Second-home owners as local developers: Roles and influencing factors

Abstract

This study analysed the variety of pro-development roles of second-home owners in their host municipalities in Finland. The roles had not been identified previously, despite the policy expectations concerning the economic and social advantages of second-home owners for rural development. Moreover, this article examined how factors such as place attachment explained the roles. The data was collected from the postal survey (N = 2500). The roles and the place attachment constructs were defined by exploratory factor analysis (EFA), while the roles were explained by multivariate regression analysis (MRA). Five roles were identified: Potential Developer, Aware Consumer, Ordinary Member of association, Responsible Member of association, and Developer outside associations. The key components of second-home owners’ place attachment were identified as Community belonging, Rootedness, Place dependence, Family history at the second home, Rural leisure roots, Second-home community belonging and Economic embeddedness. Most roles were shaped to some extent by Community belonging, thus emphasising the co-operative nature of local development processes. The importance of Rootedness as well as of personal agency was proven. In addition, some features of the local context encouraged second-home owners to assume these roles.