigated these travel behaviors in the Chinese context and found that there are many contextual differences. In contrast with volunteer tourism, Chinese working tourists have drawn little attention. It needs to be further examined in the light of the increasing popularity of the behavior.

As working tourists combine travel and work, their behaviors are inherently geographic. Research indicated that place matters for tourists (Keese, 2011). However, few scholars have taken a further step forward to exploring why certain destinations are attractive and why working tourists attach to some places. To reflect this, place attachment is deemed as a proper perspective, which exercises a significant impact on tourists’ loyalty and revisit behavior to the destination (Tsai, 2016). The spatial characteristics of a place are fundamental to understanding the dynamic character of the destination and the meanings attached to places by tourists (McCabe and Stokoe, 2004). Researchers generally highlight the importance of place attachment in eliciting tourists’ loyalty and revisit behavior through creating a memorable experience (e.g. Patwardhan et al., 2019; Prayag and Ryan, 2012). However, limited research has been conducted to explore place attachment among working tourists. Furthermore, current conceptualizations of place attachment are diverse adopting variant concepts. The diversities in relevant studies reflect vigorousness of theoretical construction but in the meantime cause scattered understandings. Scannell and Gifford (2010) summarized varied definitions in the literature and synthesized into a tripartite model of place attachment. It is one of the most used and comprehensive models of place attachment. Hence, Scannell and Gifford’s (2010) tripartite model of place attachment is adopted as the framework for this study.

Specifically, this article aims to examine the Chinese local working tourists’ place attachment based on Scannell and Gifford’s (2010) tripartite model of place attachment. Netnography and in-depth interviews are adopted. The study examines the meanings/emotions attached to the destination for the working tourists so as to shift the discussion from Western working tourists into Chinese individuals; from overseas working holidays to domestic travelers. By addressing working tourists in this way, it can also contribute to more theoretically engaged work holiday scholarship that goes beyond questions of motivations and lifestyle.

Literature review

Sense of place and attachment

The quest for understanding place attachment (or sense of place) is a topic that has been of interest to scholars for years. Researchers in different fields have proposed different understandings (Proshansky et al., 1983). Perhaps, the most common and now widely cited definition was presented by Tuan (1977), who proposed to place a center of meaning constructed by experience. Russell and Ward (1982) defined the sense of place as “the psychological or perceived unity of the geographical environment” (p. 654). This body of research suggests a sense of place is often associated with an emotional or affective bond between individuals and a particular place (Williams et al., 1992). Subsequently, many tourism and hospitality studies have been built on this school of opinions (e.g. Kaminakis et al., 2019).

There has been a dominant perspective that highlights the importance role of place attachment in enhancing tourists’ experience, loyalty, and revisit intention (Prayag and Ryan, 2012). However, there are also countervailing approaches of defining place attachment in terms of its compositional dimensionality. For example, some scholars proposed that place attachment is made up of place-dependence and place identity (e.g. Anderson and Fulton, 2008). Some other researchers conceptualized place attachment from three dimensions: place-dependence, affective attachment and place identity (e.g. Yuksel et al., 2010).

Although different perspectives of place attachment have been proposed, the two key concepts in the literature are place-dependence and place identity. As a form of attachment, place-dependence is associated with the attributes of a particular place that can satisfy individuals’ needs and goals (Stokols and Shumaker, 1981). People attach importance to the place which is strongly related to the perception that the place exhibits unique qualities. Scholars have demonstrated the applicability of place-dependence in tourism field (Eusébio et al., 2018; Gross and Brown, 2006, 2008). Place identity refers to “those dimensions of the self that define the individual’s personal identity in relation to the physical environment” (Proshansky, 1978: 155). Besides the physical environment, place identity emphasizes that a place is an essential part of one’s self, resulting in strong emotional attachment to a certain place (Davis, 2016; Lu et al., 2018; Tsai, 2016). Research found that place identity can be based on personal ties such as childhood memory, among which the place’s value is assigned by individuals (Knez and Eliasson, 2017). However, little attention has been paid to how individuals’ knowledge influence place attachment. To be mentioned, the attachments that individuals develop are not only limited to a specific geographic area, but also can be certain types of places (McCabe and Stokoe, 2004; Proshansky, 1978; Ratcliffe and Korpela, 2018). Though this has been widely regained in environment psychology field, research on whether tourists have attachments to certain types of places has been limited in tourism research.

