Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
of an escape element complemented by a search component, where the tourist is seeking
something. However, Dann's (1981) conceptualisation is probably one of the most useful
attempts to simplify the principal elements of tourist motivation into
• travel as a response to what is lacking yet desired
• destination pull in response to motivational push
• motivation as fancy
• motivation as classified purpose
• motivation typologies
• motivation and tourist experiences
• motivation as definition and meaning.
This was simplified a stage further by Mclntosh and Goeldner (1990) into
• physical motivators
• cultural motivators
• interpersonal motivators
• status and prestige motivators.
On the basis of motivation and using the type of experiences tourists seek, Cohen (1972)
distinguished between four types of travellers:
• The organised mass tourist, on a package holiday, who is highly organised. Their
contact with the host community in a destination is minimal.
• The individual mass tourist, who uses similar facilities to the organised mass tourist but
also desires to visit other sights not covered on organised tours in the destination.
• The explorers, who arrange their travel independently and who wish to experience the
social and cultural lifestyle of the destination.
• The drifter, who does not seek any contact with other tourists or their accommodation,
preferring to live with the host community (see V.L.Smith 1992).
Clearly, such a classification is fraught with problems, since it does not take into account
the increasing diversity of holidays undertaken and inconsistencies in tourist behaviour
(P.L.Pearce 1982). Other researchers suggest that one way of overcoming this difficulty
is to consider the different destinations that tourists choose to visit, and then establish a
sliding scale similar to Cohen's (1972) typology, but which does not have such an
absolute classification.
In contrast, Plog (1974) devised a classification of the US population into
psychographic types, with travellers distributed along a continuum (see Figure 2.9) from
psychocentrism to allocentrism. The psychocentrics are the anxious, inhibited and less
adventurous travellers while at the other extreme the allocentrics are adventurous,
outgoing, seeking new experiences due to their inquisitive personalities and interest in
travel and adventure (also see Plog 2001; S.L.J.Smith 1990a, 1990b).
D.G.Pearce (1995a) highlights the spatial implications of such conceptualisations, that
each tourist type will seek different destinations which will change through time.
However, criticisms by P.L. Pearce (1993) indicate that Plog's model is difficult to use
because it fails to distinguish between extrinsic and intrinsic motivations without
incorporating a dynamic element to encompass the changing nature of individual tourists.
