motivation for leisure case study

Demographic factors and travel motivation among leisure tourists in Tanzania

International Hospitality Review

ISSN : 2516-8142

Article publication date: 3 April 2020

Issue publication date: 14 July 2020

To examine demographic factors and travel motivations among leisure tourists in Tanzania. Specifically by examining the influence of demographic factors on travel motivation among local and international leisure tourists in Tanzania.

Design/methodology/approach

Approach is quantitative and applied descriptive statistics, independent t -test and ANOVA.

The findings showed that age, gender and family size as demographic factors significantly influenced travel motivation among local and international leisure tourists.

Research limitations/implications

Future studies to consider different approaches including collection of data during the peak season, use qualitative method and conduct studies in other parts of the country to explore demographic factors and travel motivations of tourists.

Practical implications

To assist tourism stakeholders in their design of promotional tools to market tourism products/services to different tourists as opposed to homogeneous marketing campaigns.

Originality/value

Examined the influence of demographic factors and travel motivation among local and international leisure tourists in the context of Tanzania.

Demographic factors

Travel motivation.

• Leisure tourists

Kara, N.S. and Mkwizu, K.H. (2020), "Demographic factors and travel motivation among leisure tourists in Tanzania", International Hospitality Review , Vol. 34 No. 1, pp. 81-103. https://doi.org/10.1108/IHR-01-2020-0002

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Nasra Shoka Kara and Kezia Herman Mkwizu

Published in International Hospitality Review . Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

Introduction

Travel motivation is commonly acknowledged as a crucial concept to most tourism professionals and theorists ( Lam and Hsu, 2006 ). Travel motivation has been known as a driving force behind understanding behavior ( Venkatesh, 2006 ). The concept of travel motivation is not new ( Pearce and Caltabiano, 1983 ). Researchers around the globe have applied travel motivation to determine individual's satisfaction level ( Snepenger et al. , 2006 ; Lemmetynen et al. , 2016 ; Celik and Dedeoglu, 2019 ; Preko et al. , 2019 ), predict leisure participation levels ( Yan and Halpenny, 2019 ), identify travel patterns ( Pearce, 1987 ; Cavagnaro and Staffieri, 2015 ), understand tourists’ travel decisions and consumption behavior ( Chang et al. , 2015 ) as well as to develop more effective strategies and policies to increase demand for tourism ( Heung et al. , 2001 ; Papatheodorou, 2006 ). The complex nature of this concept has pushed many researchers to come up with different travel motives. However, the central themes behind it revolved around push and pull factors/motives. Push and pull factors have been extensively employed to assess tourists' travel motivations ( Kanagaraj and Bindu, 2013 ; Michael et al. , 2017 ; Wijaya et al. , 2018 ).

In Tanzania, tourism plays a significant role in the country's economy and one among the crucial sectors in generating foreign exchange ( Tanzania Tourism Sector Survey, 2018 ). The sector indirectly offered 1,452,000 jobs in 2017 from 1,389,000 jobs offered in 2016 ( WTTC, 2017 ). Tourism in Tanzania generates about 17.5% of the total country's GDP and 25% of total foreign currency earnings ( Tanzania Tourism Sector Report, 2017 ). Tanzania is famously known for tourist attractions and home to the famous Roof of Africa, the Mount Kilimanjaro. Following these attractions, Tanzania has pulled thousands of international visitors from different parts of the world, thereby making the country be known as one of the competitive tourist destinations in sub-Saharan Africa ( Mkumbo, 2010 ). The WTTC (2017) projects a rising trend by 6.8% in 2027 of 2,267,000 international tourists to Tanzania.

On the other hand, the arrivals of domestic tourists to various tourist attractions in the country are not in the same pace as international travel market. Factors such as limited promotion, awareness, low income, inadequate information, media usage, marketing and service quality challenges such as infrastructure and trained staff have been reported to be among the factors affecting the performance of domestic tourism in Tanzania ( Wade et al. , 2001 ; Mariki et al. , 2011 ; Mkwizu, 2018a ; 2019 ; Mkwizu et al. , 2018 ). Some of the initiatives were done by the government to boost the travel market including setting preferential rates, establishment of the tourism training college for training purposes and introduction of intensive marketing campaigns to create awareness of tourism attractions. Despite all these efforts, there are more international tourists than locals visiting national parks. In 2018–2019, there were 731,351 international tourists compared to 464,933 locals that visited national parks ( Tanzania National Parks, 2019 ). The differences in tourist numbers can be attributed to the fact that Tanzania is the only country in the world that has allocated 25% of her land for wildlife and game-controlled reserves ( Tanzania Tourism Sector Survey, 2018 ). On the other hand, domestic tourists have been seen traveling mainly to visit their friends or relatives and sometimes they travel for leisure ( Mariki et al. , 2011 ). Therefore, there is need for more studies on whether the importance of travel motivations differs among the two groups.

Literature on consumer behavior acknowledges that travel motivation and needs are related ( Goodall, 1988 ), and this means that tourists may decide to take a vacation to satisfy their physiological needs such as food, health and learning. However, the decision of choosing a given destination to visit has been closely linked with sociodemographic characteristics. Woodside and Lysonski (1989) , Um and Crompton (1990) and Moscardo et al. (1996) are among the earliest studies that examined the role of demographic factors on tourists' destination choice with findings showing a link between demographic factors and visitors’ participation in tourism activities. For instance, increasing free time and disposable income have provided people with an opportunity to take part in outdoor activities ( Ibrahim and Cordes, 1993 ). Factors such as age and family structure have an impact on the decision of an individual to participate in leisure activities ( Foot, 2004 ) .

Demand for leisure is also affected by individuals' age and gender ( Mieczkowski, 1990 ; Collin and Tisdell, 2002 ). Collin and Tisdell (2002) found that demographic factors have a role to play in influencing visitors' participation in tourism activities as well as the selection of vacation destination. What is not known is the role that demographic factors such as age, gender and family size play in influencing tourists’ travel motivation in Tanzania. Studies that examined the influence of demographic factors on travel motivation in Tanzania are limited. Existing literature in Tanzania has mainly examined demographic factors in relation to nature-based tourism and media such as Mariki et al. (2011) and Mkwizu (2018a) . Therefore, this study intends to uncover the missing gap by examining demographic factors and travel motivation among local and international leisure tourists in Tanzania.

Furthermore, this study is important in providing insight information on various demographic factors such as age, gender and marital status in influencing tourists’ travel motivation particularly for Tanzania. The information from this study can help tourism stakeholders to segment tourists based on their demographic traits.

Literature review

Travel motivation is viewed as an internal force that arouses and pushes an individual from choosing a particular destination with the intention of getting the desired benefits and satisfaction ( Pyo et al. , 1989 ; Yoon and Uysal, 2005 ). Motivation is viewed as a sociopsychological factor that pushes an individual to a new destination and take part in leisure activities ( Iso-Ahola, 1982 ; Beard and Ragheb, 1983 ). This study defines travel motivation as an internal motive that drives a particular tourist to take a leisure trip in Tanzania.

The complex nature of travel motivation has caused many researchers to come up with different travel motives. However, a good number of them focused on push and pull factors. These dimensions have been used extensively in most of motivation studies ( Kim and Lehto, 2013 ). Due to the importance of these two factors, researchers such as Dann (1977) , Crompton (1979) , Iso-Ahola (1982) and Epperson (1983) developed different motivation dimensions based on the idea of push and pull travel motives.

Mazilu and Mitroi (2010) defined demographic factors as descriptive segmentation technique, whereby sociodemographic factors are directly involved. Examples of sociodemographic factors commonly used by tourism experts ( Ma et al. , 2018 ; Mkwizu, 2018a , 2018b ) include age, gender, family life cycle, education, income and nationality. These variables are believed to be accurate in describing tourism market and predicting travel behavior patterns ( Weaver and Oppermann, 2000 ).

