2. Journal of Hospitality & Leisure
Marketing
Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/whmm19
Country as Destination-Norwegian
Tourists' Perceptions and Motivation
Nina K. Prebensen a
a Department of Tourism, Finnmark College, Alta, Norway
Version of record first published: 12 Oct 2008.
3. 1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.
2.
Some researchers use "regions" when
analysing destinations (e.g., Moshin and
Ryan, 2003; Gomez- Jacinto et al.,1999;
Murphy, 2003; Locker and Perdue, 1992;
Gitelson and Kerstetter, 1990). Others
employ the category of "attractions or
events" when seeking for a better
understanding of the purpose of tra-vel,
motivation, activities undertaken and
information sought (e.g., For-mica and
Uysal, 1998).
4. 1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
.
Implications of Tourists' Perception of
the Destination They Have Visited
The question concerning how to measure the content
"destination" is raised by other researchers (e.g., Laws,
1995). The present study dis-cusses different ways of
treating the destination problem; as country visited or by
tourists own expressions of destinations. Accordingly, the
aim is to find out what dimensions of the construct
"destination" is rec- ommendable when analysing tourists'
choice of where to travel. Con-struct validity is defined by
Bryant (2000: 139)
5. 1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
.
Implications of Tourists' Perception of
the Destination They Have Visited
In tourism several researchers stress the importance of
acknowledg-ing tourists' own words in defining their own
situations when vacation-ing (e.g., Dann, 1995;
Embacherand Buttle, 1989; Gotlieb, 1982; Jacob- sen and
Dann, 2003; Pearce, 1982). However, while these authors
stress the importance of what tourists are saying, few
seem as concerned about the way tourists articulate the
destination they have been visiting.
6. 1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
.
Implications of Tourists' Perception of
the Destination They Have Visited
Learning about tourists' wording of where they
have stayed during their holidays is important for
several reasons. People like to talk about their
own recent purchases and experiences and
even to advise others considering a purchase.
7. 1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
.
Implications of Tourists' Perception of
the Destination They Have Visited
Likewise, tourists tell their friends and relatives
about where they have been and what activities
they have undertaken there, called "word of mouth"
(cit. Arendt, 1967,1973), Mayo and Jarvis (1981)
8. 1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
.
Implications of Tourists' Perception of
the Destination They Have Visited
Mayo and Jarvis illustrate their point by discussing
how destinations which are difficult to categorise
have a less likelihood of being considered, and thus
have less chance of being chosen.
9. 1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
.
Implications of Tourists' Perception of
the Destination They Have Visited
The other recearchers tells that the desire to
experience novel destinations and cultures has
repeatedly emerged as a key motive of travel
behaviour (Cohen, 1972; Crompton, 1979; Dann,
1977,1981;Oh, Uysal and Waver, 1995; Yuan and
McDon-ald, 1990).
10. 1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Norwegian Outbound Tourism
Outbound travel from
Norway for leisure
purposes accounted for
2.626 million journeys in
2001 (Auno and Normann,
2003), almost 49 percent of
all Norwe-gian outbound
leisure trips.
The two foreign countries
that Norwegians most
frequently visited in 1998
were Spain and Denmark
(Lystad, 1998).
11. 1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Norwegian Outbound Tourism
Many of them comprise buy-ing a package that
includes accommodation and transport by
charter flight (charter tours). The number of
outbound journeys by charter flights from
Norway was estimated in 2001 to be 967,000
passengers (Startour, 2002).
12. 2. RESEARCH PROBLEMS
When asked where they have been,
how many tourists express destination
visited in terms of a "country,
" a "region," a "city" or by combinations
of terms?
RESEARCH
PROBLEMS
13. 2. RESEARCH PROBLEMS
Are there any motivational differences
among Norwegian charter tourists
visiting different countries?
RESEARCH
PROBLEMS
14. 2. RESEARCH PROBLEMS
Is the expressed category of a
destination influenced by individual
motives for travelling? E.g., would
a person who claims to have visited
Spain be different from someone who
says s(he) has been to Puerto Rico
(in Spain) regarding their motivation
for travelling (e.g., sunlust versus
learning)?