Place attachment and tourism

Place and space are fundamental constructs in tourism studies. In tourism activities, there is a symbolic and physical consumption of place in the relationship between people and the possession of experiences and places (Brown, 1992). The application of place attachment in tourism field started from 1980s (Hwang et al., 2005). Early research is predominantly exploratory studies, mainly exploring the related concepts such as place identity and place-dependence on tourism (Kaltenborn, 1997; Williams et al., 1992). Thereafter, researchers applied the concept of place attachment in investigating different issues, including tourism experiences (e.g. Eusébio et al., 2018; Gross and Brown, 2006), tourist involvement (e.g. Hwang et al., 2005), tourist behaviors (e.g. Lee et al., 2012; Tonge et al., 2015), and leisure activities (e.g. Lee and Shen, 2013; Pitas et al., 2018).

This research diversity reflects the growing interest among tourism researchers in place attachment. Although scholars have highlighted different destinations, processes, and tourists involved in the person-place bonding, the focus of recent place attachment research in tourism has been on the group of local residents or communities (e.g. Eusébio et al., 2018; Stylidis, 2018). In contrast, the scholarly attention paid to the issues of place attachment from the tourist perspective is not enough. Until very recently, however, even few studies have explored tourists’ place attachment.

Working holidays and working tourists

Working holiday tourism was originated from British, where the university students went to camps in the United States through work and volunteer exchange programs (Wilson et al., 2009). The term of “working holiday” was proposed by Cohen (1973: 91) with respect to a unique form of tourism, which refers to “youth from one country travel into another to work for short periods, mostly during summer-school vacations.” Following that, many slightly different concepts were used, such as “farm tourism” and backpackers (Pearce, 1990). These terms describe the nuanced understandings of working holiday and working tourists and the multiplicity of terms used in the literature reflects upon the notion of heterogeneity within this form of tourism (Uriely, 2001). The disagreements of the notions are mainly around the interaction between work and tourism. In addition, the existing conceptualizations of working tourists are limited to traveling to another country, excluding those traveling and working within their home country. It is necessary to investigate different patterns of working tourists from different countries to enrich the understanding of this phenomenon. In this study, local independent working tourists refers to individuals that travel independently (not through an organization) from one place to another to work for a short period of time within China.

Working holiday is no longer a new phenomenon in tourism. Increasing numbers of youths combine work and travel through working holiday programs, making working tourism a growing phenomenon in contemporary tourism (Jarvis and Peel, 2013). The rise in such practices has been accompanied by a growing body of literature focused on understanding the motivations and/or lifestyle of working travelers (e.g. Clarke, 2004; Tsaur and Huang, 2016) as well as the working holiday programs (e.g. Howe et al., 2018). However, the existing scholarly attention has focused on the working holiday phenomenon in developed countries and the research line of the phenomenon in developing countries is merely in its infancy. Moreover, while researchers have mainly focused on youths that travel overseas, the research of the increasing number of individuals that combine traveling and work within one country is lacking. This study aims to address the research gap by shifting the scholarly attention from Western countries to Asian regions, more specifically, China.

Theoretical basis: the tripartite model of place attachment

There are a variety of definitions on place attachment in the literature, reflecting the growing scholarly interest in the field. Researchers have explored the issues in different places in a variety of contexts. However, the conceptualizations were remained scattered and few studies have explored the theoretical development of place attachment. One of the noteworthy contributions to this is Scannell and Gifford’s (2010) study, which proposes a tripartite model of place attachment (Figure 1). The model includes the three dimensions: person, process, and place. The first dimension focuses on the individual: who is attached? The second dimension is the psychological process including affect, cognition, and behavior aspects of the attachment. The third dimension explores the place itself including the social attributes (e.g. social arena and social symbol) and physical attributes (e.g. natural and built).

