ABSTRACT
Understanding why people choose to travel and to become tourists seems at first
sight to be a very simple issue. In fact it is a very complex area, and whilst we can
all think of simple reasons why people choose to go on holiday, the area has also
been extensively studied by psychologists. Theoretical research has sought to
classify travellers into groups in order to generalize the reasons for being involved
in tourism. As the tourism industry relies upon travellers, understanding what
motivates them to go to specific places and resorts has major economic con-
sequences. Yet the explanation of why people travel for pleasure, business and
other reasons has become clouded by a fundamental problem: psychologists (who
study how humans behave, interact and react to external and internal stimuli)
attempt to develop theories, and these theories are detached from the way in which
the tourism industry uses very practical marketing-based approaches to understand
why consumers choose to travel. This chapter explores the way in which the
academic study and practical application of principles associated with tourism
demand have been applied in trying to understand what motivates tourists as
consumers.
