Tourists’ savoring of positive emotions and place attachment formation: a conceptual paper

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With increased interest in emotions and tourism, ‘savoring’, a process of attending to, enhancing, or prolonging positive emotions, should receive more scholarly attention. This article offers a conceptual look at the issues and perspectives related to the relationship between savoring and place attachment in the tourism context. Drawing from the positive psychology, tourism, and geography literature, we outline 12 propositions to suggest how tourists develop place attachment by savoring their vacation experiences and destinations, supported by the ‘broaden-and-build’ processes. By directing people’s attention to their positive emotions and triggering a broaden-and-build experience, savoring has the potential to foster place attachment to a destination. In brief, we propose that savoring can influence the process of place attachment formation by influencing each phase of a tourism experience (i.e., pre-trip, on-site, post-trip). In particular, savoring, at pre-trip, can facilitate the development of favorable destination image to form place attachment. When on-site, or at post-trip phase, savoring can promote place attachment formation by helping individuals obtain higher level of positive affect and more memorable tourism experiences. The propositions are intended to guide and inspire future empirical examinations related to savoring positive emotions in the tourism context. Savoring’s role in fostering place attachment has important potential practical outcomes including development and reinforcement of destination loyalty.