Tourism Research: How Media Affects Travel Motivation

This report investigates the influence of media on travel motivation, focusing on how media platforms, particularly social media, impact individuals' travel decisions. The research explores the role of media in shaping perceptions of destinations and influencing travel choices. The study employs a quantitative methodology, utilizing surveys to gather data from a target population aged 18-30. The findings reveal that social media plays a significant role in disseminating information and influencing travel choices, with a notable percentage of respondents being influenced by media. The report also discusses the methodology, findings, and discussion of the research, offering insights into how media affects travel behavior and the implications for tourism. The literature review covers the influence of media on travel and social media, including various forms of media and their impact on promoting destinations. The research also includes a survey to gather data on how destinations can increase visitor arrivals by different forms of media.

Running head: TOURISM RESEARCH
Tourism Research
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

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“How does media affect motivation for travel”
Introduction
In the present situation, the 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 to the satisfaction of the people which is
derived when people travel to new places.
Motivation is considered as one of the factors which are 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, the 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 through which people can search and also take views of
the other people in relation to the actual place (Munar& Jacobsen, 2014).
The motivation for travel can be enhanced if the 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.

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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 traveling. People nowadays share their views and experience
through social media sites and due to this, the impact can be seen in 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 the 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 travelers 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).

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The influence of online information services also impacts 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 the place they explore information
and this information can only be gathered with help of social media. So, through the
media, it has been seen that a negative effect can be seen in 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 travelers to visit the best places they want to
visit.
Literature Review
The literature review has a key role in the research process. It is the ground
research theory before deciding on research design or method. There are 2 forms of
literature review, each with specific goals. Firstly, there is primary/explorative
research which is the first stage of the research project. It identifies the current
problems and issues, provides background information for the problem. Secondly

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there is Critical, in-depth research which is conducted after the research question and
hypotheses have been stated. The goal is also attempted to provisionally answers the
research question, also on how other scientific literature should be used, and a
temporary conclusion can take form from the conceptual model and could help refine
the research question.
The literature review is an iterative process and should is repeated multiple
times in order to active the correct data throughout the research. The main steps are
firstly to prepare, which is choosing key terms to search such as names of relevant
authors, organisations, and keywords. This can also include brainstorming, primary
literature search, checking dictionaries and encyclopedias etc. Secondly to conduct
which is looking up literature that has been cited in previously read books and
articles. Thirdly to analyse the articles found and making a summary in your own
words to conclude your findings. And lastly to report which includes writing the
literature report per topic and theme, not per authors and sources.Divergenting
viewpoints and schools of thought are centralised, combined and critically evaluated.
This identifies how previous works will support and enhance your study and is also
intended to find grey areas of knowledge and gaps which indicate the significance of
your research question.
For our literature review we looked at influences on travel and social media,
we then came up with the question “How does media affect motives for travelling to a
destination”. Not only does social media influence an individual but all forms of
media affects people’s decisions. We will look at all the different forms of media and
how each form promotes destinations and how they are advertised to consumers. We
will also conduct a survey to gather data of our own and based on that we will see

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what the options are there and how destinations can increase their visitor arrival by
different forms media.
Methodology
Our chosen research approach was using quantitative methodology as this
would enable us to generalise and be able to replicate the study in the future if
required or see a pattern/comparison. We have also used a few qualitative questions as
this will allow us to dig deeper into our respondents mind and therefore gain a rich set
of data that we will not be able to achieve otherwise and answer our research question
honestly as possible with valid results. This was also done as both qualitative and
quantitative m
ethods each have their weaknesses such as, not being able to understand the context or
any possible bias, so by using a mixture of both, we would achieve more
comprehensive results. Individuals in our reference group between the ages of 18-30
were defined as our target population as we already understand them and we would be
able to identify any discrepancies within our findings and try and resolve it before it’s
too late.
The selected method of data collection was a descriptive survey with the surveys
being administered online using the software Qualtricswhich does not require direct
interaction with the researchers. The results from our sample are then utilised to
generalise to a wider population. Surveys are a beneficial tool to use when you have
limited funds, a large sample or need for a large measure of validity, comparability
and reliability (Jennings, 2010). When creating our questions, most of them resulted
in being close ended single answers as we felt this would be easy for our peers to

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answer and not take up too much of their time. This too will benefit us as these results
will be easy to analyse but we have also created two open ended questions to explain
a close ended one which would provide us with a more in-depth answer and be more
of assistance to us. There are a few disadvantages to using close ended questions
including that it limits our respondent to a range of predetermined answers which may
not be how they truly feel or without room for elaboration and guaranteeing the
answers are mutually exclusive (Cambré, 2012).
We have also used a range of scales including binary and Likert as this provides our
respondents with a wider level of agree or disagreement. Our respondents were
predetermined with our classmates in mind, which meant that this was a non-
probability sampling framework but as we had a limited amount of people, we had to
rely on our friends to generate more data so we could make a fair assumption with
valid and reliable results about our research topic. This suggests that we used
convenience sampling. Once our respondents were selected, each person was sent a
link to the survey which they could complete. After we had received an adequate
amount of results, the next step was to export the collected data to the statistical
software SPSS, where we coded them and generated our graphs and tables which
enabled us to analyse the given results further down the report. Coding qualitative
data is important as this will help us determine the meaning behind the words and see
the main themes, and one of the main quantitative data analysis methods used was
descriptive statistics which describes the results including, measuring the central
tendencies such as the standard deviation and mean (Jennings, 2010).