Figure 1.

The tripartite model of place attachment.

This study continues along a similar line of research and examines the Chinese working tourists’ meanings/emotions attached to the destination. Such a research aim makes Scannell and Gifford’s (2010) tripartite model of place attachment to be a suitable theoretical framework to explore the research question. The main theoretical contribution of the study results from applying and examining the tripartite model of place attachment which has to-date, remained an underutilized theoretical framework for investigating working tourists’ place attachment the tourism field.

Method

Tribe (2006) advocated a more reflexive and interpretive inquiry in tourism. This research offers an interpretive qualitative research paradigm informed by social constructionism ideologies, assuming a relativistic ontology, a subjectivist epistemology, and a naturalistic method. As for when to use a qualitative method, Creswell (2007: 39–40) proposed that when the research aims “to develop theories when partial or inadequate theories exist for certain populations and samples or existing theories do not adequately capture the complexity of the problem we are examining.” This research attempted to explore the local independent Chinese working tourists’ sense of place. Therefore, a qualitative method was deemed appropriate for this research.

Especially, netnography and in-depth interviews were adopted in this study. At the first phase of netnography, the term of “Lv Xing Yi Gong” (i.e. working tourists) was used to search for blogs on the main social networking service websites in China including Douban, Sina, Tianya, and Mafengwo. Initially, 145 blogs were identified. The authors assessed these blogs. Two criteria were used to select the blogs used for analysis. First, only those describing the working holiday experiences within China were kept and those recording the overseas experiences were excluded in this research. Second, according to previous research which were conducted in China (Tang and Xu, 2019; Xu and Tang, 2015), “lv xing yi gong” usually refers to those who work for free or only for food and accommodation. Therefore, tourists who work for salaries are excluded in this research. In the end, 98 blogs were selected as the data for this study.

For the following interviews, one-to-one, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 23 of the blog writers. Moving to the last few interviewees, no new themes emerged, which indicates theoretical saturation was achieved with the sample size of 23 interviewees. The interviews were complementary to the first phase of netnography, and they were employed to obtain focused information about working tourists’ place attachment (Wu et al., 2015). In this study, the in-depth interviews were used to further clarify and confirm the emerged opinions from netnography.

As for the profile of the interviewees, 6 of them were male and 17 were female; all of them are under 35; 17 of them were students and 6 had employment experiences. The format of semi-structured interviews allowed interviewees to freely express their opinions on a certain topic (Marshall and Rossman, 2014). Open-ended questions were developed to address the issue of working tourists’ place attachment. Examples of the open-ended questions used during the interview included: (1) Why did you select this place? (2) What kind(s) of place(s) did you prefer? And why? (3) Were there any stories when you travelled there? The researchers actively asked for further explanations on certain points uttered by the working tourists throughout the interview. All the interviews, ranging from half an hour to 2 hours, were conducted in Chinese, which is the mother language of the researchers and participants. The audio-recorded interviews were then transcribed into MS word for analysis. The fact that one of the authors is from a place that is a popular working holiday destination in China and her experiences of working with working tourists was helpful in achieving understanding of the perceptions and “ensure[ing] first-hand knowledge” (Paraskevaidis and Andriotis, 2017: 30).

The first author read all the data carefully without taking any notes, which allowed the researchers to learn about the experiences in their own words and made it possible to become sensitive to the working holiday experiences, psychological processes, and opinions. Sensitivity is to “perceive the subtle nuances and meanings in data and to recognize the connections between concepts” (Strauss and Corbin, 1998: 42–43). The researcher’s degree of sensitivity affected the depth and quality of the data analysis. All the blogs and interview transcripts were input NVivo 12 for thematic analysis. Scannell and Gifford’s (2010) tripartite model of place attachment was used as the coding scheme. Various codes and categories emerged (Table 1). The emerged codes and categories, and the cited quotes were then translated into English.

