14 Reasons that Motivates People to Travel Around the World

The Reasons that Motivates People to Travel Around the World are given below:

The answers to this pertinent question are psychological and sociological depending upon the individual and his/her cultural background and conditioning. The motivations for travelling cited by the travellers may be simply reflections of deeper needs, needs that they themselves neither understand nor wish to enunciate or vocalize.

But still going with the proposition that these are the motivations which stimulate travel, one can say that motivations initiate action and guide satisfactory behaviour but more precise filters of choice are exercised by holiday maker’s preferences.

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Kent (1990) observes that preferences indicate the course of action which will fulfil needs in the most satisfactory way. Preferences are, therefore, more specific than motivations and are revealed by what holiday makers do and where they go.

The interaction of motivations and preferences of a holiday maker generates a hierarchy of goals reflecting the differing intensity of needs and the variable priority according to preferences.

Pearce (1988) advocates that motivations activate goal oriented behaviour, acting as behavioural impetus and shaping choice-the key factor in explaining holiday patterns. Needs, preferences and goals are multiple for an individual and may also be conflicting.

Preference structures and goal hierarchies need to be reflected in holiday attributes. On the other hand, mental disposition or the images of the holiday/ destination provide the basis of the evaluation with those images individuals possess of the real world representing the pull component in choice.

A distinction needs to be emphasized as between the role of motivations which push a holiday maker into a decision, and the attraction exercised by holiday images which pull the holiday maker towards a particular holiday i.e., destination.

These push and pull factors are fundamental to an elaboration of human behaviour. Analytically and often both logically and temporally, consideration of push factors precede those of the pull ones.

In fact, Travel and Tourism have become so closely associated with each other that Travel in ordinary language implies Tourism or Tourism cannot exist without Travel. Although, travel is admittedly a principal element of tourism, the concept of tourism is broader than the notion of travel i.e., it includes numerous elements other than travel.

A person may possibly, and frequently does, travel for a large number of objects and designs, of which tourism is simply one. Nevertheless, if dealt with willfully and by design, a portion of the travel for other purposes than tourism can surely be galvanized and motivated into travel for tourism as an over-and-above purpose beside the original, basic purpose.

Reasons

1. Travel for Business:

A sizeable measure of business travel is, however, mixed with pleasure. It is, in fact, difficult to come out with where business begins or pleasure ends when the business traveller is attending a convention in some metropolis where as much as half of his or her time may be spent gambling or devil-may-care gamboling i.e., skipping, jumping playfully or wandering.

A Pan-American Airline study reveals that the business-pleasure mix varies widely according to nature of destination area. Although, most of business travel is undertaken by air, but most of business travel is hard work irrespective of the mode of transportation used.

2. Travel for Pleasure:

Pleasure is primarily a state of mind where one’s meat may be another’s venom. It depends partly upon prior conditions or the anticipation of good things to come. Pleasure may be symbolized with the feelings that come with sensuous gratification – be it eating, drinking, basking in the sum, a warm bath, relief of pain, respite from boredom, or escape from the routine of life, sex or even the thought of it. That is, change, in itself, may bring pleasure.

3. The Romance of Pleasure Travel:

Probably, the strongest of all individual travel motivations is that of satisfying a need for pleasure, and travel has the unique and unparalleled quality of being able to satisfy the need, that too, to a great extent.

Practicing pleasure travel is, in itself, learned behaviour. Travel gives rise to satisfaction gained only by such experiences, and satisfactions many a time include a relaxation of tension. The pleasure trip thus becomes a highly complex and primarily learned form of reducing tension.

The planning and anticipation period in the pre-travel phase can be as gratifying as the trip itself. Discussing prospects of the trip with friends and colleagues, pursuing research, educational and shopping activities relating to the trip and the area to be visited is a most important part of the total pleasure travel experience.

The romance of the trip is also an overpowering motivation for those galvanized with the romantic aspects of seeing, experiencing and enjoying strange and attractive places.

This is particularly true in case of honeymoon travel. The romance and pleasure of the trip are, indeed, the primary characteristics and qualities of the travel experience.

