Tourist Motivations for Adventure Tourism in Queenstown, New Zealand

Abstract

This is a report represented an exploratory attempt to capture the underlying reasons of tourists' decisions to participate in adventurous activities in Queenstown, New Zealand. In the research, there is a useful approach was used for examining the tourist motivation: the push-pull framework, which is adopted widely in travel motivation studies (Woodside and Martin, 2008).

Keywords: Motivations and push-pull factors, adventure tourism, Queenstown



Cabbage Tree Creative Ltd (2011) provided information that New Zealand's undisputed capital of extreme adventure sports is the hip and beautiful city of Queenstown. This popular travel destination is doing its best to keep pace with the huge numbers of tourists who flock to this outdoor Mecca all year round. It's a place inextricably linked to adventure tourism. Daniel (2010) stated that although a mere 10,000 residents live in Queenstown, this travel nexus receives more than one million visitors every year.

Lue et al. cited by Pearce (2005) that various tourist visit patterns are the result of a destination-choice process which, in turn, is influenced powerfully by tourists' motives and backgrounds. Studying tourist motivation seeks to answer why people want to travel and, if they travel, why they travel to certain destinations and why they engage in certain activities while on holiday (Robinson et al, 2011). The view, that in explaining tourist motivation push and pull factors should be distinguished, is today the most widespread explanation model of tourist motivation.

According to Woodside and Martin (2008), the push factors are defined as internal or inner motives or forces that drive an individual travle away from home. For example, Hudson (2003) illustrated that one of the most common motivators for adventure tourism is fun. Swarbrooke et al. (2003) found that the consumers' appetite for new and novel experience seems insatiable; Swarbrooke et al. (2003) predicted a significant motivation that people are eager to escape the stress of urban living, employment and information overload, and from the materialistic culture of the consumer society so that give their minds a rest; There is an increasing exposure to the concept and sense of self-development, through higher education, professional development and the media, means this will become a more clearly articulated demand (Swarbrooke et al., 2003); research by Swarbrooke et al. (2003) showed that in today's image-conscious world, leisure activities and the type of holiday a person takes are regarded as reflections of their character and values; Swarbrooke et al. (2003) noted that a growing interest in healthier lifestyles is evidenced by increased participation in active leisure pursuits, membership of gyms and health clubs and so on; Lifestyles continue to be dictated by fashions and fads (Swarbrooke et al., 2003), Millington et al. (2001) further observed that travel is becoming a fashion accessory, and this can be reflected in the media, with a number of glossy travel magazines and increased coverage of travel experiences, particularly adventurous travel, on the TV; changing attitudes to aging is going to continue to have a major impact on future trends in adventure tourism (Swarbrooke et al., 2003).

Pull factors on the other hand are connected to destination-specific attributes or outer motivations - attractions or the destination as a whole is so attractive that it is 'pulling' the tourist towards it (Robinson et al, 2011). For instance, the nature-based orientation of most adventure tourism activities requires a destination that has a bounty of natural environments in which they can be performed (Buckley, 2006). Church and Coles (2007) pointed out that Queenstown has a perfect natural environment for the practice of adventurous activities, being nestled in a pristine forested valley on the shores of a deep blue lake, surrounded by magnificent towering peaks all around. These physical attributes make the practice of a variety of adventure tourism pursuits possible; Daniel (2010) stated that Queenstown offers everything that the adventure seeker could ever want, not only plenty of thrills for the adrenalin junkie - bungee jumping, canyon swinging, white water rafting, skiing, skydiving, jet boating, and more (Bender, 2009), but other less challenging things to do, such as, fish, hike, cycle, golf, or tour the local wineries (Callan, 2006); Queenstown is a place that has well and truly earned its reputation as 'The Adventure Capital of the World' (Bender, 2009). It's also known as a 'Natural Theme Park', such are the seemingly endless array of adventure activities and leisure holiday options to choose from. Besides, Queenstown is home to Lord of The Rings, filmed amid the mountains, lakes, rivers and forests (Cabbage Tree Creative Ltd, 2011); Tourist health and safety is now an important concern for travel destinations worldwide (World Tourism Organization, 2002). By world standards, Queenstown is a friendly and safe destination for overseas visitors. Queenstown enjoys a first rate public and private health system. Additionally, Daniel (2010) provided information about a range of safety management activities (e.g. education, prevention materials and lifesaving groups) used to control and reduce the risk of injury to clients.

Overall, tourist motivation to travel the particular tourism destination — Queenstown can be a result of "push" and "pull" factors (Pizam, 2008). As Yoon and Uysal (2005) investigated, the push and pull motivations in a structural model that integrated satisfaction and destination loyalty.



Reference

Cabbage Tree Creative Ltd (2011) Destination Queenstown [online]. [Accessed 30 March 2011]. Available at: <http://www.queenstown-nz.co.nz/>.

Pizam, A. and Mansfeld, Y. (2000) Consumer Behaviour in Travel and Tourism. London: Haworth Hospitality Press.

Swarbrooke, J., Beard, C., Leckie, S. and Pomfret, G. (2003) Adventure Tourism: The New Frontier. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.