Table 1.

The coding spectrum.

Theme	Category	Code
Person	Individual	Different lifestyle, new self
Place	Physical	Tourist attractions, local places
Place	Atmosphere	Uniqueness, local people
Process	Affect	Love of place, emotion
Process	Cognition	Knowledge, memory, meaning, identity
	Behavior	Travel, communicate, blog writing, recommend

To ensure the reliability and validity of the research, some of Creswell and Miller’s (2000) strategies were adopted in this research. The application of netnography and in-depth interviews make it possible to collect evidence from different perspectives. The co-authors, acting as the auditors, who are familiar with the volunteer tourism and the Chinese background double-check the data analysis process to confirm the adherence of sound research practice.

Findings

It is recognized that the local independent Chinese working tourists have great place attachment to the destination from the analysis of the online blog data and interviews. Scannell and Gifford’s (2010) tripartite model of place attachment is adopted as a theoretical framework to analyze the attachment from the dimensions of person, process, and place. The following sections will illustrate each of the dimensions.

Person

Person is the first dimension of working tourists’ place attachment. In this study, the local independent Chinese working tourists’ place attachment only occurs at the individual level. The group level place attachment identified in Scannell and Gifford’s (2010) model is not evident in this study.

At the individual level, the local independent Chinese working tourists’ place attachment involves the individual’s personal connections relating to the destination. The analysis of the online blogs demonstrated that working tourists attach to places that facilitate a different lifestyle and this type of place attachment is believed to contribute to a new sense of self. Insights can be developed in the light of working tourists’ blog records related to the experience of working holiday in a certain place:

I learned a lot during the experience [of working holiday in Nanchang], although it is only one month. There’s no hustle and bustle of the big cities . . . I can do everything out of my heart, enjoying the sun, enjoying everyday life [in Nanchang]. (Blog #2)

24 January, the third day of the New Year Holiday. Finally finished the busy work, but I did not feel relieved due to the resignation and other personal reasons. I decided to go to Xiamen to have a long holiday . . . Gulangyu makes it possible to see the world from another perspective, to reflect myself. (Blog #49)

Escaping from daily life temporarily, experiencing in a different city, changing the pace, and meeting different people are all the local independent Chinese working tourists’ motivations. This shares some similarities with Ho et al.’s (2014) findings that escapism, experiencing a different culture, and share the local lifestyle are the common motivations for Taiwanses working holiday makers. From the online blogs and interviews in this study, it is evident that “new” and “different” feelings are what the working tourists look for. If a place can meet the needs, individuals would develop an attachment to the place. The views expressed by the local independent Chinese working tourists appear to contrast with Twigger-Ross and Uzzell’s (1996) opinion that place attachment is stronger for settings that evoke personal memories and contribute to a stable sense of self. In addition, different working tourists have different place meanings to the same place. Taking Dali for an example, some people describe it as a “free and inclusive” place; some believe it is a city to “give up the past and have a new start”; and there are still some who see it as a place for “love.” Hence, it is not the places themselves that are significant, but rather what can be called “experience-in-place” that creates meaning (Manzo, 2005: 74).

Process

The second dimension of the local independent Chinese working tourists’ place attachment concerns the way that they relate to the destination and the psychological processes: affect, cognition, and behavior.