Age is considered to be a crucial demographic factor by tourism stakeholders because leisure demand can effectively be predicted through visitors' age ( Mieczkowski, 1990 ). Age is reported to have positive influence on individual's desire for relaxation and nature exploration ( Ma et al. , 2018 ). According to Spence (2002) , the probability of an individual to participate in wildlife activities varies with age, meaning that the probability of activity participation increases when an individual is young and decreases as that individual grows old.

Gender is one of the major factors influencing travel demand ( Collin and Tisdell, 2002 ). The travel patterns between men and women vary based on their travel motivation. According to Collin and Tisdell (2002) , men travel more than women. Men travel for business-related activities while women do travel mainly for visiting friends and relatives and prefer taking shorter-distance trips compared to men ( Moriarty and Honnery, 2005 ). Females are reported to be highly involved in shopping and are more affected by intrapersonal or structural constraints than men ( Josiam et al. , 2005 ; Andronikidis et al. , 2008 ). Cost, time and family commitments are among limitations for women to be active in travel activities ( Scott, 2005 ; Alexandris and Carrol, 1997 ). As a result, women have been seen participating more in shopping, dining and cultural activities than outdoor activities such as skiing while men are more likely to participate in adventure activities ( Xie et al. , 2008 ).

Marital status is one of the factors that affect vacation decisions ( Kattiyapornpong and Miller, 2008 ). It is important for marketers to have such information because they can use such details to predict one's travel patterns. For instance, Lee and Bhargava (2004) found that married couples spend less time enjoying leisure than singles. This is due to the fact that married couples have social and family obligations that limit their time to undertake holiday vacation or participate in sports activities ( Henderson, 1990 ; Downward and Rasciute, 2010 ). Singles prefer shorter but frequent trips ( Biearnat and Lubowiecki-Vikuk, 2012 ). Singles are assumed to have more free time to engage in various activities compared to those with a family, for example, more time playing musical instruments, singing, dancing, watching TV and traveling for social activities ( Lee and Bhargava, 2004 ). The literature further highlights that Passias et al. (2017) found that never-married mothers have more time to spend on leisure than married mothers. In contrast, Vernon (2010) suggests that married women have more time to engage in leisure than single mothers. For the purpose of this study, age, gender and marital status were included in the analysis. The reason for these factors is due to the fact that there is limited information regarding the roles they play in influencing travel motivation of tourists in the context of Tanzania.

The Beard and Ragheb travel motivation theory

Beard and Ragheb (1983) developed the leisure motivation variables based on the idea from the work of Maslow (1970) . The leisure motivation theory contains four major travel motives, which determine satisfaction that a visitor may gain from taking part in leisure activities. The travel factors identified were: “Intellectual” – these include items such as learning and exploring; “social” – covers the desire for developing friendship and esteem of others; “competence-mastery” – involves issues such as health and fitness and lastly “stimulus avoidance” – which simply describes the desire to relax and escape the routine life. This study employs the Beard and Ragheb theory for the purpose of assessing tourist travel motivation. Beard and Ragheb's theory was chosen because since its establishment in 1983, many researchers ( Mohsin et al. , 2017 ; Albayrak and Caber, 2018 ; Jia et al. , 2018 ) have employed and validated it.

In 1983, Beard and Ragheb also noted that using leisure motivation scale (LMS) to study travel motivation is reliable due to the 32 items measuring Cronbach's alpha ranging from 0.89 to 0.91. Past scholars such as Yusof and Shah (2008) and Chen et al. (2018) have used LMS by Beard and Raghed (1983) to study motivation in tourism. For example, Chen et al. (2018) explored travel motivation for Chinese residents using LMS of 32 items to measure motivation due to its reliability and validity. Chen et al. (2018) found that there were significant differences of gender, marital status and education in leisure behaviors. This study not only used the Beard and Ragheb theory but also applied LMS by Beard and Ragheb (1983) due to its reliability and validity.

Demographic factors and travel motivation

Several researchers have examined travel motivation in relation to demographic factors. Some of these works include a work by Saayman and Saayman (2009) . Researchers examined the relationship between sociodemographic, behavioral and motivational factors for tourists that visited Addo Elephant National Park. The findings of this study revealed that tourists were motivated to travel to the national park because of the need for nature, activities, escape, attractions, photography, family and socialization. It was further pointed out that both sociodemographic and motivational factors influence visitors’ spending decisions.

Differences in travel motivation are noted in past studies such as You et al. (2000) , Kozak (2002) , Jönsson and Deonish (2008) , Kim and Prideaux (2005) , Fan et al. (2015) , Gu et al. (2015) , Albayrak and Caber (2018) and Marques et al. (2018) . The findings of these studies concluded that travel motives differ among travelers from different countries ( You et al. , 2000 ; Kim and Prideaux, 2005 ), among students from different countries ( Marques et al. , 2018 ), across various destinations and nationalities ( Kozak, 2002 ), among tourists participated in white water rafting activity ( Albayrak and Caber, 2018 ), across different forms of tourism ( Gu et al. , 2015 ) as well as those from different countries visiting the same destination ( Jönsson and Deonish, 2008 ).

Yung-Kun et al. (2015) explored factors related to tourists' motivation to visit Taiwan as well as the demographic segmentation of these foreign tourists. The results indicated that push motivation factors such as enlightenment, freedom, shopping, diverse attractions, culture connections, sport facilities and wildlife play a crucial role in the motivation of foreign tourists. These tourists were later clustered into five main motivation groups to include scenery/knowledge seekers, accessibility/expenditure seekers, relaxation/relation seekers, novelty/experience seekers, sport/service seekers based on five demographic traits (gender, age, marital status, nationality and income).

Additionally, Fan et al. (2015) compared motivation and intention of cruise passengers from different demographic profiles in China. They found that travelers from different demographic caliber differ in terms of their travel motivation. For example, singles had higher mean values for travel motivations such as discovering and exploring nature than those who were married. Researchers believed that singles have ample time and freedom to try new and exciting things compared to married travelers. Furthermore, Ma et al. (2018) examined the relationship among tourists' sociodemographic characteristics, motivation and satisfaction as a way of predicting their visitation patterns and travel behaviors to forest nature reserves in Guangdong. The findings from multiple regression analysis revealed that some of the sociodemographic factors had a role to play in influencing travel motivation. For example, age was positively correlated with travel motivation called sense of relaxation and nature exploration. However, education level negatively influenced social travel motivation.

Older people or senior travelers are motivated by the desire for novelty ( Jönsson and Deonish, 2008 ). However, a study by Luo and Deng (2008) found age negatively influenced travel motivation and that younger tourists prefer seeking for novelty compared to older travelers. A study by Mohsin (2008) was done to examine the impact of sociodemographic variables on Mainland Chinese holidaymakers who traveled to New Zealand. The overall findings of one-way ANOVA revealed that there is a significant relationship between travel motivation and demographic factors such age and educational level. The findings are supported by previous studies of Park and Mok (1998) that travel motivation varies with age. Irimias et al. (2016) conducted a study aimed at exploring demographic characteristics in influencing religious tourism behavior among 345 Hungarians who traveled for pilgrimage. It was found that their travel motives differ with age; senior travelers see educational purposes and feelings of national identity related to sacred sites as crucial travel motives while young tourists did not picture that to be of any value to their travel motives. Njagi et al. (2017) conducted a study to provide an in-depth understanding of the factors affecting travel motivation of youth travelers in Kenya. The study revealed that push factors are more crucial in influencing youth travelers in Kenya than the pull travel motives.

