Tourism Research Paper: Analyzing Media's Impact on Travel Motivation

This tourism research essay examines how media affects motivation for travel. It highlights the significant role of media, especially social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, in influencing travel decisions by showcasing destinations and experiences. The essay discusses how travelers gather information and inspiration from online sources, potentially altering their initial plans based on media portrayals. It also addresses the potential negative impacts of media, such as criticisms or negative reviews affecting destination choices. Ultimately, the essay emphasizes the importance of media literacy in making informed travel decisions, leveraging social media and online resources to discover and explore desired destinations.

TOURISM RESEARCH

Tourism research
“How do media affect motivation for travel”
Introduction
In the present situation media plays a great role to motivate the people to travel. It has
been seen that through media people can get to know about the new places. The pictures which
are seen through media motivate them to travel to different places. Also travel motivation is
related with the satisfaction of the people which is derived when people travel to new places.
Motivation is considered as one of the factor which is essential for every employee. It has
been seen that if there is no motivation then it can be difficult for the individual to be happy and
positive towards the activities. So, motivation for travel is also one of the factors that can be
derived by seeing the post of the other people who are visiting at the new places. In this the
major part is related to the media. Media is one of the source through which people can search
and also take views of the other people in relation to the actual place (Munar & Jacobsen, 2014).
Motivation for travel can be enhanced if focus is given on the media. It has been seen
that in the present situation, the people who travel to the new places post their pictures on the
social sites. The pictures are posted by the people on the social sites like Facebook and Twitter
and by seeing the post of other people the other individual can also feel motivate and desires can
be created to visit that particular place (Ngai, Tao & Moon, 2015).
It has also been seen that social media is considered as the group of internet based
applications in which the pictures or the posts are shown on the public platform. Through social
media, people can easily gain the accurate information and it helps in promoting the tourism.
Through social media sites it can be simple for the people to take into consideration the official
tourism website and also the travel agents (Öz, 2015).
Also there are many types of social media platform that can motivate the people to travel.
The types are related to social media sites, blogs, virtual social worlds, virtual games and content
communities. It has been examined that Facebook is considered as the social media platform
through which people can easily grab the information related to travelling. People nowadays
share their views and experience through social media sites and due to this the impact can be
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Tourism research
seen on the overall decision making process of the people. The people feel motivated and happy
to take decisions by discussing with the people of the social network sites.
Problem statement
The problem statement is related with “Impact of media on travel”. Media also impact the
decisions of the people. It has been seen that when people plan to visit a particular place then
they search it on various media platform like on social platform. So, by searching on these it has
been seen that their views and opinion for the particular place changes and also it can change the
entire decision of the individual. It has also been seen that travellers gather the information from
the sources before going to visit the place and sometimes by seeing the post of the other people
they feel motivated to visit the place. So, media sometimes enhance the desire of the individual
to explore the places and also it sometimes change the decision of the customers towards places
(Tanford & Montgomery, 2015).
The influence of online information services also impact the overall plan of the people to
visit the place. It has become an important source for the travelers to gather the information at
the time of planning a trip (Amaro, Duarte & Henriques, 2016).
Also it has been seen that if through other media sources like television or radio, a place
is criticized or negative factors has been analyzed then it can impact the overall planning of the
individual and also it can change the entire plan of the individual. It has been seen that when
people visit to the place they explore information and this information can only be gathered with
help of social media. So, through media it has been seen that negative affect can be seen on the
decision making process as customers can easily analyze the actual situation of the place (Chung
& Koo, 2015).
Through social media it has been seen that customers can view the pictures of the
destinations and according to that their overall mindset changes towards visiting a particular
place. So, it is important for the people to take the right decision by focusing on the media or
sources of media like social media as it can help to gather the information and can also motivate
the travellers to visit the best places they want to visit.
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References
Amaro, S., Duarte, P., & Henriques, C. (2016). Travelers’ use of social media: A clustering
approach. Annals of Tourism Research, 59(6), 1-15.
Chung, N., & Koo, C. (2015). The use of social media in travel information search. Telematics
and Informatics, 32(2), 215-229.
Munar, A. M., & Jacobsen, J. K. S. (2014). Motivations for sharing tourism experiences through
social media. Tourism management, 43(5), 46-54.
Ngai, E. W., Tao, S. S., & Moon, K. K. (2015). Social media research: Theories, constructs, and
conceptual frameworks. International Journal of Information Management, 35(1), 33-44.
Öz, M. (2015). Social media utilization of tourists for travel-related purposes. International
Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 27(5), 1003-1023.
Tanford, S., & Montgomery, R. (2015). The effects of social influence and cognitive dissonance
on travel purchase decisions. Journal of Travel Research, 54(5), 596-610.
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