Local independent Chinese working tourists’ place attachment as affect

The analysis of the online blogs and interview transcripts demonstrates that the sense of place among the local independent Chinese working tourists involves an emotional connection to the destination. Strong emotional connection is identified when they describe the reasons for choosing a certain place. The attachment of the local independent Chinese working tourists is grounded in the love to the city, or topophilia if using Tuan’s (1977) term. Typical quotes include,

My first working holiday was in Xi’an. I was keen to go to Northern [China], I wanted to go to Xi’an, probably because I learned the rise and fall of history of the city from the books; I knew this charming ancient capital from the photos. (Interviewee #7)

I chose Wuhan in the end, which is a city that I have been longing for. I went there during Labor’s Day . . . The first stop was Wuhan University, a heavenly place that is known as the most beautiful campus. (Interviewee #20)

In 2015, I knew Dali because of a movie, Breakup Buddies. The song Go to Dali—Are you not satisfied with the current life? Have not laughed for a long time? Maybe love is just near Erhai;¹ maybe the story is happening there. This song makes me full of yearning for Erhai and look forward to going there to see some beautiful stories. (Interviewee #1)

Among the online blogs, there are many affective terms such as “eager,” “keen,” and “dream place.” Consisting with the netnographic data, many of the interviewees (e.g. Interviewee #1, Interviewee #17, Interviewee #21, and Interviewee #23) said they have known the destination well before arriving there and establish a strong connection with the city due to certain obsessions such as favorite songs, movies, books, and entertainment shows. These are strong evidences for the central role of affect in the person-place bonding, which is in line with existing literature suggesting that place attachment as an authentic and emotional bond (e.g. Giuliani, 2003; Knez, 2005; Scannell and Gifford, 2017). Although the emotions to a place are identified as not just positive aspects but also negative ones like fear and hatred (e.g. Madgin et al., 2016), most of the working tourists in this research have positive emotions to the destinations where they have working holidays.

Local independent Chinese working tourists’ place attachment as cognition

The local independent Chinese working tourists’ person-place bonds also include cognitive elements, including knowledge, memories, meanings, and beliefs that they associate with the destination. In this study, the local independent Chinese working tourists create place meaning through existing knowledge and memories and connect it to the self. As explained by one working tourist who traveled to Lin’an, Zhejiang province for his second working holiday:

The first time I visited Zhaoming Temple was two years ago. I stayed there for only a few days. I repeatedly pray to Buddha and walked across the mountains, breathing and thinking. The experience makes me feel [that place] is more suitable to rest . . . I missed this feeling, so I came back [to Zhejiang]. (Interviewee #13)

Similarly, one working tourist described that Dali “is a free and inclusive place and many people are willing to give up the past and start a new life here,” so he decided to travel there. Blog contributors and interviewees define the meaning of the place based on the history and features. The view appears to parallel Hunter’s (1974) idea of symbolic communities, highlighting the attachment that is based on the representations of the past that the setting contains.

As for the destination selection, it is noted from the blogs that the working tourists are usually not restricted to a certain place, rather a type of place (e.g. southern cities and cities with a long history). This is further confirmed in the following interviews. Researchers have identified the same trend in other fields and concepts such as “settlement identity” and “generic place dependence” were used to describe such attachment (e.g. Feldman, 1990). The environment, landscape, culture, and history are all factors that influence individuals’ topophilia. However, the local independent Chinese working tourists in this research tend to choose a place that is different from their residence cities. This is different from the previous studies that believe familiarity is the cognitive component of place attachment (e.g. Fullilove, 1996; Tan and Chang, 2016). Moreover, it is common among the blogs that individuals describe the working holiday destination in the sense that it represents who they are. For example, one blog writer was attracted by the clear blue sky in Xining and believed that “Xining is an ideal city for the pure people.” The freedom in Dali, cultural atmosphere in Xi’an, and characteristics of Canal Towns in South of the Yangtze in Hangzhou are good examples that represent the special characters of these places among the selected blogs. During the interviews, many interviewees (e.g. Interviewee #7, Interviewee #15, and Interviewee #19) express the same idea that place identity has been identified as an important consideration before traveling to the destination.

