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394 motivation
family, reference groups, social class, the surrounding
culture and the workplace as the most
important of these. The latter is particularly
significant since it is conducive to compensatory
and spillover effects in various types of travel. Thus,
boring or monotonous jobs may lead to the quest
for excitement, stress may result in a search for
relaxation, and the regimentation of the office or
factory may encourage the pursuit of ludic
activities elsewhere �see play; regression). Alternatively,
type of occupation, especially if selfrewarding,
may stimulate similar interests on a
vacation �such as the history teacher travelling to
an archaeological site). As far as the influence of
home culture is concerned, Parrinello �1993), in a
postmodern context, has noted the tremendous
impact of consumerism and product advertising
on the decision to travel. For her, citizens of
most developed countries live in a tourismsaturated
environment and are daily bombarded
with images of abroad.
Whereas at first glance psychological and sociological
approaches may appear diametrically
opposed, in many respects, they can be regarded
as complementary. Whether one begins or ends
with the individual or society, essentially both are
intertwined. Indeed, if points of convergence rather
than differences are stressed, several worthwhile
advances in tourism motivational research can be
identified. The first sign of mutual progress is a
shared concern for theoretical awareness. Even
though there are intra-paradigmatic differences
attributable to schools or perspectives within each
discipline, some sort of working consensus can be
achieved with respect to terminology. In this
regard, operational definitions can be agreed upon
as to what exactly constitutes motivation, and how
this varies from the allied concepts of aspiration,
intention, reason, purpose, satisfaction, aim and
goal. Thus, most psychologists and sociologists
would concur that when tourists are asked to
complete embarkation forms by stating the purpose
of their trip in terms of business, pleasure or
visiting friends and relatives, these categories,
although possibly useful to the compilers of
statistics, do not represent the full motivational
meaning of a trip. Similarly, they would agree that
many surveys which measure differences between
expectation and reality are in fact dealing with
satisfaction rather than motivation.
Another realm of theoretical convergence is the
appreciation that motives, while reasonable to one
individual, may be far from rational or logical to
another. Hence, a person who, quite reasonably to
himself or herself, seeks self-identity through the
rigours of wilderness travel may be considered
quite irrational by those who wish no more than
relaxation by the hotel swimming pool. Furthermore,
both may be regarded as distinctly odd by
members of a destination community. What is
meaningful and reasonable for one person may be
motivationally senseless for another, especially
when the other is a researcher. The important
point is to realise how situations are defined, and
then seek to monitor rather than to judge them.
A further area of theoretical consensus resides in
the common belief that tourist motivation is futureoriented.
From the psychologist's point of view, the
experience should be seen in the context of longterm
goals. From the sociologist's standpoint,
Alfred Schutz's `in-order-to' motivation is regarded
as imaginatively projected action: as if it had already
taken place as part of a meaningful project. That is
why the verbal and pictorial discourse of tourism
advertising is frequently couched in the future
perfect tense, and why anticipation of a holiday is
so important.
At the methodological level, both psychologists
and sociologists emphasise the significance of an
emic perspective. Pearce, for instance, has shown
that personal accounts of negative and positive
tourism experiences can reveal inferable motives,
whereas the checklist approach of the structured
survey only indicates superficial agreement with
the a priori motivational categories that the
investigator feels are worthy of inclusion. Many
sociologists agree, to the extent that recent
motivational research has employed projective tests
whereby subjects linguistically frame their own
responses to destination images.
Methodologically, too, psychologists and sociologists
both appreciate that tourists may be unwilling,
or even unable, to articulate their real
motives for travel. Shared realisation of this
difficulty has prompted such innovative research
strategies as `systematic lurking' and `conversation
sampling', which focus on the rarely investigated