4. Changing Perspective of Pleasure:

What is pleasurable, a subjective phenomenon, and liable to changes with time and culture. For instance the present older generation has been so programmed to believe that work is worship i.e., it, in itself, is one of the highest goods.

For this generation pleasurable delight has never been of compelling concern. But over time, keeping to the ostensible strait – laced ethic is melting away and sensuous gratification is back in favour. Work has become synthesized or interwoven with pleasure.

That is, life can be fun. Similarly, holidaying for pleasure has changed and will continue to do so. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, travel to the mountain resort or hill station in the summer was viewed as extremely pleasing as it extended an escape from the heat, kick and redressal for the stomach, rest and relaxation, and a chance to be with one’s peers, or sanguinely one’s betters.

Moreover, in the first half of the twentieth century, the only mode of transportation for travel abroad was ship. The shipboard activities turned out to be thrilling for some, inexorably prosaic to others.

Wrapped in woolens, sitting in deck chairs and shivering against the cold winds was hardly pleasurable for a very few. Travel today, however, has become more comfortable and convenient especially with the advent of aviation technology in 1960s and 1970s.

In addition, the criteria for what are pleasurable in travel and vacation for an individual even within a family is variable with time.

5. The Need for Change:

The radical and underlying needs that guide and motivate our lives are eclipsed by a need for excitement and thrill that can be fulfilled by change. This is human psychology that once the basic needs such as food and shelter have been met, the mind seeks liveliness and dynamism.

Travel and holidaying can provide unlikeness by taking away one from present, familiar environs to something that is new and unfamiliar and, because it is new, gratifyingly stimulating and titillating.

As variety may be more than the spice of life rather may be a sine qua non. Marketing research director Russ Johnston in his article ‘Motivation in a Changing Environment’ puts it in a simple manner:

“The greatest reason for travel can be summed up in one word, ‘escape’. Escape from the dull daily routine. Escape from the familiar, the commonplace, the ordinary. Escape from the job, the boss, the customers, the commuting, the house, the lawn, the leaky faucets”.

According to the study, everyone is searching for change even though some do it actively, others passively. The actives are the people, who are adventurists or in tourism terminology the allocentrics, who like to go to explore, and to experience new things while passives are those who like to withhold and lie on the beach.

For many people any type of change is a welcome change. Humans are so plastic, so pliable, so able to be conditioned to surroundings, that it is difficult to identify and specify what evokes pleasure in any particular person. There may be wide individual differences in the extent of change to be experienced as pleasurable.

However for the majority of people there are limits to acceptable change. Most of the people welcome change unless it is that drastic and/or demanding and all the desired comforts are catered to i.e., the intrinsic need for the familiar always remains unrevealed. And travel and holidaying can provide such a change.

6. Travel for Health:

Holidaying is generally considered as an investment in health, a subject that presents opportunities of cost – benefit analysis. One needs to schedule his health, say the health counsellors, just as one need to schedule work activities.

It is suggested by many medical specialists that it is relatively more beneficial to go for a number of vacations at regular intervals for recouping energies both psychologically and physically, interest and passion than one all-out vacation per year.

Moreover spacing holidays over different seasons is not only more satisfying to the holidayed but to the tourism industry as well, for the peaks and valleys of the business are levelled out.

7. Travel for Seeking Knowledge:

Man’s urge to learn in all likelihood is intrinsic and can flourish into an incessant search for knowledge, truth and understanding. Travel and holidaying offer an opportunity to satisfy the urge to learn.

Once an interest becomes deep-seated in a person, he/she is likely to enjoy pursuing it as interest bolsters interest. The interest can be in almost anything – people, language, history, geography, culture, architecture and travel itself.

The urge to meld oneself with the past, to understand, it, to relive it runs strong in a sizable class of people. Historic buildings, monuments, battlefields, and shrines are a means of communicating with the past, of feeling at one with those who came before.

In the context of tourism, once an interest gets developed in a destination region, it keeps growing with every additional information. A well chalked out marketing mix, no doubt, triggers off interest in a destination, but much more eloquent and persuasive is the effect created by a good reading, media or above all the word of mouth communication.

