Place attachment and residents’ perceptions of tourism development in small town destinations

Towns and cities have always been places where tourism and leisure experiences are constantly produced and consumed and a source of special fascination for visitors and tourists (Hall & Page, 2014). The development of tourism generates different degrees of impact on destination places, environments, and on the local population. Understanding resident perception of those impacts is crucial to the successful and sustainable development of tourism (Šegota, Mihalič & Kuščer, 2017). Residents are the most important destination stakeholders and, because of that, they should participate in the planning of sustainable tourism development in order to control the impacts of tourism on the places where they live (Lawton & Weaver, 2015; Garrod, Fyall, Leask & Reid, 2012). As a consequence, it is important to establish awareness of host communities’ experiences, perceptions, and attitudes towards sustainable tourism development, particularly in locations with a small population base (Thompson-Fawcett & McGregor, 2011). Once a community becomes a tourist destination, the lives of its residents become affected. Even though most of the studies conducted on tourism impacts focused on economic, social, and environmental wellbeing, the central question is still the need to understand how community residents perceive the impacts of tourism (Kim, Uysal, & Sirgy, 2013). Another crucial concept regarding sustainable tourism development is place attachment, commonly defined as the emotional bond between an individual and a specific place (Manzo, 2003). However, affection, emotions, and feelings are not the only concepts of place attachment. Cognition and practice are important as well (Low & Altman, 1992; Vorkinn & Riese, 2001). People may feel attached to a place because of emotional and social ties, but also because of the physical aspects of the place (Hidalgo & Hernández, 2001; Lewicka, 2011). Places are above all social constructions and include physical, social, and psychological connotations that help build attachment (Knez, 2014).

The New Normal: Coronavirus Pandemic Response Utilizing Microsoft SharePoint

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) a pandemic. Hospitals throughout the USA and the residency programs housed therein have drastically altered their standard operations to slow the spread of disease. Maintaining the educational mission of a residency program within the parameters of social distancing mandates is an unprecedented challenge to graduate medical education and will remain so for the near future. We evaluated resident perception of our efforts to transition educational activities within the residency to an online, remote format utilizing Microsoft SharePoint. Educational conferences were transitioned to a videoconferencing platform on March 13, 2020 in conjunction with the deployment of an intradepartmental Microsoft SharePoint site to provide educational resources, disseminate scheduling changes, and provide wellness resources in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. An 11-question survey available from 4 Jan 2020–4 Jun 2020 surveyed resident perceptions of the instituted changes. Twenty-six of 31 residents (83.8%) responded to the resident survey invitation. Twenty-four of 26 residents (92.3%) characterized the SharePoint as useful. Twenty of 26 residents (76.9%) desired attending guidance as to how to utilize the online resources for each resident rotation. A total of 92.3% (24/26) of residents felt that the program’s response utilizing SharePoint engendered a greater sense of belonging to their work community. Resident perception of the transition to online learning utilizing Microsoft SharePoint as a distribution platform was generally positive, helping to mitigate untoward educational consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.