The role of motivation within tourism behaviour and its effect on the consumer decision making process

by Craig Griffiths, May 2012

Introduction

In order to understand consumer behaviour in relation to tourism products and services, it is crucial for marketers to understand what motivates consumers and the effects that these motivations have on the consumer decision making process.

Tourism can be described as the “activities of persons traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes” (World Tourism Organisation 1995, p.10).  Due to the effects that tourism has on social, cultural, educational and economic sectors within society, it is considered an activity that is essential to the life of nations (World Tourism Organisation 1995, p.10).

Motivation refers to a state of need that impels an individual toward certain types of actions that are seen as likely to bring satisfaction (Moutinho 1993, p.16; Schiffman et al. 2011, p.40). It is a driving force that may stem from physiological or psychological needs that are at times unknown to the individual.

Once a person is motivated to act on a need, they are required to make a decision in regards to how to best satisfy this need and make a “selection of an action from two or more alternative choices” (Schiffman et al. 2011, p.453).

This paper discusses the role of motivation within tourism behaviour and the effect that it has on the consumer decisionmaking process.  The Tourist Decision Model and the Leisure Motivation Scale are specifically covered within this paper, in addition to general discussion relating to other motivational factors and the future developments within tourism.

Motivation and Decision Making

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is one of the most prominent theories of human motivation which identifies five basic levels of human need and ranks these in order of importance.  This can be a “useful tool for understanding consumer motivations and is readily adaptable to marketing strategy” (Schiffman et al. 2011, p.61).  This hierarchy is best described by the following diagram:

(http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/maslow.htm)

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

In regards to tourism, it is very important that marketers understand that there are many different factors that motivate individuals and these factors will influence the decision making process.  These motivations can have a significant effect on the type, duration and location of the holiday chosen by each individual, and can affect whether the individual will consider taking a holiday at all.  A marketer who understands these motivations will be better equipped to forecast the spending patterns, length of stay, attractions, activities and destinations that will appeal to different consumer groups.

Although there is no widely recognised way of categorising these motivating factors in tourism, they can be split into two groups; “those which motivate a person to take a holiday; and those which motivate a person to take a particular holiday to a specific destination at a particular time” (Swarbrooke & Horner 2007, p.53).

Tourism Behaviour Models

Over the years, various theories and models have emerged to attempt to quantify and explain tourism specific motivations and decision processes.  These have been developed in an attempt to explain the complexities involved with tourism as “Maslow’s hierarchy is too general to allow for any particular degree of specificity” (Gnoth 1997, p.294).

Vacation Tourist Behaviour Model

When considering why individuals choose to take a holiday, there are two sets of motivations that need to be considered.  These are general motivations and specific motivations (Moutinho 1993).  The “general motivations imply that people travel for many reasons, many times not fully being aware of them” (Moutinho 1993, p.17), whilst “specific motivations are related to images based on personal experience, knowledge, reports and advice from friends, information gained directly or indirectly from mass media, advertisements and travel intermediaries” (Moutinho 1993, p.18).  This indicates that decisions relating to tourism based purchases are very much affected by forces outside the individual.

In addition to these outside forces, “consumer decision-making is also affected by conscious and unconscious memories” (Martin 2010).  Based on this, marketers need to be aware that the memory of past experiences is also an important motivating factor when consumers are considering holidays, which in turn means that  historical consumer satisfaction will play a significant role in future purchases.

Moutinho (1987) asserts that there are three separate stages in the tourism decision making process; the pre-decision stage and decision process; the post-purchase evaluation; and future decision making.  This model indicates that the stages exist in a continuous loop and that tourism purchase decisions are the combined result of motivation, cognition and learning behavioural concepts (Swarbrooke & Horner 2007, p.76).

The diagram below has been created to visually describe the relationship that has been documented by Moutinho:

adapted from Moutinho (1987)

Vacation Tourist Behaviour Model

The decision to purchase a tourism product is the result of a complex process and presents some unique aspects when compared with other types of purchase decisions, as “it is an investment with no tangible rate of return, and the purchase is often prepared and planned through savings made over a considerable period of time” (Moutinho 1993).

Unlike other products and services, a tourist is making an investment with “no expectation of material and economic return on his or her purchase of an intangible satisfaction” (Moutinho 1993).   The satisfaction associated with tourism products includes the “relaxation of tension, which is a strong underlying element to different desires and expectations concerning a vacation” (Moutinho 1993, p.17).  Unfortunately for marketers, this intangible satisfaction which consumers seek can be very different for each individual, and could be different for the same individual depending on the specific circumstances at the time.  This adds yet another level of complexity to an already complex decision process, which has made it very difficult for these tourism behaviour models to be used by marketers to develop marketing strategies (Swarbrooke & Horner 2007, p.77).

The Leisure Motivation Scale

The Leisure Motivation Scale (LMS) was derived from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs by Beard and Ragheb (1983) to describe the motives that determine whether satisfaction is gained from leisure pursuits (Ryan & Glendon 1998, p.173).  The LMS identifies four motives that determine satisfaction, these being (Beard and Ragheb 1983, p.225):

1. intellectual – the extent to which individuals are motivated because of a need for learning or discovery
2. social – the extent to which individuals are motivated because of a need for friendship and interpersonal relationships
3. competence-mastery – the extent to which individuals are motivated because of a need to master, challenge or compete
4. avoidance – the extent to which individuals are motivated by activities because of a needs to seek solitude or to unwind

These four motives are not only important during the pre-purchase stage when the consumer is evaluating a range of products and services, but also when the consumer is evaluating the holiday after it is over.  As discussed earlier, the sense of satisfaction resulting from the tourism experience will be one of the determining factors in future tourism purchases by the consumer, so it is important that the need that first motivated the consumer is satisfied.  A satisfied need will increase the likelihood of a repeat purchase from the consumer.

