Motivation for tourism: Push-pull factors

Introduction

The tourism industry is considered one of the largest and fastest growing industries in the world (Ninemeier & Perdue, 2008; Cooper & Hall, 2008). In the past few years many people have been travelling around the world for leisure, business and migratory purposes. Each individual traveler has different motive based on their needs, culture and lifestyle. A person needs give rise to motivations that forces them to act or behave in a specific way to satisfy the needs. Motivations are driven by the different force of push and pull factors that revolve around an individual which will reflect in both travel decision and behaviour. Therefore, it is important to understand the behavior of tourists, their backgrounds and what motivates them to travel as all ‘leisure involves a temporary escape of some kind’ (Leiper 1984: 249). The topic of this paper is based on trip in Langkawi and further understanding of what motivates the tourist to travel overseas and what sort of temporary escape are they intending to find here on this island.

The trip

Based on recommendations by friends, a 4 day trip to Langkawi (LGK) was an ideal place to have a weekend getaway and enjoy the slow paced beach life. It was also a trip of escaping reality and in search of inspirations. Yet, while observing the local people here, there is more to this than just escaping reality and the slow paced life. Actually many of the locals have travelled here for holidays and vacations but ended up extending their stay for many months, some even love the life here so much that they became part of the local people and took up jobs in bars and opening up small businesses. It was the first time staying in a guesthouse and it felt like the whole atmosphere brought in by the friendly people helps open a person’s character and that atmosphere of good vibes seems to grow even more by mingling with people from different parts of the world, hearing their stories and gaining exposure of different lifestyles and culture. When travelling alone, one also gets to understand the importance of being alert to the surroundings in a foreign land especially when one does not speak the common tongue; it also helps that person to be independent by looking out for himself, adapting and abiding to different cultures, managing the money wisely and having clarity in life as one tends to drift into their own thoughts easily when not distracted by the daily routines.

Lit review

Getting away from the mundane life of the city or their hometown has always been in the minds of many people. Crompton (1979; 416) noted that the desire to ‘escape from a perceived mundane environment’ became a major motive of inducing tourist vacation behaviour. Escapism is described as a push factor, which refers to factors that predispose an individual to travel (Dann, 1977). In contrast to Riley (1988: 317), when an opportunity presents itself, people tend to be attracted to exotic places like an island where the beach helps them to relax and rejuvenate and have a temporary escape from the dullness and monotony of their everyday routine. ‘A certain picture is built up of a world that marks an escape from present reality an environment for acting out psychic needs, and the playing of certain roles that cannot be fulfilled at home, and it is this which forms part and parcel of tourists’ motivations’ (Dann, 1976: 22). So when a destination attraction consists of those elements of a “non-home” place, people are more motivated to travel there or even extend their stay. According to Backman et al. (1995) motivations are associated with individual basic needs for participating in activities that associate with their personal goals, being influence by their friends/family members or due to the change of weather. For instance, Westerners love travelling to Asia because of the exotic feeling, discovery of ancient history and warm weather. The need to see the unseen and know the unknown drives people to travel to new places and motivates them to visit new destinations (Venkatesh, 2006). But March & Woodside (2005) also states that tourists are subjected to certain behaviour before, during and after travelling. These travel behaviours are mostly influence by external and internal factors. These could be explained using the Push-Pull motivation theory. Push factors are socio-psychological motivations that predispose, while the pull factors are those that attract a person to a specific destination when the decision to travel has been made (Oh et al., 1995).

(Mehmetoglu, 2011)

The ‘need’ to see things are the pull factors, Mehmetoglu’s model shows that these factors influence the tourist mindset of travelling. For instance, Image could be due to the sharing of photos through facebook and other social media platforms, Culture, for example Westerners at the age of 16 tends to be independent and they usually go on road trips after their collage and Price could be discounts given by accommodations or air flights at a particular destination. While the push factors are influenced by the socio-psychological mindset of that person. For example, the need to socialize or escape from their comfort zone pushes them to search for a better environment. Both of these factors lead to the length of stay for the tourist and it is controlled by ‘Control Variables’ which reflects on each individual tourist culture and background which not only determine the length of stay but also the destination.

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The control variables could also make tourist migrate to another country. Before the concept of migrating appear in a persons’ mind, the person has planned on a destination to escape from the reality of his/her hometown, travelling to places to relax. After being satisfied with the current place, the external and psychological factors such as better economic/social opportunities, safer environment for building a family, slower paced lifestyle and realization of their spirituality plays a part in concluding the migration or longer stay of the tourist.

Methodology

The research method for this essay would be considered qualitative because learning more about the culture and lifestyle of the locals requires more time, more analytical data of the surroundings and time. Therefore, the methodology for this research paper is based on observation and interaction with the local people. These observations and interactions were compared with the local people and some of the few tourists who came to stay for a short period of time. Taking down notes during observations will help to determine what happened and at the same time triggering an answer to any research question during data analysis (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007; Pitney & Parker, 2009).

