ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the reasons why people go on holiday and the explanations developed to understand the motivating factors associated with leisure travel, with a wide range of social psychological models and explanations presented. The chapter examines the concept of tourism demand and the ways it may be defined to understand the drivers of tourism activity. Specific themes that the chapter examines are the role of motivation studies in explaining why people go on holiday, including new trends in holidaymaking such as medical tourism. The different motives used to develop classifications of tourism are explained along with the role of consumer behaviour in explaining why people select certain holiday products.
