Rural residents’ opinions about second home owners: Does the spatial arrangement of a village matter?

Existing studies suggest that locals perceive several positive and negative impacts of tourism development (Nunkoo & So 2016). The industry provides economic benefits such as employment for local people, development of small businesses and investment opportunities. Tourism also leads to the preservation of environmental resources, the promotion of environmental awareness among local residents and the revival of local arts and culture (Kim, Uysal & Sirgy 2013). On the negative side, tourism is a source of environmental pollution, traffic congestion and litter problems (Nunkoo & Smith 2013; Nunkoo & Ramkissoon 2012). In other cases, the industry has been found to modify traditional culture and create inflationary pressures on local economies (Gursoy et al. 2010).

Tourist-host social contact is a special form of cross-cultural contact. Tourists typically stay in a destination for short and well-structured periods. The purpose of their visit sets them apart from other intercultural contact, such as that of immigrants and temporary sojourners. To investigate residents’ attitudes to tourism, social exchange theory (SET) has been the most widely used. In tourism, researchers have mostly used it in the context of an exchange relationship between communities and the tourism industry in an attempt to understand how such relationships shape residents’ reactions to tourism development (Nunkoo, Smith & Ramkissoon 2013; Sharpley 2014). Another important concept to understand relations between host and guest was introduced by Cohen (1972). The author argued that the ‘extent’ and ‘variety’ of social contact between tourists and hosts can determine the degree and the way that the two groups affect each other. Other researchers have also emphasised the crucial impact that this contact has, both on personal well-being (Delhey & Dragolov 2015) and on local community building (Forrest & Kearns 2001).

The research undertaken by the authors is also part of the issue of second homes being seen as a curse or blessing for local communities, as was first addressed by Coppock (ed. 1977), and since then has continued to attract the attention of researchers in the literature. The study of the impact of second homes has been undertaken in the three traditional realms of tourism impacts: social, economic and environmental (Dykes & Walmsley 2015; Müller, Hall & Keen 2004). In the literature, social and cultural impacts of second home tourism have been the most documented concerns. The problem, however, is that some studies have argued that there has been a positive impact of second home ownership on relations within the local community (Halseth 1993; Kastenholz et al. 2020), while others have shown negative phenomena such as gentrification, the blockage of social realities and the disappearance of traditional values and customs (Paris 2009; Kondo et al. 2012).

Very rarely, however, have researchers linked social and cultural interactions to the spatial arrangements of tourist destinations. The spatial aspect is taken up in the context of the topic of second homes mainly on a regional and supra-regional scale and, at the same time, mainly from the perspective of tourists (McKercher & Lew 2004; Müller 2006; Tjørve et al. 2013). However, given the impact of tourism on local communities, it seems that the spatial distribution of second homes at the scale of individual villages is equally or even more important. Much attention has been paid in urban planning to the relationship between the spatial distribution of settlements and the social relationships that exist among residents (Jacobs 1961; Gehl 1987); spatial arrangements that foster social bonds are the essence of contemporary trends in settlement planning. Examples include New Urbanism (eds Leccese & McCormick 2000), the 15-Minute City (Moreno 2021) and Rural Design (Arendt 2015). All these concepts emphasise the role of compact and mixed development ensuring social balance and social diversity. At the same time, many countries note the negative consequences of overdevelopment and dispersed development in rural areas (Scott & Murray 2009; Sireni 2016; Sørensen & Christensen 2020), including tourist development (Adamiak 2016; Ursić et al. 2016; Hjalager et al. 2022). With this in mind, it seems relevant to ask to what extent the different spatial configurations of local/permanent housing and second homes (integrated or isolated) affect social relations in tourist villages.

The concept of a tourist enclave was introduced to the literature in academia by Cohen (1972) and Smith (1978). It emphasises the tendency of tourists to stay among themselves and to be ‘physically “in” a foreign place’. Several distinct kinds of tourism enclaves have been identified from the research literature, such as theme parks (Smith 1978) and resort enclaves (Torres 2002). Several authors have shown, however, that the tourist bubble may equally apply to alternative forms of tourism such as backpacking (Jacobsen 2003) or ecotourism (Carrier & Macleod 2005). Adopting this concept, some scholars (e.g. Soszyński et al. 2017) distinguish this phenomenon within the spatial pattern of second home tourism in Poland. In this research, the links between the expansion of settlements, their morphological forms and the social relationships that can emerge between residents and SHO were examined.

In a previous study (Soszyński et al. 2018), the authors conducted preliminary qualitative research on the participation of tourists in village social life. The results showed the importance of village spatial arrangements for the quality of relations between the two parties. In order to address the research deficiency with regard to host–guest social interaction in the context of spatial arrangement, this research was conducted in four tourist villages in Eastern Poland. More importantly, the geographical area targeted is an ideal second home tourism laboratory with a high density of second homes. This region functions as a summer destination with dozens (Krukowska 2010) of tourist attractions, namely recreational lakes. To our best knowledge, there is no study that analyses a similar issue using the example of holiday villages with radically different spatial arrangements.