The overall findings from the previous studies confirmed that sociodemographic factors have a role to play in influencing tourists’ travel motivation. However, these studies focused more on push and pull factors among youth travelers in Kenya ( Njagi et al. , 2017 ) and among travelers who traveled to Taiwan ( Yung-Kun et al. , 2015 ). Furthermore, the existing studies also looked at the relationships between sociodemographic factors and travel motivation among cruise passengers who traveled to China ( Fan et al. , 2015 ), those who traveled to national parks ( Saayman and Saayman 2009 ) and those who traveled to sacred places for religious purposes ( Irimias et al. , 2016 ). From the reviewed literature, it is evident that sociodemographic factors are crucial in predicting travel patterns of tourists.

However, there are still inconclusive remarks regarding the influence of sociodemographic factors on travel motivation. For example, age was reported to be among the key factors affecting travel motivation ( Irimias et al. , 2016 ; Ma et al. , 2018 ). On the other hand, age was reported to have a negative effect on travel motivation ( Luo and Deng, 2008 ). Other demographic factors such as education were also reported to have a negative effect on travel motivation ( Ma et al. , 2018 ) while marital status was seen to be a significant factor in influencing travel motivation among cruise passengers ( Fan et al. , 2015 ). Furthermore, the existing studies such as Baniya and Paudel (2016) have examined the effects of demographic factors on travel motivation using push and pull items. Other studies in Tanzania ( Wade et al. , 2001 ; Mariki et al. , 2011 ; Mkwizu, 2018a ; 2018b ; 2019 ; Mkwizu et al. , 2018 ) have focused on nature-based tourism, history, market analysis and media. Therefore, this study specifically intended to examine the extent to which demographic factors such as age, gender and marital status influenced travel motivation among local and international leisure tourists guided by the motivation theory and scale items developed by Beard and Ragheb (1983) .

Methodology

Research instrument.

The research questionnaire was divided into two major parts. The first part covered general information about the respondents. Demographic information such as age, gender, marital status and family size. This section composed of six questions. The second part comprised information related to tourists' travel motivation. Respondents were asked to rank the list of travel motivation statements according to their level of importance, indicating whether those statements describe their travel motivation on a Likert scale of 1 ( Not important at all ) to 7 ( Extremely important ). Examples of travel motivation items were to learn things around me, to challenge my abilities and to relax mentally. This study employed Likert scale developed by Kozak (2002) , who highlighted that Likert scale is appropriate to be used in tourist-based studies. This study adopted the shortest version of LMS, which consists of 32 items to measure different travel motives because of its Cronbach's alpha reliability ranging from 0.89 to 0.91 as pointed out by Beard and Ragheb (1983) . The shortest version is appropriate to be used in a research constrained by time and can be applied within less time compared to 48 items from the original scale ( Beard and Ragheb, 1983 ).

Sampling design

A convenience sampling technique was adopted to get the appropriate sample for the study. Ferber (1977) noted that convenience sampling as one form of nonprobability sampling can reduce the impact of nonrandom convenience sampling by making sure that the generated findings are a true representative of the population. Additionally, convenience sampling is one among the appropriate sampling technique s to be used when collecting data from the actual tourist settings ( Madrigal and Kahle, 1994 ).

Data collection

This study used a quantitative approach and survey strategy as the research design. Before collection of data, the survey instrument was pretested by distributing the questionnaires to 50 international tourists found on the beaches of Zanzibar and Pemba islands. Respondents were randomly and conveniently selected to take part in the study. The pretesting exercise was done to assess the survey suitability, readability, eliminate any vague items and determine the response rate. Data was collected from January 2017 to May 2017. A self-administered open-ended questionnaire was employed to 300 local and international tourists who traveled to and within Tanzania for leisure. Tourists at the Julius Nyerere International Airport lounges and those on the beaches of the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba were conveniently approached and asked to take part in the study. The decision to take part in the study was left entirely to tourists. Those who agreed to participate in the study were given a survey questionnaire to fill in.

Data analysis

The collected data was analyzed using the aid of a Social Science Statistical Package (SPSS) version 20. This study selected SPSS, which has descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentages in order to avail demographic characteristics of the respondents. In addition, the independent sample t -test was used to test the differences in travel motivation among local and international tourists. ANOVA assisted this study to test the effect of the independent variable (demographic factors) on the dependent variable (travel motivation). Data was cleaned first to check whether there was missing data, outliers and determine the data distribution pattern before analysis. Cronbach's alpha coefficients were employed for purposes of examining internal data consistency. Content, construct, convergent and discriminant validities were tested using CFA.

Respondents' demographic characteristics

Out of 300 surveys from each group, only 250 from each group were recognized as a useable survey, representing a token useable return rate of 83%. The overall descriptive statistics from Table 1 shows that most tourists from each group were between the ages of 18 and 30 (45.6% for internationals and 49.2% for locals), and less than 10% were covered by the senior tourists (4.4% for internationals and 6% for locals). The gender distribution showed that majority of international tourists were males (61.2%) and also for local tourists most were males (61.8%). Over 50% of all tourists had a university education and employed in different fields. On marital status, 53.2% of all the international tourists were married while 49% of all locals were married.

The findings in Table 1 further indicate that 47% of internationals and 51.2% of all locals were singles. On family size distribution, the majority of international tourists have three children and above while 40% of all locals proved to have less than three children. This suggests that the sampled respondents were mostly young educated male tourists who are employed. In addition, the differences between the international and local tourists are noted in marital status.

Furthermore, Table 2 indicates that the largest group of international tourists was from South Africa (10%) followed by Australia (8.8%) and Kenya (8%). There were very few international tourists from countries such as Bangladesh, Brazil, Cameroon and Zurich. These results suggest that the young educated male international tourists were mostly from South Africa.

Reliability results

The alpha coefficient for the total scale was 0.933 and the alpha values for each of the subscales ranged from 0.880 to 0.907, which are above the acceptable threshold (0.70) as suggested by Hair et al. (1998) . The summary of the results is presented in Table 3 .

Validity results

All 32 travel motivation items were subjected to CFA for validity testing as it is presented in Table 4 . Content validity for the observed items was tested for consistency, easy of understanding and appropriateness by members of the academic staff together with tourist experts. Construct validity was examined using composite reliability (CR) and average variance explained (AVE). The overall findings indicate that CR and AVE surpassed the threshold values of 0.70 and 0.50, respectively ( Yap and Khong, 2006 ). Therefore, it can be concluded that the indicators for all constructs met the reliability thresholds and thus qualified for further analyses. Convergent validity indicated that the standardized factor loadings for all the items were above the acceptable range of 0.5 as indicated by Tabachnick and Fidell (2007) . In this study, all the CR and AVE were above the recommended value of 0.7 and 0.5 respectively. Discriminant validity was assessed using Fornell and Larcker’s approach of 1981. In order to achieve discriminant validity, AVE of each construct was compared with the shared variance between two constructs. For all the items, the AVE was higher than the shared variance (MSV). The results indicated that all the constructs had acceptable discriminant validity as presented in Table 4 .

Assumptions guiding independent t -test

Data normality.

Before testing for the differences in travel motivation among the tourists, data normality was performed using descriptive statistics. Skewness and kurtosis values were used to determine data normality. Meyers et al. (2006) highlighted that if the values of skewness and kurtosis range within ± 1.00, these are evidence of data normality. Pallant (2011) advised that when one is dealing with large enough sample sizes (e.g. 30+), the violation of normality assumption may not cause any significant problems. For this study, the skewness and kurtosis values were within the cutoff points as was highlighted by Meyers et al. (2006) and Pallant (2011) .

