Determinant Factors And Motivation Of Tourism Demand

DETERMINANT FACTORS AND MOTIVATION OF TOURISM DEMAND The decision process that influences tourism demand whether to purchase a particular tourism product can be explained by two types of factors: 1. Determining Factors Determining factors refer to individual facilitators or factors, whether it is traveling in general or a specific trip. In a particular travel case, various determining factors generally influence the decision to choose a tourist destination, travel dates and length of trip, companions and also travelrelated costs (Swarbrooke and Horner, 2007). Determining factors can basically be divided between factors that are outside the tourist or external factors (such as friends' opinions, tourism marketing, media, political and economic factors related to origin and destination) and factors that are personal or internal factors ( such as income, health, knowledge of the tourist destination, attitudes and perceptions, fear of certain modes of transport, political opinions and past tourist experiences). Suppliers use price as a way to influence determining factors. Masiero and Nicolau (2012) challenge the idea that there is a homogeneous response to price in the tourism context. Tourism demand has a wide sensitivity to price due to its complexity, and price effects refute the idea that demand for tourism products and activities will always involve obtaining the cheapest, i.e. that price increases will inevitably reduce consumption. But there are some researchers considering the influence of several variables in terms of their influence on price, including motivation, age, number of stays and activities. 2. Motivational Factors In some cases, tourists do not always have the motivational factors to travel and instead buy trips on impulse, driven by promotional offers. Motivational factors determine a person's reason for traveling. They can have a more general character when they refer to the reasons people vacation in general or a more specific aspect when they explain why someone vacations in a particular tourist destination at a particular time. Cuervo (1967) summarized four motivational factors for holiday travel based on the following items: • Physical: related to rest, health, exercise and everything that can help reduce the stress of daily life. • Culture: the desire to learn something new, including a new culture and language. • Interpersonal: desire to meet new people (e.g. making friends, meeting romantic partners, visiting parents and friends). • Status/prestige: for personal development or self-esteem, especially related to the individual's desire to show that he is different because he has visited exotic places or places that no one he knows has ever visited. In addition to the above, Swarbrooke and Horner (2007) suggest two other types of motivational factors: emotional (adventure, romance and religion) and personal development (learning something new or gaining knowledge). The main factors that influence an individual's motivation to travel in this sub-chapter are personality, lifestyle, previous experience as a tourist, personal history and the image or attention they want to get from other people. Meanwhile, this motivation will remain the same even if there are changes in personal circumstances such as having children, marriage or variations in income. However, in this sub-chapter it is also explained that tourists can have different motivations when going on a trip, it depends on the case where tourists travel as a group (for example family, friends or tour packages), the motivation of the dominant group members often ends up influencing another individual. Things such as changes in travel time, availability of resources around tourist attractions and so on. In this sub-chapter, there is a survey conducted on senior tourists in Spain with a range of ages (over 55 years old), so that various kinds of determining factors and motivational factors can be obtained that can influence the length of their stay in a tourist destination: • The older a person is, the longer the stay, what is meant here is associated with a lack of commitment, such as no longer having a job or responsibilities, which can affect the length of the trip. • No correlation was found between gender and length of trip, and the same applies to income and number of children. • Two dimensions of motivation are very influential. Visiting friends and relatives has a significant influence on length of stay when compared with other reasons for travel (e.g. vacation, health and work). This is usually because these travelers are staying with friends and family, thereby increasing their length of stay on the same travel budget. Furthermore, trips influenced by weather factors tend to take longer. • Many other factors that characterize tourist destinations do not influence the length of stay of tourists, namely: cleanliness of the place, its safety, ease of transportation, medical coverage or availability of shopping centers; resources related to natural and recreational events and attractions, historic/artistic places, and natural landscapes; distance from the individual's place of origin; and even the total travel costs' (Alén et al., 2014, p. 28).