Perceptions of Home Concept Among British Homeowners in Primary and Secondary Homes: The Case of Ortaca

Abstract

This study addresses second-home ownership not merely as a form of tourism accommodation or real estate investment, but as a home-building process intersecting with local life, belonging, daily practices, and sustainable destination governance. While the economic, environmental, and community impacts of second-homes have been extensively discussed in the literature, how individuals perceive their primary and secondary homes differently in terms of the bodily, material, vibrant, imaginary, and emotional dimensions of home has been examined in a limited number of studies. This research analyzes paired data obtained through a two-stage online questionnaire from 223 British participants who own a secondary home in the Mugla-Ortaca region and a primary home in the United Kingdom. The 18-item Home Scale was used as the measurement tool. Confirmatory factor analysis, reliability-validity analyses, measurement invariance, and paired-samples t-tests were applied. The findings show that the bodily home difference was not statistically significant at the conventional 0.05 threshold, whereas primary-home scores were significantly higher in the material, vibrant, imaginary, and emotional home dimensions. The small to small-medium effect sizes suggest that the results should be interpreted cautiously as an asymmetrical home-building process rather than as evidence of a hierarchical superiority of the primary home. The study proposes a planning approach that does not view second home owners as merely transient consumers in sustainable coastal-rural destinations, but rather considers social sustainability, service planning, seasonality management, and local community engagement channels together.