Touristic transcendence and post modern flitting: An exploration of the experiences of second home owners

The focus of this article is the experience of the tourist as s/he moves between ordinary everyday non-tourist life and tourist life in the current postmodern consumption context. A comprehensive review of the existing literature on second home consumption is presented. There is some emphasis on how it is practised by the Irish second home owner. This is a group that has been identified as being relatively under-researched in a consumer behaviour context; it is a group thst is affluent, growing and heterogeneous (Mottiar and Quinn 2003). The vacation home is a complex issue within tourism being viewed as 'a space between the ordinary and the extraordinary' (Aronsson 2004:76). There is a perspective that study of second home owners 'would assist in the search of a more universal understanding of what is means to the tourist to be a tourist' (Jaakson 1986:389); the themes generated in the study of second home owners are useful in the study of tourist consumers in a general sense. The literature on postmodernism would suggest that the contemporary consumer eschews a sense of rootedness and belongingness. This article problematises this contention by asking whether second home owners are seeking a sanctuary away from home as opposed to a disconnected series of random destinations.