The Consumption of Tourism - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 367

and evaluation of tourist experiences (Gilbert, 1991; Goodall, 1991). Each
stage may be influenced by personal and external variables, such as time and
money constraints, social stimuli, media influences and so on, whilst each
consumption experience feeds into subsequent decision-making processes. At
the same time, however, the consumption of tourism may also be considered
a continual, cyclical and multi-dimensional process. That is, consuming tour-
ism is, generally, neither a 'one-off' event nor just a simple, uni-directional
purchasing sequence. As Pearce (1992) points out, tourism consumption occurs
over a lifetime, during which tourists may progress up or climb a travel career
ladder as they become more experienced tourists. As a result, travel needs and
expectations may change and evolve, but these may also be framed and influ-
enced by evolving social relationships, lifestyle factors and constraints, and
emerging values and attitudes.
Despite this complexity, however, two specific characteristics of the
tourism consumption process deserve consideration here. First, it is generally
accepted that the process begins with motivation, the 'trigger that sets off
all events in travel' (Parrinello, 1993: 233). It is the motivational stage that
pushes an individual from a condition of inertia into tourism-consumptive
activity, that translates needs into goal-oriented consumer behaviour. There-
fore, the motivation to consume tourism has a direct bearing on the nature
of tourist-consumer behaviour. Second, tourism occurs in a world where the
practice of consumption in general is playing an increasingly important role
in people's social and cultural lives. That is, most tourism-generating
societies are becoming characterised by a dominant consumer culture which
influences all forms of consumption, including tourism. Therefore, 'con-
sumption choices simply cannot be understood without considering the cul-
tural context in which they are made' (Solomon, 1994: 536).
Tourist motivation
Tourist motivation represents one of the most important yet complex
areas of tourism research. It is also a subject that has enjoyed widespread and
diverse treatment in the tourism literature, although a generally accepted
theory or understanding has yet to emerge (Jafari, 1987). Nevertheless, a brief
review of the main contributions to the literature will reveal not only the
complexity of the topic but also, more importantly, the fact that the primary
motivational factors in tourism are likely to militate against tourists adopt-
ing destination appropriate consumer behaviour.
The literature on tourist motivation encompasses 'an amalgam of ideas
and approaches' (Dann, 1981: 189). Psychology provided one of the earlier
disciplinary foundations, the notion of intrinsic need satisfaction being con-
sidered the primary arousal factor in motivated behaviour. Indeed, it has
been argued that 'motivation is purely a psychological concept, not a socio-
logical one' (Iso-Ahola, 1982: 257). Many papers and texts refer to Maslow's