The study area was chosen in line with the core objectives of this research. The study was conducted in the Łęczyńsko-Włodawskie Lake District, which is the third most attractive tourist region in Lublin province (Tucki 2009) for domestic and regional tourists (Świeca, Krukowska & Tucki 2014), and contains the most popular attractions - lakes. As far as tourism and facilities are concerned, the region is very popular for second home tourism (Soszyński et al. 2017), where there has been intensive development of individual summer housing since 1990. Second-home estates are the predominant form of tourism development. Catering facilities mainly operate seasonally and are based in the vicinity of the resort and, in larger villages, the resort has the status of a gmina. The entire study area is notable because it is part of the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve ‘West Polesie’.

In the case of all analysed villages, second homes have existed for at least 20 to 30 years. The majority of villages in the Łęczyńsko-Włodawskie Lake District represent intermediate types of spatial arrangements, in which there are both enclave settlements of various sizes and second homes mixed with local developments (Soszyński et al. 2017). For the purposes of this research, a selection was made of typical and extreme examples, which, although few in number, are precisely the ones whose analysis can best show the impact of different spatial arrangements on social contact and relations.

Villages in which second homes are mixed with the homes of locals in one cohesive development complex were defined as ‘mix type’, while those in which second homes occur in a separate and spatially isolated enclave, as ‘enclave type’. In addition to the differences in spatial layout type, the proportion of locals and summer visitors was also taken into account. This is because the number of second homes can be equally important when it comes to the attitude of locals towards visitors. As a result, four villages were selected, of which:

Stare Załucze is a ‘mix type’ village with the domination of second home owners over locals; Zbereże is a ‘mix type’ village with the domination of locals over second home owners; Kaniwola is an ‘enclave type’ village with the domination of second home owners over locals; Wytyczno is an ‘enclave type’ village with the domination of locals over second home owners.

Two approaches were used to measure social interaction. To measure the attitude, perception and engagement of residents, 19 items selected from an extensive literature review (Carneiro & Eusébio 2011; Reisinger & Turner 1998; Andereck & Nyaupane 2011) were used. The respondents had to indicate their level of agreement with the items using a 5-point Likert scale where 1 = completely disagree and 5 = completely agree. Other questions aimed to assess residents’ interaction with visitors. In these questions, residents had to report the frequency of some types of interaction with visitors (e.g. inviting visitors to come to their home, participating in parties with visitors) and the frequency of interactions with visitors in some places (e.g. workplace, beach, food and beverage establishments). To measure this construct, 11 items, selected based on a literature review about host–tourist interactions (De Kadt 1979; Eusébio & Carneiro 2012), were used. The respondents were invited to report, on a 5-point Likert-type scale where 1 = never and 5 = very frequently, the level of frequency of their interaction with second home owners. Finally, the questionnaire ended with some questions related to the socio-demographic profile of the residents. Research was administered from November 2020, and residents were interviewed using the door-to-door approach.

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A series of quantitative analyses were performed to achieve the research aims: (1) descriptive analysis and calculation of means to profile the respondents in terms of their socio-demographic characteristics and their attitudes toward tourism in their communities; (2) exploratory factor analysis on all the attitude statements to extract the main dimensions of host-guest social contact; (3) the Mann–Whitney U test to find out the underlying differences between the two types of villages and their residents’ attitudes.

A total of 86¹ valid responses were collected (table 1). Female respondents (62.5%) outnumbered male respondents (37.5%). On the age of the respondents, 31.5% were between 31 and 40 years old; 17.9% were between 41 and 50 years old; and 13.0% were under 30 years old. Approximately two-thirds of the respondents held bachelor’s degrees. On employment, 37.3% of respondents categorised themselves as self-employed, and 29.6% as employed by private businesses. A minority of them had no jobs, and 9.2% were retired.

A PCA with varimax rotation of items of two scales (representing the issue of social contact variety and extent of contact) gave rise to five dimensions (table 2, table 3): (i) positive judgement of relations with tourists; (ii) negative social impact; and (iii) engaged social relations; in terms of the intensity of contact, the construct is represented by two dimensions: (iv) individual-oriented; and (v) attractions & facilities-oriented. The dimensions presented very high reliabilities (with Cronbach’s alpha above 0.78) and explained for the two analyses, respectively – 56.2% and 60.3% of the variance of the items included in the PCA.