Differences in the importance of travel motivation among international and local leisure tourists

An independent sample t -test was conducted to test whether the importance of travel motivation differs among international and local tourists. This meant comparing travel motivation mean scores for international and local tourists. First of all Levene's test was performed to see whether there was equal variance in the data set. The overall results show that this assumption was met in eight travel motivation items ( p  ≥ 0.005) while for the rest of the travel motivation items, the assumption was violated as it is presented in Table 5 , Table 6 , Table 7 and Table 8 . The results in Table 5 , Table 6 , Table 7 and Table 8 indicate that there was significant difference in scores for travel motivation among international and local leisure tourists. In Table 5 , the findings show that local tourists had higher mean values than international tourists for travel motivation (intellectual motivation) such as to learn about myself ( M  = 5.67, SD = 1.288), to explore new ideas ( M  = 5.73, SD = 1.294), to expand my knowledge ( M  = 6.05, SD = 1.136), to be creative ( M  = 5.68, SD = 1.494), to use my imagination ( M  = 5.22, SD = 1.757) and to satisfy my curiosity ( M  = 5.81, SD = 1.265).

In Table 6 , the findings show that local tourists had higher mean values compared to international tourists for travel motivation (social motivation) such as to build friendship with others ( M  = 5.70, SD = 1.353), to interact with others ( M  = 5.66, SD = 1.428), to develop close friendships ( M  = 5.47, SD = 1.573), to reveal my thoughts ( M  = 5.11, SD = 1.657), to be socially competent and skillful ( M  = 5.66, SD = 1.425), to gain a feeling of belonging ( M  = 5.62, SD = 1.387) and to gain others' respect ( M  = 5.24, SD = 1.827).

Table 7 indicates that local tourists had higher mean values than international tourists for travel motivation (mastery competency motivation) such as to be active ( M  = 5.76, SD = 1.296), to develop physical skills and abilities ( M  = 5.59, SD = 1.375), to keep in shape physically ( M  = 5.39, SD = 1.702), to use my physical abilities ( M  = 5.28) and to develop physical fitness ( M  = 5.21, SD = 1.685). The remaining mastery competency motives had no significant differences.

Table 8 reveals that local tourists had higher mean values for travel motivation (stimulus avoidance motivation) such as to calm down ( M  = 4.89, SD = 1.674), to be alone ( M  = 3.32, SD = 2.064), to relax physically ( M  = 5.39, SD = 1.499), to relax mentally ( M  = 5.63, SD = 1.426), to rest ( M  = 5.53, SD = 1.508), to relieve stress and tension ( M  = 5.48, SD = 1.506) as well as to unstructure my time ( M  = 5.48, SD = 1.506) compared to international tourists. The remaining stimulus avoidance motives had no significant differences.

Differences in travel motivation among tourists by age, gender and family size

Univariate ANOVA tests the interaction between each dependent variable with an independent variable; in short, ANOVA explains changes in the dependent variable, which are caused by the interaction between the independent variables. First, multivariate tests were performed to assess whether there is a significant effect between independent and dependent variables. Second, univariate ANOVA was applied to examine the effect of independent variables on specific dependent variable. Previous scholars have also used ANOVA in examining demographic factors with motivation such as Urosevic et al. (2016) . Using Pillai's trace results in Table 9 indicated that there was significant effect between travel motivation across age F (96.000) = 1.396, p  = 0.008, across gender F (32.000) = 2.005, p  = 0.001, across family size F (32.000) = 2.610, p  = 0.000, across the interaction between age and family F (96.000) = 1.154, p  = 0.023 as well as the interaction between age, gender and family size F (96.000) = 1.514, p  = 0.001.

A separate ANOVA shown in Table 10 was performed to each travel motivation at alpha level of 0.005, and it was found that there were significant difference s among age groups on the need to develop physical skills and abilities F (312.594) = 4.972, p  = 0.002 while for males and females results show the desire to explore new ideas among age groups F (18.906) = 4.451, p  = 0.035 and the desire to discover new things F (16.081) = 3.899, p  = 0.049.

Furthermore, the results indicated that desire to develop physical skills and abilities was significantly different among tourists who have small and large family size F (156.811) = 22.428, p  = 0.000. Other differences were reflected on travel motivation such as the desire to develop physical fitness F (167.625) = 18.772, p  = 0.000 as well as to unstructure my time F (150.424) = 14.955, p  = 0.000.

This study also examined the contribution of the interaction effects of the independent variables on the dependent variable. Table 10 shows that the interaction between age and family size was significant to travel motivation such as to relieve stress and tension F (319.051) = 6.112, p  = 0.000, to develop physical fitness F (320.517) = 5.695, p  = 0.001, ŋ 2  = 0.034, to unstructure my time F (318.159) = 5.386, p  = 0.001, as well as to use my physical abilities F (311.260) = 3.322, p  = 0.020. Additionally, the interaction effect between age, gender and family size was significant to travel motivation such as to satisfy my curiosity F (35.223) = 2.693, p  = 0.046, as well as to develop close friendships with others F (38.729) = 2.634, p  = 0.049.

Discussions of findings

This study reveals that leisure tourists from Australia, Kenya, South Africa, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and United States were motivated to travel to the country with the intention of discovering and learning new things. Furthermore, similar groups of tourists were extremely motivated to visit Tanzania for the sake of relaxing mentally, revealing stress and tensions of their daily routine activities. The results imply that leisure tourists may have more than a single travel motive when visiting a particular destination. These findings support the idea developed by Crompton (1979) that tourists' motivations are multiple and because of that they may have different reasons of taking either domestic or international trips ( Mayo and Jarvis, 1981 ). Researchers also add that some people take trips not only to fulfill their physiological desires (food, climate and health) but also to satisfy their psychological needs.

Furthermore, the study also found that tourists from the United Kingdom and United States had strong views that they were motivated to visit the country for social reasons such as building friendship with others. This can be explained by differences in tourists' culture. It has been identified that there are motivational differences between nationalities ( Kozak, 2002 ). Culture associated with nationality has been extensively acknowledged to be one among the crucial factors differentiating individuals’ attitudes, beliefs and behaviors ( Chen, 2000 ). National culture can be employed to reveal variations in the social behavior of different nationalities, especially in international settings such as tourism experiences ( Kim et al. , 2002 ). The findings of this study confirmed the results reported by Özdemir and Yolal (2016) that Americans and British people prefer to interact and socialize with other tourists when they travel. Additionally, Kozak (2002) pointed out that British tourists enjoy mixing themselves and having fun with other tourists when they travel. It seems that Tanzania is attracting tourists who have psychocentric personality. Individuals of this nature prefer visiting familiar places, having fun and relaxing when visiting new destinations ( Plog, 1974 ).

Surprisingly, this study found that tourists, mainly from Kenya and South Africa, were motivated strongly to travel to the country for the intention of competing and being good at participating in leisure activities. This can be explained by the differences in the level of novelty seeking among tourists. Novelty seeking is one among the key reasons why tourists travel to new destinations ( Dayour and Adongo, 2015 ). The findings of this study show that there is a possibility that tourists from Kenya and South Africa are sensation seekers. Individuals of this nature are risk takers, and this is why they prefer to travel to unfamiliar destinations ( Pizam et al. , 2004 ). Generally, tourists are attracted differently to different tourist attractions, and this is because they have different levels of tolerance for tourism experiences. Some people choose destinations where they can unwind their daily routine life while others look for destinations that can offer adventure life. The choice of a destination can sometimes be linked to tourists' personality traits. The findings of this study imply that Kenyans and South Africans may be allocentrics. Individuals of this caliber are usually seeking for arousal from unexpected and surprising stimuli ( Ryan, 1997 ), they are outgoing, confident, relatively anxiety free, like to feel in control, prefer to visit new destinations, desire to explore the world around them and are moderately risk takers ( Plog, 1973 , 1974 ).