Other Considerations

Tourism is very much connected to the concept of self actualisation whereby it is sought to redress the stress of work life or to develop the mind to its full potential (Gnoth 1997, p.287).  This motivation to satisfy the need of self actualisation is “the process of lifting the real self to the level of the ideal self” (Gnoth 1997, p.295).

The satisfaction of Maslow’s lower level safety need in regards to tourism is often assumed as being met by both consumers and marketers.  However many new and emerging tourism products and services, such as “space travel”, will result in situations where the marketer may be required to prove that these lower level needs will be satisfied in order to attract new consumer groups.  That is, the majority of people are not likely to seek tourism products that are perceived as high risk until it they are accepted as a safe and tested and become a holiday “norm” with minimal risk.

In contrast to this majority however, there will always be a minority who are motivated by high risk tourism options.  Current data indicates that “younger and male respondents are significantly more interested in space tourism and there was a strong positive association between current risk taking behaviour in recreation and leisure activities and a desire to travel into space” (Crouch et al. 2008).

Future Developments

The rapid rise of the internet has led to a significant change in the way that the consumer researches and purchases tourism products and services.  This change in consumer behaviour requires marketers to consider the impacts of online purchasing, budget  airlines and the popularity of last minute spontaneous purchases (Swarbrooke & Horner 2007, p.77), and to develop effective strategies that take advantage of this technology induced behaviour shift.

In addition to the internet induced changes it is apparent that “a new generation of traveller is beginning to emerge, in the sense that the traveler has ceased to be a tourist and has become a searcher” (Moutinho 1993, p.18).  The last five years has shown a significant increase to the “participative tourism” market.  The existence of this type of tourism indicates that there are many consumers who are motivated by the desire to help others less fortunate (Nykiel 2011) and are looking for more than a week in a deck chair by the pool.

This new type of traveller desires a unique holiday where they can establish new relationships with residents of the locality and experience what is like to live within the location as opposed to simply visiting the location and seeing the sites as a tourist.

Conclusion

Tourism has changed significantly over the last two decades on various fronts.  Not only has the internet changed the way that consumers research and procure tourism products and services, but the needs of consumers have also changed and many are looking for unique holiday experiences (Swarbrooke & Horner 2007; Moutinho 1993).

Although various theoretical models have been developed over the years in an attempt to identify, measure and explain consumer behaviour from a tourism centric perspective, the majority of these were developed almost twenty years ago, before the internet was mainstream and before the new “searching” traveler had emerged.  Due to the complexities associated with tourism, to date there is little empirical evidence to support these theories (Swarbrooke & Horner 2007, p.77; Hudson & Gilbert 2008).  In effect, this could mean that marketers who are currently relying on these models could be developing and implementing ineffective marketing strategies or could be or missing market segments all together.  Further research is required into tourism specific consumer behaviour.

The last decade has seen exponential technological advancement, changing societies and new tourism markets emerge, and it is now more important than ever for marketers to be aware of what consumers really need from tourism. More importantly however, is for marketers to develop and implement effective strategies that stimulate consumer motivation to pursue these needs.

Bibliography

Beard, J & Ragheb, M 1983, “Measuring leisure motivation”, Journal of Leisure Research, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 219-228

Bigne, J, Sanchez, M & Sanchez, J 2001, “Tourism image, evaluation variables and after purchase behaviour: inter-relationship”, Tourism Management, Vol. 22, No. 6, pp. 607-616

Clarke, J 2008, “Gifts of tourism: insights to consumer behavior”, Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp.529-550, Great Britain

Crouch, G, Devinney, T, Louviere, J & Towhidul, I 2008, “Modelling consumer choice behaviour in space tourism”, Tourism Management, Vol. 30, No. 3, pp.441-454

Gnoth, J 1997,”Tourism motivation and expectation formation”, Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 283-304, Great Britain

Hudson, S & Gilber, D 2000, “Tourism constraints: the neglected dimension in consumer behaviour research”, Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 69-78, United Kingdom

March, R & Woodside, A 2005, Tourism Behaviour: Travellers, Decisions and Actions, Cabi Publishing, Wallingford, United Kingdom

Martin, D 2010, “Uncovering unconscious memories and myths for understanding international tourism behaviour”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 62, No. 4, pp. 373-383, USA

Moutinho, L 1993, “Consumer behaviour in tourism”, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 21, No. 10, pp. 5-44

Nykiel, R 2011, “Consumer behaviour: 20 trends”, Bangor Daily News, Bangor, India, viewed 17 April 2012 via ProQuest

Ryan, C & Glendon, I 1998, “Application of leisure motivation scale to tourism”, Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 169-184, United Kingdom

Schiffman, L, O’Cass, A, Paldino, A, D’Alessandro, S & Bednall, D 2011, Consumer Behaviour, 5^th Edition, Pearson, Sydney, Australia

Swarbrooke, J & Horner, S 2007, Consumer behaviour in tourism, 2^nd Edition, Butterworth –Heinemann, The Netherlands

World Tourism Organisation 1995, “Technical manual: collection of tourism expenditure statistics”, Spain, viewed May 13 2012 <http://pub.unwto.org/WebRoot/Store/Shops/Infoshop/Products/1034/1034-1.pdf&gt;