Nevertheless, the effects of the elements of a marketing mix are difficult to compute individually; they may operate on a subliminal level of awareness for the potential holiday maker. It is also a fact that travel is an enriching experience for many.

Humans learn from an environment only to the extent that they respond to it. Moreover, it cannot be assumed that every traveller learns, many are mere spectators.

8. Vagabondage:

Vagabondage means bondage to travel. Travel can be a mania, a passion, a way of life, which is what it is all about. Much of travel has no logical or genuine pretext other than the pleasure of travel itself as travel for travel’s sake is a self-perpetuating phenomenon.

In thralldom to travel, vagabonds are all the time planning the next trip, narrating or reminiscing about the last one, or regaining their energy and future while reading up on a trip behind the iron curtain i.e., barrier separating communities or ideologies.

The deep-rooted or confirmed traveller matures into a collector of countries, an appreciator of distant places, a specialist of outlandish spots, people and things. The maestro traveller holds a portfolio of travel experiences and memories, adding to them with time like an investor maintaining a portfolio of stocks.

Instinct seems the compelling force of the walkabout. The idea of movement, of making merry, of being on the highway or in a plane, can be and is pleasurable to millions of people. Whilst in the past, the social climate did not encourage vagabondage except for a few – the favoured classes, gypsies and those who had withdrawn from the society.

But presently, the major deterrents to travel, the need to work and work ethics are on the decline. Although travel is largely constrained by economics, the urge itself looks like being endemic.

Moreover, education seems to radiate the vagabondage virus so that, given half a chance, the majority of college students are ever ready to take off for hither and yon. The vagabond must be prepared to be preyed on every so often, which he or she philosophically and calmly accepts, recalling with enthusiasm the kindness and generosity of host residents of an area.

The vagabonds simply accepts the fact that large numbers of countries are partisan only to an affluent visitor, obviously for genuine reasons, and view the traveller of modest means as a plague.

A good vagabond rather enjoys the unexpected and the stress of travel, rolls with the punches and is not unduly upset over discourteousness or outrage.

9. The Trip and the Fun en Route:

Travel can, indeed, be something more than a bare frivolous experience or one of waiting to earn some chosen place. It need not be a space or vacuum between native environment (origin/home) and the new environment (destination).

For many travellers, the holiday commences at the port or airport, continues to the selected destination and ends only after his/her homecoming or at the place of departure. Travel en route to a destination can, in fact, be lively or a lackluster.

Travel by plane in the first half of the twentieth century or even in the early 1950s provided glamour, especially when en route to far-off places for holidaying. Conversations and interactions between socially acceptable seatmates and curiosity of air travel added splendour to social contacts made in flight.

That solemnity, however, has been vitiated by the very nature of air travel now a day. The commonalty of interests has become limited and so too is the interaction as all social classes travel, and seatmates in the same row may belong to different strata. Moreover, the business travellers take planes so often that the trip is hardly different from riding a subway.

Another reason for little interaction can be assigned to the fact that passengers are inspired just in one direction, disembarking the plane as fast as possible when the plane is even in the process of landing.

On flights to blatant holiday destinations, such as the pristine, virgin islands, where the dress and the behaviour of the travellers distinguish them beyond doubt, there is a certain degree of mutual trust and friendship suggestive of shipboard travel.

The air becomes obviously more tranquillized as the flight progresses when extended meals are served along with complementary drinks. In such cases, even making it there may be really highly delightful. Tourists travelling first class often begin to experience the pleasures of their destination as soon as they step aboard the transporting vehicle.

10. Pleasures of Pre- and Post-Travel:

The pleasures of travel can, indeed, he categorized into three phases: ante-trip, trip and post-trip. The process of experiencing a destination, and thereby satisfaction by the visitor, can be conceived as a series of stages starting with the decision to take a holiday, lasting with the experiences of different services during travel and while at the destination, and climaxing in their memories of the destination after returning home when the holiday is over.