This study found that there was no significant differences in travel motivation among leisure tourists who are single and those who are married. However, a minor difference was revealed on intellectual travel motives to single leisure tourists. It was revealed that single leisure tourists were highly motivated to travel to Tanzania for intellectual purpose. This finding is consistent with a study by Fan et al. (2015) that single people place higher value when it comes to discovering and learning new things compared to married ones. The finding of this study is not surprising since Tanzania is blessed with multiple tourist attractions ranging from game reserves, controlled conservation areas and national parks ( URT, 2014 ). Other attractions include Mount Kilimanjaro, museums, historical sites and buildings. Following these attractions, it is not surprising to see single leisure tourists travel to the country for intellectual reasons.

The findings further indicated that married leisure tourists were more motivated to travel to the country, mainly by their desire to unwind their daily life's hustle. This could be due to the fact that married couples spend less time enjoying leisure than singles. In addition, married couples have social and family obligations that limit their time to undertake holidays ( Henderson, 1990 ) or participate in learning activities as singles. For them, escaping travel motive makes sense since they have been experiencing routine hectic daily life; therefore, it is understandable to see them ranking this motive important. This finding somehow corroborates the views of Leonard and Onyx (2009) that relaxation and escape motivations are two key psychological motives that drive people to take overseas trips. The desire to take a vacation is closely associated with the desire to escape ( Jarvis and Peel, 2010 ). Therefore, tourists often choose to take a vacation to a new destination with the intention of breaking from the daily routine life of home and work ( Kim and Ritchie, 2012 ). The break gives people an opportunity to refresh their minds by taking active role in nonroutine leisure activities ( Ritchie et al. , 2010 ) as well as offering a platform for them to liberate themselves from tension and anxiety.

Furthermore, the study revealed that married leisure tourists traveled to the country for social reasons. This finding is somehow consistent with the study by Passias et al. (2017) that married mothers prefer to spend quality time with their children by engaging themselves in both active and social leisure compared to single mothers. Generally, tourism offers opportunity to bring people of different cultural backgrounds together ( Brown and Lehto, 2005 ), but also offers avenue for them to meet and communicate with others ( Dayour, 2013 ). This study also found that married leisure tourists had higher mean scores for mastery competency travel motives compared to singles. This finding implies that may be Tanzania attracts married leisure tourists who are sensational seekers because tourists differ in the way they consume and obtain novel experience ( Lee and Crompton, 1992 ). Tourists who are high sensational seekers prefer to engage in adventure activities such as scuba diving ( Heyman and Rose, 1980 ) as well as mountain climbing ( Robinson, 1985 ). This group also prefers to travel to new places or meeting new people ( Zuckerman, 1979 ). This finding can be supported by the fact that Tanzania is endowed with more than eight known mountains that attract international tourists from all over the world. Moreover, the country is surrounded with both sandy and clean beaches that offer opportunity for tourists to take part in scuba diving and other water sports activities.

Therefore, the discussion of results for this study has theoretical, practical and policy implications, which are further highlighted in the implications section of this paper.

Conclusions

Based on the findings and discussions, this study can conclude that in examining demographic factors and travel motivation among leisure tourists, there are influential factors. The demographic factors that influence travel motivation (intellectual, social, mastery competency and stimulus avoidance) among local and international leisure tourists in the context of Tanzania are age, gender and family size.

Implications

Theoretical implication.

The overall findings from this study imply that theoretically, the Beard and Ragheb leisure motivation theory and scale can be used to determine tourists’ travel motives in Tanzania. Age, gender and family size significantly influenced intellectual, social, mastery competency and stimulus avoidance motives among local and international leisure tourists.

Practical implication

From a practical implication, the differences in travel motivation among tourists are not homogeneous; therefore, they are not supposed to be treated equally. What is important to tourists from South Africa may not be important to tourists from other countries. Therefore, the government of Tanzania through the Ministry of Tourism and Natural Resources (MNRT) and Tanzania Tourists Board (TTB) should make sure that they promote Tanzania as a destination for people to discover new things, hence attract tourists from South Africa, Kenya, Australia, Germany as well as tourists from France. Furthermore, Tanzania can also be segmented as a friendly and social destination as this will attract tourists from the United States and the United Kingdom. Additionally, destination managers need to make use of the existing attractions such as mountains, beaches, national parks and game reserves to position the country as an adventurous destination. This can help to attract more tourists from Kenya and South Africa.

Policy implication

From a policy perspective, the government, destination marketers, policymakers and tourism stakeholders should make use of the tourists' marital status data because such data can develop better promotion campaigns that match their travel motives. For example, single tourists had higher mean value for intellectual travel motives. This implies that tourist attractions such as museums, historical sites, rock paintings, old town and old buildings can be used to segment this target group. Since singles travel more and spend more time enjoying leisure than married couples, then it would be better for destination managers as well as policymakers to use this opportunity to position the country as a destination that helps tourists to discover new things. On the other hand, married tourists were reported to have higher mean values for most of mastery competency and social and stimulus avoidance travel motives. This implies that the destination managers should advertise tourist activities such as boat cruising, shopping, swimming, as well as beach sports activities for this group. These activities will help them to meet other people, to relax near the sandy beaches as well as to take part in various adventurous games.

Limitations and suggestions for further studies

This study examined travel motivation differences among leisure tourists who were married and those who were single. It did not cover widowers and those who were divorced. Focus was on international tourists who traveled to Northern tourist circuit and islands of Zanzibar and Pemba for leisure. Therefore, the results from the study may not be generalized beyond the selected population. This geographically limited survey may produce different results and conclusions in terms of the magnitude and the strength of relationships among variables. Tourists who visited other circuits (Southern tourist circuit) may have different opinion preferences regarding the importance of travel motives. Replication of similar studies in other tourist circuits should be done to see whether similar findings could be generated.

Additionally, this study employed nonprobability sampling. Therefore, this may affect the external validity. Other studies should try to adopt probability sampling design so as to avoid this problem. Furthermore, the data collection was done between January and May, which is the low season. Thus, the findings of this study are limited to this particular period. Therefore, the tourists who travel in different seasons, for instance, high peak season, might have different opinions regarding the importance of their travel motives. In tourism, seasonality limits the generalization of the study findings and should always be taken into consideration in the interpretation stage. Future research should conduct similar studies in different seasons to overcome this limitation. The obtained results can then be compared to identify similarities and differences between them. Also, the generated findings can be used to validate the findings of this study.

Tourists’ demographic characteristics (age, gender, education, occupation, marital status and family size )

Independent t -test results for intellectual motivation (IL) among tourists

Tests between subjects effects for age, gender and family size on travel motivation

Albayrak , T. and Caber , M. ( 2018 ), “ A motivation-based segmentation of holiday tourists participating in white-water rafting ”, Journal of Destination Marketing and Management , Vol. 9 , pp. 64 - 71 .

Alexandris , K. and Carrol , B. ( 1997 ), “ Demographic differences in the perception of constraints on recreational sports participation: result from a study in Greece ”, Leisure Studies , Vol. 16 , pp. 107 - 125 .

Andronikidis , A. , Vassiliadis , C. and Masmanidis , T. ( 2008 ), “ Evaluation of the compatibility degree of constraint variables for the demand of ski center services ”, Journal of Vacation Marketing , Vol. 14 No. 3 , pp. 211 - 220 .

Baniya , R. and Paudel , K. ( 2016 ), “ An analysis of push and pull travel motivations of domestic tourists in Nepal ”, Journal of Management and Development Studies , Vol. 27 , pp. 16 - 30 .

