Inferring Travel Motivation from Travelers' Experiences

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Abstract
Research concerning travel motivation has frequently assumed that tourists are both able and willing to articulate their travel needs. The present study adopts a different point of view by arguing that indirect inferences about travel motivation from tourists' actual experiences may provide fresh insights. Using nearly 400 travel episodes and employing a five-fold classification of travel motivation based on Maslow's analysis of needs, a wide range of travel experiences were accommodated successfully in the coding scheme. Results indicated that positive and negative tourist experiences were not the inverse of one another but highlighted different need structures. Further, it was demonstrated that there is a "motivational career in travel," with more experienced travelers reporting experiences containing more higher order needs. Female travelers also recorded slightly more self-actualization needs than men. It is argued that the tourist motivational literature could be well-served by this kind of indirect motivational coding scheme.

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