RESEARCH
PROBLEMS
15. 2. RESEARCH PROBLEMS
Is the expressed category of a
destination and/or country visited
in-fluenced by how experienced
tourists are with the destination vis-ited
or their travel experience with this type
of vacation in general?
RESEARCH
PROBLEMS
16. 3. METHOD AND MATERIAL
1
2
A questionnaire was
designed to capture
destination visited, tourist
motivation and
experience.
Norwegians who had
taken a charter-flight trip
within the last 12 months
were asked to complete
the questionnaire
.
17. 3. METHOD AND MATERIAL
Measurements and Research Design
TEXT
TEXT
The present study is not exploring
the motivational side of tourism,
there-fore an existent motive
scale
was implemented.
TEXT
TEXT
In the present study respondents
were
asked to rate thirty-five statements,
on a five-point scale ranging from
not
important (1) to very important (5).
18. 3. METHOD AND MATERIAL
Measurements and Research Design
TEXT
TEXT
TEXT
TEXT
To discover the tourist need for
novelty, the re-spondents" were asked
on a five-point scale to express how
important it was for them to visit an
unknown destination.
19. 4. RESULTS
RESULT
TEXT
TEXT
TEXT
TEXT
The two most visited countries among the respondents
were Spain and Greece. Among the 510 respondents who
had visited Spain, all to-gether 53 different destinations or
combinations of words were utilised. For the 213
respondents who had been to Greece a total of 42
destina-tions or combinations of destination names were
expressed.
20. 5. DISCUSSION
DISCUSSION
The major finding of the study was that
destinations conceived solely in terms of country
were not the most immediate expression of the
destination that people had visited. For most
respondents, specific names of regions or cities
were more fre-quently employed when describing a
destination.
21. 5. DISCUSSION
DISCUSSION
The results reveal eight distinct motivation factors
of Norwegian out-bound tourists: sun/bathing,
kids/family, friends, accomplishment, cul-ture,
stress reduction, fitness and hedonic. The relax
factor was also important for the Norwegian
tourists traveling on a pre-arranged tour. It is
possible that the need to relax impacted directly on
why the tourists bought this.
22. 5. DISCUSSION
DISCUSSION
Interestingly, there was no significant association
between motiva-tion and the country visited. An
explanation could have been that re-spondents
travelling on outbound charter tours would have
been less concerned about what destination they
visited as long as their motives were expected to
be fulfilled (sun, relax, learning, culture, etc.), and
that they expect any southern European country to
be able to fulfil their needs.
23. 5. DISCUSSION
DISCUSSION
In order to find out if tourists visiting the same
country, but to differ-ent places within that country,
had the same motivational profile, the most
mentioned destinations within the six above
mentioned countries were analysed.
24. 5. DISCUSSION
DISCUSSION
The results showed that tourists travelled to all
these countries with a variety of motives, but they
did not choose certain countries because of distinct
motives. This finding further indicates that, even if
Norwegian charter tourists perceive different
southern European countries as diver-gent, they
do not choose these countries on account of
motivational variance.
25. 5. DISCUSSION
DISCUSSION
Experience and search for novelty effect upon
destination visited when measured by tourists own
expression, but not on the country vis-ited or type
of category (country, region, city, etc.), which
correspond to the findings concerning relationship
between motivation and destina-tion visited.
26. 6. CONCLUSION
Conclusion
People vary when it comes to how they express
the destinations they have visited. Some use
country as the destination, while others use
re-gions, islands or cities when asked about where
they have been on their vacations. Some tourists
even express combinations of names of
desti-nations.
.
27. 6. CONCLUSION
Conclusion
These results show that for some countries,
Norwegian charter tour-ists might travel to
different destinations with different motives. In
other words, these countries do not necessarily
have one single image, a distinct challenge for
marketing and branding expenses.
28. 6. CONCLUSION
Conclusion
Experience and search for novelty does
significantly impact upon people's way of
categorising the destination they have been
visiting, but not on the country they have visited or
if they employed country, region, city or
combinations of words.
29. 6. CONCLUSION
Conclusion
Considering charter trips from Norway, further
research on how ex-perience and the need for
novelty impact on tourist's choice of where to
travel, and how they categorise the destination
visited, is needed.