Beard , J. and Ragheb , M. ( 1983 ), “ Measuring leisure motivation ”, Journal of Leisure Research , Vol. 15 , pp. 219 - 228 .

Biernat , E. and Lubowiecki-Vikuk , A. ( 2012 ), “ Tourist activity among urban singles in view of socio-demographic factors. Leisure and recreation ”, Studies in Physical Culture and Tourism , Vol. 19 No. 2 , pp. 86 - 93 .

Brown , S. and Lehto , X. ( 2005 ), “ Travelling with a purpose: understanding the motives and benefits of volunteer vacationers ”, Current Issues in Tourism , Vol. 8 No. 6 , pp. 479 - 496 .

Cavagnaro , E. and Staffieri , S. ( 2015 ), “ A study of students' travelers values and needs in order to establish future patterns and insights ”, Journal of Tourism Futures , Vol. 1 No. 2 , pp. 94 - 107 .

Celik , S. and Dedeoglu , B.B. ( 2019 ), “ Psychological factors affecting the behaviour intention of the tourist visiting Southeastern Anatolia ”, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Insights , Vol. 2 No. 4 , pp. 425 - 450 .

Chang , L. , Yeh , N. and Tung , T. ( 2015 ), “ How do motivation, pre-visit information search, and destination image affect post visit behaviour intentions?, the case of an Island destination ”, European Journal of Tourism Research , Vol. 9 , pp. 8 - 23 .

Chen , J. ( 2000 ), “ Cross-cultural differences in travel information acquisition among tourists from three pacific-rim countries ”, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research , Vol. 24 No. 2 , pp. 239 - 251 .

Chen , M. , Xue , S. and Shi , Y. ( 2018 ), “ Leisure activities and leisure motivations of Chinese residents ”, PloS One , Vol. 13 No. 11 , pp. 1 - 12 .

Collins , D. and Tisdell , C. ( 2002 ), “ Gender and differences in travel life cycles ”, Journal of Travel Research , Vol. 41 , pp. 133 - 143 .

Crompton , J. ( 1979 ), “ Motivations for pleasure vacation ”, Annals of Tourism Research , Vol. 6 No. 4 , pp. 408 - 424 .

Dann , M. ( 1977 ), “ Anomie ego- enhancement and tourism ”, Annals of Tourism Research , Vol. 4 No. 4 , pp. 184 - 194 .

Dayour , F. ( 2013 ), “ Are backpackers a homogeneous group? A study of Backpackers' motivations in the cape coast-Elmina conurbation, Ghana ”, European Journal of Tourism, Hospitality and Recreation , Vol. 4 No. 3 , pp. 69 - 94 .

Dayour , F. and Adongo , C. ( 2015 ), “ Why they go there: international tourists motivations and revisit intention to Northern Ghana ”, American Journal of Tourism Management , Vol. 4 No. 1 , pp. 7 - 17 .

Downward , P. and Rasciute , S. ( 2010 ), “ The relative demands sports and leisure in England ”, European Sports Management Quarterly , Vol. 10 No. 2 , pp. 189 - 214 .

Epperson , A. ( 1983 ), “ Why people travel? ”, Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance , Vol. 4 , pp. 53 - 54 .

Fan , X. , Qiu , H. , Hsu , C. and Liu , Z. ( 2015 ), “ Comparing motivations and intentions of potential cruise passengers from different demographic groups: the case of China ”, Journal of China Tourism Research , Vol. 11 No. 4 , pp. 461 - 480 .

Ferber , R. ( 1977 ), “ Research by convenience: editorial ”, Journal of Consumer Research , Vol. 4 , pp. 57 - 58 .

Foot , D. ( 2004 ), “ Leisure futures: a change in demography? ”, in Weiermair , K. and Mathies , C. (Eds), The Tourism and Leisure Industry: Shaping the Future , The Haworth Hospitality Press , pp. 21 - 33 .

Goodall , B. ( 1988 ), “ How tourists choose their holidays: an analytical framework ”, in Goodall , B. and Ashworth , G. (Eds), Marketing in the Tourism Industry: The Promotion of Destination Regions , International Travel, International Trade , London , pp. 1 - 10 .

Gu , X. , Lewis , B. , Li , Y. , Wang , Z. , Sheng-nan , W. and Li-Min , D. ( 2015 ), “ Travel motivations of domestic tourists to Changbai Mountain biosphere reserve in Northerneastern China: a comparative study ”, Journal of Mountain Science , Vol. 12 No. 6 , pp. 1582 - 1597 .

Hair , J. , Rolph , E. , Anderson , E. , Tatham , R. and Black , W. ( 1998 ), Multivariate Data Analysis , 5th ed. , Prentice Hall , Upper Saddle River, NJ .

Henderson , K. ( 1990 ), “ Anatomy is not destiny: a feminist analysis of the scholarship on women's leisure ”, Leisure Sciences , Vol. 12 , pp. 229 - 236 .

Heung , V.C.S. , Qu , H. and Chu , R. ( 2001 ), “ The relationship between vacation factors and socio-demographic and travelling characteristics: the case of Japanese leisure travellers ”, Tourism Management , Vol. 22 No. 3 , pp. 259 - 269 .

Heyman , S. and Rose , K. ( 1980 ), “ Psychological variables affecting scuba performance ”, in Nadeau , C. , Halliwell , W. , Newell , K. and Roberts , G. (Eds), Psychology of Motor Behaviour and Sport , Human Kinetics Press , Champaign, IL .

Ibrahim , H. and Cordes , K. ( 1993 ), Outdoor Recreation , Brown and Benchmark Publishers , Madison, WI .

Irimias , A. , Mitev , A. and Michalko , G. ( 2016 ), “ Demographic characteristics influencing religious tourism behaviour: evidence form a Central-Eastern-European country ”, International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage , Vol. 4 No. 4 , p. 3 .

Iso-Ahola , S. ( 1982 ), “ Toward a social psychology theory of tourism motivation ”, Annals of Tourism Research , Vol. 12 , pp. 256 - 262 .

Jarvis , J. and Peel , V. ( 2010 ), “ Flash packing in Fiji: reframing the global nomad in a developing destination ”, in Hannam , K. and Diekmann , A. (Eds), Beyond Backpacker Tourism: Mobilities and Experiences , Channel View Publications , Bristol .

Jia , K.Y. , Rahman , S. , Kassim , N.M. and Shabbir , M.S. ( 2018 ), “ The influence of sensation seeking, travel motivation and social media networks towards risk perception among Malaysians to travel internationally ”, International Journal of Engineering and Technology , Vol. 7 Nos 4/25 , pp. 348 - 356 .

Jönsson , C. and Deonish , D. ( 2008 ), “ Does nationality, gender, and age affect travel motivation? A case of visitors to the Caribbean Island of Barbados ”, Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing , Vol. 25 Nos 3-4 , pp. 398 - 408 .

Josiam , B. , Kinley , T. and Kim , Y. ( 2005 ), “ Involvement and the tourist shopper: using the involvement construct segment the American tourist shopper at the mall ”, Journal of Vacation Marketing , Vol. 11 No. 2 , pp. 135 - 154 .

Kanagaraj , C. and Bindu , T. ( 2013 ), “ An Analysis of push and pull travel motivations of domestic tourists to Kerala ”, International Journal of Management and Business Studies , Vol. 3 No. 2 , pp. 112 - 118 .

Kattiyapornpong , U. and Miller , K.E. ( 2008 ), “ A practitioner’s report on the interactive effects of socio-demographic barriers to travel ”, Journal of Vacation Marketing , Vol. 14 No. 4 , pp. 357 - 371 .

