Place Attachment and Tourist Experience in the Context of Desert Tourism – the Case of Wadi Rum

Abstract This paper aims to explore the relationship between tourist experience and place attachment in a desert tourism experience. The current study was carried out with a sample of international and domestic visitors in Wadi Rum, Southern Jordan. The results show that there is a significant positive correlation between the nearby constructs of the study units such as the four tourist experience dimensions (education, esthetics, entertainment, and escapism), and the two dimensional place attachments measures (place identity and place dependence). Moreover, the findings also indicate that education factor had a significantly positive relationship with place identity, and there was a significantly positive relationship between escapism factor and place dependence. The findings can be used to develop the tourist experience and place attachment in the context of desert tourism experience. They further help tourism destinations managers, planners and marketers to provide appropriate marketing strategies and enrich their offers to desert tourism participants.