Of high value, social-oriented positive contact in mix-type villages includes: In general, contact between second home owners and residents is good (M=4.47), Second home owners refer to residents with respect (4.57) and Second home owners are welcome in my town (4.44). Equally positive relationships in mix-type villages also reflected variables depicting engagement (I have visited a second home owner’s house upon invitation – 4.43), while the same variables in the enclave group were lower (3.23), albeit above average. Residents living in enclave types were mostly neutral and were rather satisfied with social contact. The results show that hosts’ attitudes to SHO are favourable in both village types, although slightly weaker in the enclave type. The separation of the residential area from the SHO makes the topic of attitudes towards tourists a low priority and so there are more indifferent/neutral responses.

In general, interactions with visitors occur with a rather low frequency (gifts exchange – 3.08 in mix type and 1.42 in enclave type). Residents are more likely to have more superficial interactions with SHO in local grocery stores (3.72 vs 3.59 in enclave type) and more formal interactions in contexts such as talking in public spaces (3.90 in mix type and 3.14 in enclaves). As far as tourism attractions (on the lakes) and cultural events are concerned, residents tend to interact more frequently with SHO (respectively, mix type – over 3.04 and enclave – 2.38) in food and beverage establishments (mix type – 3.05 and 2.61 for the enclave group).

As already mentioned, the Mann–Whitney U test was undertaken to compare the social contact extent and frequency. Statistically significant differences were found in almost all contact extent and frequency items (p<0.05) (Table 3). Thus, based on the significant direct effect in the expected direction, the hypothesis that spatial arrangement of villages increased social contact both in terms of extent and intensity (H1) was clearly supported. Statistically significant differences occurred in 4 out of 5 factors.

This research differentiates itself from most research in recent years in many aspects. Although this construct is increasingly appearing in studies on second home tourism, these have generally overlooked the causes, character and magnitude of local social attitudes. This study addresses this gap by comparing the social relations between residents and SHO in four tourist villages with different spatial arrangements. So far, the existing literature suggests that residents’ satisfaction with their quality of life in a destination is influenced primarily by the impacts of tourism development (Kim, Uysal & Sirgy 2013), whereas our study has shown that the four dimensions of social contact vary significantly among the two village types studied. As shown, lakeside recreational and shared public spaces and services were perceived equally for mix- and enclave-type villages. This means that in the case of enclave-type villages, an important opportunity to improve relations is the proper location and development of the main shared recreational spaces and services. In the authors’ opinion, it is important to locate these centrally to ensure equal and easy accessibility by residents and tourists and to prevent the appropriation of services and recreational sites by any one group.

As our surveys were completed by permanent residents only, we do not have information on whether second home owners have family ties to the village, which may result in a more friendly relationship. However, based on the information from the village heads in the villages we surveyed, we know that such people are only isolated cases and, therefore, this phenomenon does not affect our results, although it is worth pointing out that in some villages and even regions such a phenomenon occurs at a high intensity and can significantly affect the attitude of residents towards second home owners (e.g. Huijbens 2012).

These results support some previous studies (Nepal 2007; Farstad 2011; Overvåg & Berg 2011). The research by Nepal (2007) on the patterns of development of tourism attractions and destinations found that there are two important issues, spatial and morphological forms and humanist perspectives, that must be examined. While the former offer explanations to how settlements evolve, expand, and take certain spatial and morphological forms, the latter enhance the understanding of complex social and economic processes that influence the emergence and development of settlements. Farstad (2011) found that local residents’ attitudes towards second home owners’ pursuit of their own interests in the host community depend to a large degree upon the residents’ perceptions of the outcome of second home tourism in their municipality. Local residents can tolerate SHO demands as long as the SHO satisfy some of the community’s significant economic-material or social needs. Based on these findings, the author argues that it is not second home owners’ (objective) otherness from locals that is the main problem in cases of a conflictual climate between the two parties. Rather, it is the local structural context that constitutes the main issue. This research is also in line with studies already undertaken by (Overvåg & Berg 2011) on conflicts between SHO and residents. That study, carried out in Norway, found that the presence of enclaves in second home regions reduces the chances of conflict between these groups. But this was mainly because vast unpopulated and relatively cheap land made the separation of first and second homes possible. Our research shows that, in the case of small villages and the close proximity of tourists and permanent residents, as well as one main tourist attraction, a mixed spatial arrangement is definitely more favourable in social and cultural terms.

It is worth emphasising that the postulate resulting from our research to limit the formation of tourist enclaves in favour of the development of mixed spatial arrangements is in line with the Sustainable Development Goals and the spatial policies of many countries, which advocate, among other things, that the dispersion of development and the occupation of new areas for development should be limited (see Sireni 2016; Ursić et al. 2016; Sørensen & Christensen 2020; Hjalager et al. 2022). In this case, the ecological and landscape objectives are therefore consistent with solutions that benefit the local rural community. However, in order for the picture we have obtained to be complete, it is necessary for future research to focus on the attitudes of SHO towards enclave-type villages and mixed villages of different sizes and densities.