Kim , S. and Lehto , X. ( 2013 ), “ Projected and perceived destination brand personalities: the case of South Korea ”, Journal of Travel Research , Vol. 52 , pp. 117 - 130 .

Kim , S. and Prideaux , B. ( 2005 ), “ Marketing Implications arising from a comparative study of international pleasure tourist motivations and other travel related characteristics of visitors to Korea ”, Tourism Management , Vol. 26 No. 3 , pp. 347 - 357 .

Kim , S. , Prideaux , B. and Kim , S. ( 2002 ), “ A cross-sectional study on casino guests as perceived by casino employees ”, Tourism Management , Vol. 23 No. 5 , pp. 511 - 520 .

Kim , J. and Ritchie , B. ( 2012 ), “ Motivation-based typology: an empirical study of golf tourists ”, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research , Vol. 36 No. 2 , pp. 251 - 280 .

Kozak , M. ( 2002 ), “ Comparative analysis of tourist motivations by nationality and destinations ”, Tourism Management , Vol. 23 No. 3 , pp. 221 - 232 .

Lam , T. and Hsu , C.H.C. ( 2006 ), “ Predicting behavioral intention of choosing a travel destination ”, Tourism Management , Vol. 27 No. 4 , pp. 589 - 599 .

Lee , T. and Crompton , J. ( 1992 ), “ Measuring novelty seeking in tourism ”, Annals of Tourism Research , Vol. 19 No. 4 , pp. 732 - 751 .

Lee , Y. and Bhargava , V. ( 2004 ), “ Leisure time. Do married and single individuals spend it differently? ”, Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal , Vol. 32 , pp. 254 - 274 .

Lemmetyinen , A. , Dimitrovski , D. , Nieminen , L. and Pohjola , T. ( 2016 ), “ Cruise destination brand awareness as a moderator in motivation-satisfaction relation ”, Tourism Review , Vol. 71 No. 4 , pp. 245 - 258 .

Leonard , R. and Onyx , J. ( 2009 ), “ Volunteer tourism: the interests and motivations of grey nomads ”, Annals of Leisure Research , Vol. 12 Nos 3/4 , pp. 315 - 332 .

Luo , Y. and Deng , J. ( 2008 ), “ The new environmental paradigm and nature-based tourism motivation ”, Journal of Travel Research , Vol. 46 , pp. 392 - 402 .

Ma , A. , Chow , A. , Cheung , L. , Lee , K. and Liu , S. ( 2018 ), “ Impacts of tourists' socio-demographic characteristics on the travel motivation and satisfaction: the case of protected areas in South China ”, Sustainability , Vol. 10 No. 10 , p. 3388 .

Madrigal , R. and Kahle , L. ( 1994 ), “ Predicting vacation activity preferences on the basis of value system segmentation ”, Journal of Travel Research , Vol. 32 No. 3 , pp. 22 - 28 .

Mariki , S.B. , Hassan , S.N. , Maganga , S.L.S. , Modest , R.B. and Salehe , F.S. ( 2011 ), “ Wildlife-based domestic tourism in Tanzania: experiences from the northern tourist circuit ”, Ethiopian Journal of Environment Studies and Management , Vol. 4 No. 4 , pp. 62 - 73 .

Marques , C. , Mohsin , A. and Lengler , J. ( 2018 ), “ A multinational comparative study highlighting students' travel motivations and touristic trends ”, Journal of Destination Marketing and Management , Vol. 10 , pp. 87 - 100 .

Maslow , A. ( 1970 ), Personality and Motivation , Harper and Row , New York .

Mayo , E. and Jarvis , L. ( 1981 ), The Psychology of Leisure Travel: Effective Marketing and Selling of Travel Services , CBI Publishing Company , Boston .

Mazilu , M. and Mitroi , S. ( 2010 ), “ Demographic, social, economic and geographic features shaping factors of the tourist market ”, Romanian Economic and Business Review , Vol. 5 No. 1 , pp. 159 - 166 .

Meyers , S. , Gamst , G. and Guarino , A. ( 2006 ), Applied Multivariate Research: Design and Interpretation , SAGE Publications , Thousand Oaks, London .

Michael , N. , Wien , C. and Reisinger , Y. ( 2017 ), “ Push and pull escape travel motivations of Emirati nationals to Australia ”, International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research , Vol. 11 No. 3 , pp. 274 - 296 .

Mieczkowski , Z. ( 1990 ), The World Trends in Tourism and Recreation , Peter Lang , New York .

Mkumbo , P. ( 2010 ), “ Tourism distribution channels in the northern tourist circuit of Tanzania ”, Masters' thesis , Victoria University of Wellington , pp. 1 - 182 , available at: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/41336564.pdf ( accessed 2 January 2020 ).

Mkwizu , K.H. ( 2018a ), “ Analysis of sources of information and income of domestic tourists to naitonal parks in Tanzania ”, ATLAS Tourism and Leisure Review , Vol. 2018 No. 2 , pp. 28 - 43 .

Mkwizu , K.H. ( 2018b ), “ The influence of television advertising on domestic tourism: a case of southern tourist attractions in Tanzania ”, available at: http://repository.out.ac.tz/1878/ ( accessed 4 January 2020 ) .

Mkwizu , K.H. , Matama , R. and Atuzarirwe , C. ( 2018 ), “ Media and education: domestic tourists' perspective ”, in Ahmed , Z.U. , Yajid , M.S.A. and Raj , S. (Eds), Defining the Frontiers of Global Business Research across Emerging Countries , McGraw Hill Education , Chennai , pp. 257 - 275 .

Mkwizu , K.H. ( 2019 ), “ Digital marketing and tourism: opportunities for Africa ”, International Hospitality Review , doi 10.1108/IHR-09-2019-0015 .

Mohsin , A. ( 2008 ), “ Analysis of Chinese travellers' attitudes toward holidaying in New Zealand: the impact of socio-demographic variables ”, Journal of Hospitality and Leisure Marketing , Vol. 16 Nos 1/2 , pp. 21 - 40 .

Mohsin , A. , Lengler , J. and Chaiya , P. ( 2017 ), “ Does travel interest mediate between motives and intention to travel? A case of young Asian travelers ”, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management , Vol. 31 , pp. 36 - 44 .

Moriarty , P. and Honnery , D. ( 2005 ), Determinants of Urban Travel in Australia , 28th Australasian Transport Research Forum (ATRF) , Melbourne .

Moscardo , G. , Morrison , A. , Pearce , P. , Lang , C. and O’Leary , J. ( 1996 ), “ Understanding vacation destination choice through travel motivation and activities ”, Journal of Vacation Marketing , Vol. 2 No. 2 , pp. 109 - 122 .

Njagi , C. , Ndivo , R. and Manyara , G. ( 2017 ), “ Understanding the travel motivation among youth travelers in Kenya: the push and pull paradigm ”, African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure , Vol. 6 No. 1 , pp. 1 - 16 .

Özdemir , C. and Yolal , C. ( 2016 ), “ Cross-cultural tourist behaviour: an Examination of tourists' behaviour in guided tours ”, Tourism and Hospitality Research , Vol. 17 No. 3 , pp. 1 - 11 .

Pallant , J. ( 2011 ), SPSS Survival Manual: A Step by Step Guide to Data Analysis Using SPSS , 4th ed. , Allen and Unwin , Australia .

Papatheodorou , A. ( 2006 ), Managing Tourism Destinations , Edward Elgar Publishers , Northampton .

Park , J. and Mok , C. ( 1998 ), “ Travel motivational factors and their relationship to demographics: the Korean market ”, Pacific Tourism Review , Vol. 2 Nos 1/2 , pp. 109 - 120 .

