LINKING SACRED PLACE PREFERENCES WITH PLACE MEANING: A CONCEPTUAL MODEL OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SACRED PLACE MOTIVATIONS AND PLACE ATTACHMENT

Sacred places are described as places of creation, devotion and power with a deep emotional meaning that attract people for many reasons. From the literature review, it is accepted that tourism motivation is multidimensional concept. Tourists seek to satisfy not one single need but a number of distinct needs simultaneously. People are attracted and emotional linked to sacred environments. Sacred places offer a range of psychological, spiritual and personal benefits providing potential affective link with tourists. Place-attachment influences what individuals see, think and feel about the place and therefore includes emotional and symbolic expressions. People develop a sense of belonging, identity, and dependence to certain places that visit or live and so place-attachment is a multidimensional construct that incorporates two dimensions that have recently been applied to tourism area: (1) Place-dependence that represents the functional dimension and is described as visitors’ functional attachment to a particular place and their awareness of the uniqueness of a setting; (2) Place-identity which is the symbolic dimension and refers to the connection between a place and one’s personal identity and contains both cognitive and affective elements. An extensive literature review focusing on the concept of place-attachment and motivations provide a framework which allows assess the emotional and functional bounds that tourists could have to sacred places. Insights from an empirical study of 300 tourists in Fátima (Portugal), Santiago de Compostela (Spain) and Jerusalem (Israel), indicate that the multi-dimension scale incorporates three motivations dimensions to visit sacred places as tourism destinations: Faith, Identity and Appealing. The focus of this article is to explore the relationship between these motivations with place-attachment, by summarizing, systemizing and discussing these distinct dimensions. The results could have potential practical implications for sacred destination’ planning, marketing and management, promoting their own differentiating and unique features that attract tourists and involve emotionally tourists with these settings