EXPRESS: Attachment Security and Host–Guest Relationship Quality: A Qualitative Inquiry

This study explores the complex effect of tourists' attachment security on host guest relationship quality through a sequential qualitative design. Study 1 employed stratified grounded theory analysis of 188 in depth interviews with Chinese domestic tourists. It revealed a three-tier psychological mechanism across low, moderate, and high security levels: relational actualization, peak-stagnation equilibrium, and functional inversion, which collectively form an overarching inverted U-shaped tendency. Study 2 conducted a secondary thematic analysis of retrospective narratives and critical incidents from the same interview data, confirming that these dynamics operate as genuine intra individual transitions rather than mere between group differences. Theoretically, this study refines attachment theory by establishing its nonlinear effects and repositions tourists' psychological traits as core drivers of relational dynamics. Practically, this study pivots destination management from a one-size-fits-all approach to the strategic calibration of experiences that maintain attachment security at its relationship-optimizing level.