Local independent Chinese working tourists’ place attachment as behavior

The third aspect of the psychological process is behavior. The attachment is expressed through the action of traveling and working at the destination. As Hidalgo and Hernández (2001) proposed, place attachment is “a positive, affective bond between an individual and a specific place, the main characteristic of which is to maintain closeness to such a place” (p. 274). The proximity-maintaining behavior among the local independent Chinese working tourists is supported by the online blogs and interviews. Data analysis demonstrates that the proximity-maintaining behavior is evident throughout the travel and work process and this research summarizes them into two stages sequentially: during travel and post travel.

Most of the selected blogs record the local independent Chinese working tourists’ daily schedules at the destination, among which chatting with the accommodation providers, customers/guests, fellow working tourists, and local people is common. Chatting, as a type of communication, is an important way to get involved with the local community and enhance working tourists’ experience. “Story” is one of the most commonly mentioned words among the blogs and many interviewees describe that “having stories” is as important as beautiful environment (e.g. Interviewee #1, Interviewee #2, Interviewee #5, Interviewee #8, Interviewee #10, and Interviewee #21). The following quotes demonstrate the importance of the behavior of chatting as a place attachment behavior:

The reason why I like Youth Hostel is that I have the opportunity to hear others’ stories . . . Everyone can chat to each other, share their own stories. Every conversation is the emotional communication from the heart. (Blog #32)

One night, I went out with A, B, and C, riding the small electric tricycle. We walk in the dark, stop and go, talking and laughing . . . That night was the happiest night in Xiamen. I never laughed so happily. (Interviewee #21)

The behavior of chatting helps build friendships, which is a kind of intimacy from the individual perspective. This finding is a good supplementary to Conran’s (2011) idea that intimacy is a dominant theme in volunteer tourism. In addition, traveling around the destination is identified as another behavioral element of place attachment for the local independent Chinese working tourists. It is evident among the blogs that individuals have traveled to nearby places frequently in their free time at the destination.

The local independent Chinese working tourists also exhibit place attachment after traveling. From the online blog data, this research found that writing blogs and recommending the destination are two post travel place attachment behaviors. Also, individuals with strong emotions to the destination tend to recommend the destination in their blogs. Typical comments include,

The best travelling in life is to find a long-lost feeling in a strange city. The movie Breakup Buddies makes me know Dali; this experience makes me fall love with Cao Mountain; travelling to Yunnan makes me fall love with lv xing yi gong. (Blog #13)

Definitely, I will be back, Xiamen . . . If you want to escape from the concrete of big cities and are keen to experience another lifestyle, come to Xiamen! (Blog #87)

I like the one-month experience in Qinghai, love everything there, miss everyone I met there. I recommend [Qinghai] to my friends and other people that have the interest in volunteer tourism. Definitely, I will come back again. (Interviewee #16)

Place

The third dimension of the local independent Chinese working tourists’ place attachment is “place.” In Scannell and Gifford’s (2010) model, the following two levels of place attachment are included: physical and social place attachment. Based on the data analysis results, this study found that the classification of physical and social does not fit this context well. Hence, this research proposes that the local independent Chinese working tourists’ place dimension is demonstrated by physical and atmosphere these two aspects.

For the physical dimension of place, sunshine, blue sky, lakes, mountains, inns, bars, and temples are frequently mentioned among working tourists’ blogs. The physical characteristics of a place are central because they facilitate distinctiveness from other places and make individuals feel meaningful or have a sense of self (e.g. Brown et al., 2016; Twigger-Ross and Uzzell, 1996). Data analysis demonstrated that the local independent Chinese working tourists pay great attention to the local tourist attractions and environment of the destination, especially at the early stage of working holiday:

I went to the top of the inn. I was shocked by the beauty. The peaceful West Lake was just in front of me. Xizhao Mountain is in the distance. There are some houses at the foot of Xizhao Mountain. Blue sky, white clouds, and slight wind . . . (Blog #5)

In my spare time, I usually ride the scooter to Erhai, Shanshuijian, Dali University to enjoy the cherry blossoms, Yinqiao, South Gate of the Ancient city, Yese Bar, and Wutong Inn . . . None of them [places appeared in the movie] have been missed. (Blog #23)

The interviewees expressed that besides the famous tourist attractions, they are also keen to “live like locals” and explore the “more local” places. The local independent Chinese working tourists are keen to involve the enjoyment of the natural environment and local places in their daily life. As an example of this, Interviewee #3 recalled her working holiday experience at Yunnan province:

Every morning, I like to run to the Caicun Pier or Longyan Pier to see the sunrise. There are fewer tourists here . . . The color of the cloud, Cang Mountain, and the town is so beautiful.