The paper has provided a brief and clear discussion about motivations for adventure tourists. Generally, it is agreed that adventure travel is a newly up-and-coming, fast-growing sector within the tourism industry.

Additionally, there has been a discussion as pointed out by (Arnegell et al 2010 in Sung 2004) that while travelling the tourists behavior is determined by the course towards a spiritual or cultural center which could be found either within or outside the traveler own societies. Cohen 1972 in (Sung 2004) goes on explaining that tourist's motivations are based upon the search for pure pleasure (recreational and diversionary modes) at one end of the field through to the quest for reflective meanings (experiential, experimental, and existential modes.
Among the top most motivation for adventure tourism is the natural environment. It has been mentioned as the first and leading one since it provides the setting and backdrop for the tourist's activities such as hiking or rock climbing. However, some cases involve a direct consumptive usage of nature, e.g. in the course of hunting or fishing. All the above mentioned suggest the environment as the major appeal of adventure travel. That is to say, an individual would be engage in adventure travel for the various purposes for example to gain pleasure and personal meaning (experience) through involvement in leisure activities in specific setting (environment).

Moreover, Hall (1992) grouped the motivations linked with adventure travel into risk seeking, self-discovery, self-actualization, contact with nature, and social contact. It is clear that these motivations can be clearly grouped into two involvement fields. The first group, including self-awareness, self-discovery, achievement, and self-actualization, is central to the individual's value system while control, affiliation, and social contact falls into the expression category of individuals self-expressions. Similarly, adventure travel is related with particular activities as a primary motive for trips, as well as the expected products from the participants' experiences in certain environments. At the same time it is the activities that primarily attract individuals to participate in adventure recreation (Ewert 1989; Hall 1992). Traditional forms of adventure recreation regularly mixed up elements of skill in a specific outdoor setting, tourists participation with products is now widely recognized as a significant variable in marketing studies.
In addition, tourism researchers have focused on tourist behavior for better perceptive guides in consuming tourism products and services as well as for causative to the practice of tourism marketing. Relating the behavioral side of adventure travelers to the leisure involvement field, customers in which are the tourists participation in leisure can be incorporated with people's participation in leisure experiences that are interconnected with multidimensional behavioral components: centrality, value, pleasure, interest, and self-expression.

It is clear that adventure travelers are different in terms of their characteristics and thus have specific needs and demands for travel and tourism products and services.

References:

Arnegger,. J, Job,.H, and Woltering, M (2010) Toward a product based typology for nature based tourism: a conceptual framework. Journal of Sustainable Tourism. 18(7) pp 915-928. [Accessed 12 May 2011]. Available at http://www.swetswise.com/

Sung, .H. (2004) Classification of Adventure Travelers, Behavior, Decision Making and Target Markets. Journal of Travel Research. 343(42) [Accessed 12 May 2011]. Available at http://www.swetswise.com/

The author has set the scene by using Queenstown as an example of where adventure tourism takes place. However, the paper doesn't actually give a definition of what adventure tourism is, which is a key area of the paper. Also, they haven't detailed what Queenstown offers their tourists. The author has mentioned that Queenstown has links to adventure tourism, but what are these links?

The discussion paper then goes onto explaining what tourist motivation seeks. The author states that motivations seeks to answer why people want to travel. People may agree with this statement and believe that motivation does help identify why people want to travel. Rather than looking at what motivation is, the author went straight into discussing what the most widespread explanation is. However, they do mention push and pull factors, which would be agreed is a popular tourist motivation model, but ideally it would have been ideal to mention the theorist of the model and why it's a popular. It could be argued that the push and pull factor model maybe useful for finding out what motivates tourists, but it may not be the most useful approach for examining tourists' motivations.

After mentioning the push and pull factor approach, the author went onto talking about each of the factors in more detail. The first was push factors. The definition of push factors can be agreed with, as other theorists agree that push factors motivate or force people to travel away from home. The paper then got confusing as it mentioned most common motivators for adventure tourism, but all that was considered was fun and eager to escape stress. However, it could be argued that there are probably more motives for adventure tourism. The paper got confusing by, instead of the author carrying on the discussion about motives for adventure tourism, they started talking about media. The paper then continued to discuss how the media influences adventure travel. However, there is no mention of how push factors influence tourists to participate in adventurous activities in Queenstown. It doesn't mention Queenstown at all in that paragraph, so what are the push factors for adventure tourism in Queenstown?

The following paragraph, the author went on discussing pull factors. This section was more interesting, as it did mention Queenstown and what it offers tourists who want adventurous activities. The author also goes into more detail about Queenstown, but it can be argued that this detail of Queenstown would have been more appropriate at the beginning of the discussion paper. The reason for this is because this paragraph should only detail the pull factors in which Queenstown pull tourists in wanting to do adventure activities in the area.

Overall the discussion paper was interesting. However, there were some spelling mistakes and grammar errors, which did make certain parts harder to read and understand, compared to other parts. Also, the order of key issues was mixed up in places, so it got confusing about what the author was talking about. The author needed to rearrange paragraphs to make it easier to read.