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Findings/Discussion
Looking at our collected results, we can see that on a scale of 1-10, 34.6% of our
respondents were in the middle when regarding how likely they are to travel to a
destination that has controversial attention from media and with 53.8% of individuals
stating they would go to a destination that is politically controversial such as America.
We also found that 57.7% of people find out what is happening in the world through
social media with the second most used platform being the news with 26.9%. This
could be due to 80.7% being on 3-5 social media platforms and the majority spending
1-2 hours on these platforms. Analysing our crosstab, it can be said that the 34.6%
that are on 3-5 platforms are slightly likely to believe information provided through
media channels compared to those who have less presence on social media which was
only 3 respondents out of our total of 28. It can be argued that those who have a
higher count are more likely to believe due to the frequency of times they will be
faced with news articles and the more times this occurs, the more individuals will
believe this piece of news may be accurate.
The majority of people with 80.8% said that keep up with current affairs only
occasionally and with 34.6% stating the major factor when deciding where to travel to
is from their family and friends recommendation and photos online and expert advice
being joint second. It was also found that 38.5% did a moderate amount of research
before traveling to a different destination with a close second being a lot of research
with 34.6%. Looking at our second cross tab, we can state that those that do follow
the news sometimes were the ones that said that yes they would go to a politically
controversial country with 40% in comparison with the 16% that always keep up with
current affairs and would still go. We have also compared the amount of time spent on
social media with the major factor when deciding where to travel to and found that the

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small amount of people that spend less than 1 hour on social media tend to use expert
advice when deciding where to travel to compared to the 8% of those who spent more
than five hours who base their decision making by looking at photos online. But the
largest factor we found was through family and friends recommendations with 28%
for those who only spent 1-2 hours online.
Recommendation
I would recommend that people must start improving their areas of research. It
has been seen that there is less number of people who spend their time both on the
news and on the media platforms like facebook, twitter, and other such mediums.
People who do not spend their time on the news channels might believe whatever
information is being put on the social media sites is the most true and original one. On
the other hand, people who spend time on social media platforms for a long time will
miss out some essential information like ongoing political controversies and many
other such happenings which might be given in the news. It has been seen from the
research results that 34.6% of the respondents say that they would actually avoid
going to places that are suffering from some political unrest. On the other hand, a
greater portion that is about 53.8% is of the opinion that they would like to travel to
some destinations that are undergoing some political unrest.
This is because they really find it very interesting. So, it is recommended that
these individuals must consider using the other two sources of travel motivation other
than the media and news. They must consider having a discussion with their friends,
family members and some of their relatives who might have an experience of

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travelling to that same place. This will help them to get a wide range of tips and idea
regarding their travel destinations.
So, I would recommend people to open up themselves with all the possible
sources around them before they are about to travel to many places. There are also
some people who have a very less presence on the internet. However, in this modern
day context, the percentage of such people is really loess. It has been seen that among
28 of the respondents that we selected only a mere 3 members were such. They used
to spend a very less amount of time on online media like Facebook. They might
consider browsing through the pictures or some bits and pieces of information that
might be available on the internet. However, this is not enough for taking any travel
decision. It is recommended that people must start updating themselves before they
are planning to visit any place. However, it was said by 80.8% of the respondents that
it is not possible for them to keep a look over the current affairs daily.
They might just look over the current affairs once in a while or on a very
occasional basis. So, it is recommended that they might check all the information that
is being shared on the internet regarding those places. However, they must not just
stop themselves here. They will also have to consult with their friends and their
families who might help them out by adding some extra information that they have
got. It is been that the major source of travel motivation that most of the research
respondents were talking about is discussing with their relatives. It is recommended
that an all-around research is essential before travelling to any place.
Conclusion
So, it can be concluded that this research report has really been very helpful in
the decision the effect of media over the decisions of online travel. It has used both

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the quantitative and the qualitative methods so that the data gathered can be original
and free from any sorts of biases. In order to do this, there has been an extensive
survey. The survey respondents that have been included are the individuals belonging
between the age group of 18-30. This is because 18 to 30 years of age would include
those respondents who have an affinity towards travelling. They either get the
information from what is shared on the news or from the media sources. Apart from
this, it has been seen that the other big source of motivation that people get is from
their friends, family members, and relatives. It has been seen from the research report
that motivation is one of the most important factors that help people in deciding their
places of travel. In order to get this motivation, people use different means like social,
media platforms, news, television, radios, current affairs and also discussion sessions
with their families, friends, and relatives.
The main conclusion that can be drawn out of this research project is that
though people have gained an access to all forms of social media platforms, they still
like to use the methods of discussing with their families before taking any final
decision. However, it cannot be ignored that the online social media sites always
serves as one of the most vital sources of motivation. This ensures that the individuals
are getting a complete authentic information regarding those places that they are about
to travel. However, it is better if people can actually widen the areas of their research
and make sure to gather information from all of these.

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References
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Jennings, G. (2010). Tourism research (2nded.).Milton, Australia: John Wiley & Sons
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