Tourist motivation refers to the factors that influence travel related decisions. Dann (1981) refers the motive to travel as a response of a tourist to what is lacking yet desired. According to Moutinho (2001), tourist’s vacation motivation is determined by social factors and is based on tourist expectations. Dicher (1972) states tourists can be seen as searchers, motivated by desire to discover oneself and psychological mobility, (cited in Moutinho, 2001). Motivations are distinguished into either general or specific. General motivations imply that people travel for many reasons, of which people are often not fully aware of them. Specific travel motivators are related to images on personal experience, knowledge, advice from friends, information from the mass-media, advertisements, and travel intermediaries, cost, time available, age, family obligations and so forth.
Dr. Abraham H. Maslow introduced an article “A theory of human motivation” in 1943; He later expanded the theory in his book named “Toward a psychology of being”. His article is more famous by “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs”. He wrote this article to explain that human motivation is based on the needs which he called it as “deficiency needs”. He gave the study of human behaviour a new face. He was influenced by his family life and his own experiences with people, he created his own ideas to understand human mind. Based on this motivation theory managers and leaders are finding it easy to understand and motivate their employees and are able to manage work force management.
According to Maslow’s motivation theory, unsatisfied needs are the major encouraging factor, before fulfilling higher needs there are some lower factors which has to be satisfied first. According to Maslow before a person act selflessly he should satisfy the general types of needs that are physiological, survival, safety, love and esteem needs, if these basic needs are satisfied that means we are moving towards growth and self-actualization.
In his theory of motivation he is making the leadership management understand that the basic needs of the employee has to be satisfy first before moving up to the high level of motivating factors like esteem and self-actualization. He has described that before moving up to the upper factors of motivation one has to satisfy the basic needs like (physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization) and has explained it in is main article called “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs”, which is also called the “Maslow’s Needs Pyramid” or “Maslow’s Needs Triangle” which is explained in the below diagram.
Josiam et al; (1998). Makes a further distinction in motivation, that of between push and pull factors. Push factors are more general and induce the need to travel, whereas pull factors are destination-specific attributes that can determine the destination choice. The destination’s pull factors should reflect the tourist’s needs and preferences in order to be selected. However, it should have additional attributes that will differentiate it from other competing destinations (Josiam et al, 1998).