The distinctiveness of the local atmosphere made the destination being attractive to the local independent Chinese working tourists. For example, among the selected blogs, many individuals highlight the “relaxing” of Gulangyu, the “inclusive” of Dali, and the “long history” of Xi’an. From the following interviews, researchers identified that the local independent Chinese working tourists tend to choose the place that can “fit” with them and represent who they are. This affirms the previous studies that believe individuals are attached to a place that facilitates social relationships and group identity (e.g. Chapin and Knapp, 2015; Twigger-Ross and Uzzell, 1996).

Part of place bonding involves attachment to the people with whom working tourists meet and interact in the destinations. Among the selected blogs, most blog writers have highlighted the good friendships they have. If using the words of Interviewee #9, it is “do interesting things with interesting people.” One working tourist, who stayed in a bar in Yunnan, recorded his experiences:

That was a very happy time. In the bar, I play guitar with the guests every day although I knew nothing about music before. I heard many stories and make many friends . . . Sometime, we have dinner together, drinking, chatting, playing music and singing. When he is happy, we even have small fold concerts. (Blog #22)

Interestingly, the local independent Chinese working tourists’ interpersonal attachments are not limited to the homogeneous group, rather they are among individuals with different status, interests, life-stage, and economic conditions. This contracts Hunter’s (1974) concept of homogeneous communities, where individuals with similar status and life-stage select develop networks. It is also different from the widely researched attachment emerged for the home and city levels (e.g. Brown et al., 2003; Scannell and Gifford, 2017). Of note is that most local independent Chinese working tourists in this study are keen to explore the local communities at the destination. This finding in this article contrasts with the work of Wu et al. (2015), who found that the Chinese gap year takers are not interested in the Chinese local communities. One of the possible reasons for this difference could be because the focus of this study is the local short-term independent working tourists while Wu et al. (2015), specifically, explores the Chinese gap year takers who travel overseas for a longer period.

Conclusion

This research explores the framework of place attachment among working tourists. Shifting from working tourists in Western countries, this study investigates the emerging group in China. Previous studies have demonstrated that there are considerable differences between Chinese working tourists and Western counterparts (e.g. Wu et al., 2015). This study moves the research forward of the emerging Chinese working tourists and provides valuable insights into understanding the phenomenon from a non-Western perspective.

This study holds two important theoretical implications for the literature. First, this study contributes to the working tourist literature by providing the large number of working tourists who traveled locally within a shorter period, which is a complementary to the existing literature that focused on those traveled overseas (e.g. Clarke, 2004; Meng and Han, 2018). Given the increasing popularity of independent short-term holiday takers and the scarcity of research in this field, the findings of this research are believed to be a timely contribution to the literature and will hopefully act as a steppingstone to further investigation in this field.