Data Analysis

Findings

While walking around the beach and streets of LGK, I manage to talk and find out that many of the locals were actually tourist before when travelling here for leisure but most of them ended up staying here as residents. Most of them came from Penang, Germany, KL, Thailand and even Brazil. Mostly, due to the slow paced lifestyle and their love for the beach, and better and nicer work environment which made them decide that they want to live here. I even talk to some of the tourists who travelled here for a few days ended up extending their stay for another day or so cause of the new friends they made.

Discussion

In order to predict travel behaviour it is important to understand how individual characteristics of a person interact with the characteristics of the situation, therefore understanding the positive and negative evaluative factors influencing destination choices of the tourists (March & Woodside, 2006; Laws, 1995; Holloway, 2004). Using this guy called ‘Captain’ as an example, he says before coming to work here in LGK, he was a Malaysian who works as a security guard and he did not like the environment there and his salary could not justify his work. Back then he was eager for a getaway, a temporary escape of some kind. So travelling to places nearby like LGK would be a good idea as it is affordable, easy to distress and communicating with the locals is easy. (Pearce, 2005; Pearce & Lee, 2005) came up with 14 core factors that describe travel motivation; they were built on items of interest from a rich array of previous studies and identified across the two large international samples. The defining forces were in order of importance, novelty, escape/relax, relationship strengthening, autonomy, seeking nature, self development through involvement with hosts or the site, stimulation, self-development of a personal kind, relationship security (enjoying being with similar others), self-actualisation (getting a new life perspective), isolation, nostalgia, romance and recognition (prestige of travelling).

(Pearce, 2005)

Using the model above, the Travel Career Patterns (TCP) concept shows that tourists in the Core motive are unchanging because these standard and important motives are the common motivations that push people like ‘Captain’ who travel to LGK for temporary escape to just relax and bond with friends and family. Eventually, ‘Captain’ TCP developed into the Middle layer as he is satisfied with the environment that he is in and ended up building more bonds with the locals and gaining self actualisation and self enhancement by setting up a private inn business catering to backpackers and tourists.

Some individuals like ‘Captain’ were push by escaping their life due to the political environment and individual background. Backing Pearce’s TCP model concept; McIntosh, Geoldner and Ritchie (1995) provides a deeper analysis of travel motives.

Source: Yeong, Eves & Scarles, (2004)

Using the above table, McIntosh, Geoldner and Ritchie derived with 4 categories which travel motivators can be classified into. Physical motivators’ factors are those that push the individual to travel for his/her own purpose such as fulfilling a thrill of adventure, getting away from the hectic life and seeking a stress free environment. Cultural motivators are people who want to visit their heritage, ancestral site or travel to pilgrims in search for their faith to discover more about their religion. The third category, interpersonal motivators is about travelling with friends/family or a love one to build greater relationship and experience the destination together. Lastly, Status and Prestige are motivators that people travel for status, ego enhancement it is possibility due to an opportunity given to travel in a more prestige way and to impress their neighbours.

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Relating McIntosh, Goeldner and Ritchie’s theory and to Mehmetoglu’s model of push and pull factors. 2 siblings from Penang who work at a reggae bar along the street came here for leisure purposes. The brother is a cyclist who actively cycles with his group of friends around Malaysia twice every month. As what he said, it was a way of freeing his mind from his daily routines and his friends suggested going to LGK for a cycling session, group-based behaviour is a modification of individual behaviour, which makes individuals engage in activities they may not have done otherwise (Marcevova, 2011). Later on, he enjoyed living the island life and decided to carry on staying here and eventually, his sister and some of his friends came to LGK to stay and make a living here. Both the siblings and their friends decision was mostly based on social influence decision making and the pull factors of the destination. The political model of decision-making (Pettigrew, 1973; Pfeffer, 1981) is an example of an adaptive form of decision-making, recognising the fact that most decisions are not individual but made in the context of groups, which means even backpackers or solo travellers make their decision based on recommendations, travel sites, stories based on past experience; all these are based on the context of group information and ideas that push them to travel. Social influences are processes which individuals adjust their feelings and behaviours towards someone who are perceived to be similar, desirable, or an expert in that discussion.

Conclusion

In conclusion, tourist motivation is seen as a multidimensional concept that explains tourist decision (McCabe, 2000) and each individual behaviours set different motivation of travelling due to different cultural background, country that they come from and the push and pull factors that influence them. In the modern world, technology is advancing such as social media being an intermediary to show people what the place has to offer and it needs to be considered as a factor of motivation. The destination that attracts the tourist plays an important role as well because the personal motives (push motives) and the view of the characteristics of the tourism destination (pull motives) determine perceptions (Bashar Aref & Al-Haj, 2010) which could make tourists extend their stay or even bring in more people.