‘Feel at home’ on vacation: exploring homeyness as a driver of tourists’ loyalty and pro-environmental behaviours

Abstract

ABSTRACT Tourism research has increasingly highlighted the importance of encouraging tourists’ pro-environmental behaviours (PEBs), also because people’s PEBs are generally different at home and on holidays. Home, however, can be experienced also away from home, and ‘homeyness’ is a multidimensional concept which involves familiarity, authenticity and security of a place. Although recent research has shown the positive effect of home-like experiences on tourists’ satisfaction and loyalty, the link between homeyness and tourists’ PEBs has been substantially overlooked. Moreover, most research on tourists’ PEBs has been conducted addressing tourists’ attitudes and intentions, therefore, failing to consider possible attitude-behaviour gaps or social desirability bias. Given the relatively little research on homeyness in tourism, and its role in eliciting tourists’ PEBs, more research is needed. To fill this gap, this study explores the role of homeyness as a driver of tourists’ loyalty and PEBs, adopting tourist managers’ and operators’ perspectives. Qualitative research was conducted through in-depth interviews with a sample of 17 key stakeholders of the tourist destination of Lake Garda, Italy. The results show that familiarity, authenticity and security are key dimensions of the tourism experience provided at Lake Garda. Tourists who experience homeyness, in turn, develop destination loyalty and display higher PEBs.