Second, this study adopted a qualitative approach to theoretically substantiate this phenomenon by applying Scannell and Gifford’s (2010) tripartite model of place attachment. The findings of this research enrich the existing understanding of the sense of place among working tourists by delineating the different dimensions of place attachment. Scannell and Gifford’s (2010) tripartite model offers a coherent framework to portray the diverse definitions of place attachment. This research confirms the applicability of Scannell and Gifford’s (2010) tripartite model of place attachment in the context of Chinese local independent working tourists, despite some contextual differences. Consisting with Scannell and Gifford’s (2010) idea of place attachment as a multidimensional concept, the place attachment of the Chinese local independent working tourists has the following three dimensions: person, process, and place. The first–person dimension shows the individual level attachment, while the group level attachment is absent. Individuals develop connections to a place that can enable different lifestyles and contribute to a new sense of self. Places become meaningful by meeting the local independent Chinese working tourists’ needs such as escaping, experiencing, and changing. The second-process dimension refers to the psychological process of working tourists relating to a place: affect, cognition, and behavior. The local independent Chinese working tourists’ destination bonding involves a positive emotional connection to a particular place. Attachment to the destination is grounded in the love of a place. Novelty is a key component of place attachment. In terms of the cognitive process, working tourists’ knowledge (usually from movies, songs, and books), memory, and meaning toward the destination make them self-define the distinctiveness of the place. A favorite destination is a place that can represent who they are and bring them a sense of belonging. As for the behavior process dimension of place attachment, the local independent Chinese working tourists’ proximity-maintaining behaviors are evident throughout the process. During travel, individuals with a stronger attachment to the destination tend to communicate more and explore the local places more. Chatting and stories are two features. After they leave the destination, blog writing and recommendation are found as behavioral place attachment. The third-place dimension has examined the place itself and it is divided into physical and atmosphere of these two levels. The physical bonding consists of the local independent Chinese working tourists’ interest of exploring the tourism attractions and “local” places. The atmosphere dimension focuses on the distinctiveness of local atmosphere features. The researched working tourists in this study are attached to destinations that facilitate social relationships and group identity. In addition, the interpersonal attachment of building a friendship is also evident among the working tourists in this research, which confirms Tang and Xu’s (2019) finding that the motivation of making new friends, experiencing life, and the pursuit of free casual life are common motivations among the Chinese working tourists.

In addition to theoretical contribution, the findings from this study have important managerial implications for working tourists and destination government. This research demonstrates that place and place attachment play a key role in working tourists’ experience. If the place sees working holiday as a catalyst for developing the potential of tourism destinations, working holiday participants and advocates need to take this seriously. Investing the local places accessibility and enhancing the exoticness, for example, will most likely increase place attachment through place identity and place distinctiveness. Also, given that place matters for tourists (Keese, 2011), the findings of this study suggest that local tourism authorities need to reinforce and improve the positioning of the destination through intangible attributes such as long history, relaxing atmosphere, and special meanings. These attributes are identified as important for working tourists and can also be used to differentiate the destination effectively from other competing places. With the increasing use of online information search and social media, online evocative descriptions of places and dramatic imagery is a good way to construct the place identity which is central to arousing interest in potential working tourists.

Due to the context-specific and exploratory nature of this research, there are some limitations. The select 98 blogs only represent a sub-community of the Chinese working tourists. Although most of the blog contributors and interviewees are youths, they have different backgrounds: some of them are students and some are work-break takers. This research does not distinguish them. Therefore, in order to provide a more exhaustive penetration of different types of working tourists, further research is required to compare individual’s place attachment among different types of working tourists (e.g. international working tourists and domestic working tourists). In addition, it can be noted that there is a wide spectrum of emotions, some of which overlap with and become part of place attachment for working tourists. Future research that wishes to engage in place attachment and emotions as part of an assessment of the working holiday experiences may need to consider this more explicitly.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This article was supported by the Scientific Research Fund of Yunnan Provincial Department of Education (Project number: 2018JS405).

ORCID iD

Fangxuan (Sam) Li

Notes

Author biography

Dr Hongxia Qi is a research officer at Auckland University of Technology. Her research interests are in tourism, event and higher education in tourism area.

Dr Fangxuan (Sam) Li is a professor in Tourism College of Hainan University, Hainan University, China. Sam’s recent research areas include Chinese outbound tourism, tourism development in Pacific Islands, tourist behaviour, tourism marketing, and tourism education.

Xiyan Ka is a PhD candidate from management school, Zhejiang University, China. Her research areas include event tourism and volunteer tourism.

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