The various phases, the activities involved in each phase and the influencing factors of visitors involved in each phase and the influencing factors of visitors’ expectations and/or experiences at each stage can be summarized as indicated by Law (1995).

Each phase can bring its distinctive pleasures. Ir. the pre-travel phase, planning a trip is half the fun. It has been well indicated by studied that people generally plan and arrange for an extended trip well in advance i.e., six months or even a year.

For many people, travel becomes a fad or way of life. They plan for a trip, take the trip, and even before the current trip is terminated – begin planning for the next one. Talking about the trip and learning about the destination can be a far-reaching, intricate and complex procedure, taking the form of a ritual that involves reading books, going to dinner parties with those who have already experienced the destination.

In the context of life cycle factors, for many people of middle age i.e., over forty five or so and belonging to the middle class, the thought of travel is of prime interest because the children are grown up and away from home – be it for studies or for earning bread and butter – career goals have almost been ascertained with financial security assured.

11. Travel and Second/Holiday Homes:

Though one may not be having a primary urge to travel but the simple possession of a second home or a holiday cottage augments the need to travel and to take holidays. Being in possession of a time-share accommodation at a resort virtually encourages or rather confirms at least an annual visit to the place.

The cost of the time-share has to be met irrespective of the use of the accommodation. Moreover, for a business traveller, there is all the more reason to travel and take a holiday as the cost of the trip is taken as a business expense for income tax purposes.

12. Travel as a Challenge:

Almost every person, though in varying degree, has a touch of the ‘ Ulysses factor’ a label for the exploring instinct. Such an instinct is generally rooted in some valorous types of people. Impelled and pushed by inquisitiveness and enterprise, such people venture forth to go in pursuit of adventure and challenge.

Travel entices the competitive instinct in people, especially travel to remote places involving ingenuity or hardship on the part of the traveller. Travel can involve several types of risks – tropical diseases, food poisoning and perpetual disappointments over hold-ups and other hassles.

Some scholars, however, deprecate the opportuneness and lack of problems tendered by modern- day travel. On the face of it, they would suggest to undertake travel only for the sake of work and privation that it can offer.

Such considerations and motives to travel are not usually accepted gladly, particularly since fear of air travel, of experiencing wearisomeness while travelling, of being alone in a strange hotel and other allied difficulties such as being away from home are still major disincentives and discouragements to travel.

However, to some people, travel is a chance to prove oneself. For example, skiing is a constant challenge to life and limb, especially since most enthusiasts try their hands at the more arduous slopes.

13. Travel as a Means to Sharpen Perspective:

Travel exposures and experiences can inform one of new standards, new art forms, and even new systems of belief. Being moved away, though temporarily, from their own culture many a time puts an edge on their perceptions adding to their personal data bank.

Tourism enthuses fresh vigour in the society in terms of the broader outlook which is not only desirable but also necessary to improve the quality of life of people, in particular, and the society, in general, which can look for knowledge, awareness, etc. from tourism.

In other words, travel can be viewed as a means to not only awaken the senses and intensify understanding of one’s own milieu but to gain international understanding and world peace as well.

Through the experiences of a range of diverse societies, people are likely to develop a greater tolerance for cultures different from their own. Apart from this, travel can also provide a sense of superiority if the trip is to a poor and/or a backward country.

14. Travel and the Social Perspective:

Travel can be a socially acknowledged, well-nigh endless source of reward for those with the time, the money, and the energy to undertake it. Much travel originates from people’s social nature.

Humans, as social animals, feel comfortable in a tour group as camaraderie generally develops being with the people of much the same type. Travel increases the sociability resources of individuals by taking a certain amount of fortune, faculty and vigour to travel far and wide.

Again, travel snobbery has become a status symbol and can be almost as pleasing as money snobbery, education snobbery, or family snobbery. Travel talk is popular, especially if it is about travel to an out-of-the-ordinary destination.

The travel hoity-toities like to be able to tell or rather boast about the places they have visited, the hotels where they have stayed, the restaurants they have patronized i.e., talk about the places that the listener probably has not experienced. Travel snobs play on their expeditions while travelling, upon return home, and for years thereafter.