Sense-of-Place Influences on Perceived Environmental Change: Effects on Future Holiday Experiences to Saaremaa, Estonia

Abstract

Sense of place as a multidimensional concept represents emotions, beliefs, and behavioral commitments specific to particular geographic settings. Understanding sense of place and related concepts influencing visitors’ experiences often presents challenges especially when changing landscapes such as in Estonia inscribe societal change visualized through representation and practice. Tourism echoes such change in perceptions and experiences of visitors who come to a destination with diverse previous experiences and motivations. Tourists, both domestic and foreign, bring their aspirations based on past and present interpretation of landscapes visited, and place qualities deemed important for a desired experience. Using Bott's [2000. The development of psychometric scales to measure sense of place (Unpublished dissertation). Colorado State University, Fort Collins] work to develop sense-of-place psychometric scales, we examined the influence of sense of place and socio-demographics on perceived effects of environmental change due to a proposed bridge on future holiday experiences. Multiple regressions found country of origin and three sense-of-place scales explaining 14% of the variance in perceived environmental change effects from proposed developments (e.g. decline of rural lifestyle, increasing development of seashore) on future holiday experiences with country of origin as the strongest predictor followed by individual memory and two cultural setting scales: inherent and transactional sociocultural. The predictive power of sense of place on perceived environmental change effects on future experience among tourists is highlighted.

Key Words:

• sense of place
• perceived environmental changes
• perceived future experience