Passias , E.J. , Sayer , L. and Pepin , J.R. ( 2017 ), “ Who experiences leisure deficits? Mothers marital status and leisure time ”, Journal of Marriage and Family , Vol. 79 No. 4 , pp. 1001 - 1022 .

Pearce , P.L. ( 1987 ), “ Psychological studies of tourists behaviour and experience ”, Australian Journal of Psychology , Vol. 39 No. 2 , pp. 173 - 182 .

Pearce , P.L. and Caltabiano , M.L. ( 1983 ), “ Inferring travel motivation from travelers' experiences ”, International Journal of Travel Research , Vol. 22 No. 2 , pp. 16 - 20 .

Pizam , A. , Jeong , G. , Reichel , A. , Boemmel , H. , Lusson , J. , Steynberg , L. , State-Costache , O. , Volo , S. , Kroesbacher , C. , Kucerova , J. and Mountmany , N. ( 2004 ), “ The relationship between risk taking, sensation-seeking and the tourist behaviour of young adults: a cross-cultural study ”, Journal of Travel Research , Vol. 42 No. 3 , pp. 251 - 260 .

Plog , S. ( 1973 ), “ Why destination areas rise and fall in popularity ”, Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly , Vol. 14 No. 3 , pp. 13 - 16 .

Plog , S. ( 1974 ), “ Why destination areas rise and fall in popularity ”, Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly , Vol. 14 No. 4 , pp. 55 - 58 .

Preko , A. , Doe , F. and Dadzie , S.A. ( 2019 ), “ The future of youth tourism in Ghana: motives, satisfaction and behaviour intentions ”, Journal of Tourism Futures , Vol. 5 No. 1 , pp. 5 - 21 .

Pyo , S. , Mihalik , B. and Uysal , M. ( 1989 ), “ Attraction attributes and motivations. A canonical correlation analysis ”, Annals of Tourism Research , Vol. 16 No. 2 , pp. 277 - 282 .

Ritchie , B. , Tkaczynski , A. and Faulks , P. ( 2010 ), “ Understanding the motivation and travel behaviour of cycle tourists using involvement profiles ”, Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing , Vol. 27 No. 4 , pp. 409 - 425 .

Robinson , D. ( 1985 ), “ Stress seeking: selected behavioural characteristics of elite rock climbers ”, Journal of Sports Psychology , Vol. 7 , pp. 400 - 404 .

Ryan , C. (Ed.) ( 1997 ), The Tourist Experiences, A New Introduction , Cassell , London .

Saayman , M. and Saayman , A. ( 2009 ), “ Why travel motivational and socio-demographics matter in managing a national park ”, Koedoe , Vol. 51 No. 1 , pp. 1 - 9 .

Scott , D. ( 2005 ), “ The relevance of constraints researches to leisure service delivery ”, in Jackson , E.L. (Ed.), Constraints to Leisure , Venture Publishing , State College, PA , pp. 279 - 293 .

Spence , M. ( 2002 ), “ The effect of age on the probability of participation in wildlife-related activities: a birth year cohort study ”, American Journal of Agricultural Economics , Vol. 84 No. 5 , pp. 1384 - 1389 .

Snepenger , D. , King , J. , Marshall , M. and Uysal , M. ( 2006 ), “ Modeling iso-ahola's motivation theory in the tourism context ”, Journal of Travel Research ,Vol. 45 No. 2 , pp. 140 - 149 .

Tabachnick , G. and Fidell , L. ( 2007 ), Using Multivariate Statistics , 5th ed. , Person , New York .

Tanzania National Parks ( 2019 ), “ Arrival trends ”, available at: https://www.tanzaniaparks.go.tz/uploads/publications/en-1568717749-TEN%20YEARS%20ARRIVAL%20TRENDS.pdf ( accessed 29 December 2019 ).

Tanzania Tourism Sector Survey ( 2017 ), “ The 2016 international visitors' exit survey report ”, available at: http://nbs.go.tz/nbs/takwimu/trade/The2016_International%20_Visitors'_Exit_Survey_Report.pdf ( accessed 2 January 2020 ).

Tanzania Tourism Sector Survey ( 2018 ), “ The 2017 international visitors' exit survey report ”, available at: https://www.nbs.go.tz/nbs/takwimu/trade/International_Visitors_Exit_Survey_2017.pdf ( accessed 2 January 2020 ).

Um , S. and Crompton , J. ( 1990 ), “ Attitude determinants in tourism destination choice ”, Annals of Tourism Research , Vol. 17 , pp. 432 - 448 .

United Republic of Tanzania URT ( 2014 ), “ Tanzania country special report: diplomat, April 2014 ”, available at: http://www.tic.co.tz/media/TANZANIA%20COUNTRYSPECIAL%20REPORT.pdf .

Urosevic , S. , Karabasevic , D. , Maksimovic , M. and Stanujkic , D. ( 2016 ), “ Impact of demographic factors on motivation and satisfaction of employees in the leather and footwear industry ”, Tekstilna Industija , Vol. 3 , pp. 45 - 55 .

Venkatesh , S.A. ( 2006 ), “ Sociology and katrina ”, City and Community , Vol. 5 No. 2 , pp. 115 - 118 .

Vernon , V. ( 2010 ), “ Marriage: for love, for, money…and for time? ”, Review of the Economics of the Household , Vol. 8 No. 4 , pp. 433 - 457 .

Wade , D.J. , Mwasaga , B.C. and Eagles , P.F.J. ( 2001 ), “ A history and market analysis of tourism in Tanzania ”, Tourism Management , Vol. 22 No. 1 , pp. 93 - 101 .

Weaver , D. and Oppermann , M. ( 2000 ), Tourism Management , John Wiley , Milton .

Wijaya , S. , Wahyudi , W. , Kusuma , C. and Sugiano , E. ( 2018 ), “ Travel motivation of Indonesian seniors in choosing destination overseas ”, International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Review , Vol. 12 No. 2 , pp. 185 - 197 .

Woodside , A. and Lysonski , S. ( 1989 ), “ A general model of traveller destination choice ”, Journal of Travel Research , Vol. 27 No. 4 , pp. 8 - 14 .

WTTC ( 2017 ), “ Travel and tourism economic impact in Tanzania ”, available at: https://www.wttc.org/-/media/files/reports/economic-impact-research/countries-2017/tanzania2017.pdf .

Xie , H. , Costa , C. and Morais , D. ( 2008 ), “ Gender differences in rural tourists motivation and activity participation ”, Journal of Hospitality and Leisure Marketing , Vol. 16 No. 4 , pp. 1 - 27 .

Yan , N. and Halpenny , E. ( 2019 ), “ The role of cultural differebce and travel motivation in event participation: a cross-cultural perspective ”, International Journal of Events and Festival Management , Vol. 10 No. 2 , pp. 155 - 173 .

Yap , B. and Khong , K. ( 2006 ), “ Examining the effects of Customer Service Management (CSM) on perceived business performance via structural equation modelling ”, Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry , Vol. 22 No. 5 , pp. 587 - 606 .

Yoon , Y. and Uysal , M. ( 2005 ), “ An examination of the effects of motivation and satisfaction on destination loyalty. A structural model ”, Tourism Management , Vol. 26 No. 1 , pp. 45 - 56 .

You , X. , O'leary , J. , Morrison , A. and Hong , G. ( 2000 ), “ A cross-cultural comparison of travel push and pull factors: United Kingdom vs Japan ”, International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Administration , Vol. 1 No. 2 , pp. 1 - 26 .

Yung-Kun , S. , Kuo-Chien , C. and Yuan-Feng , S. ( 2015 ), “ Market segmentation of international tourists based on motivation to travel: a case study of Taiwan ”, Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research , Vol. 21 No. 8 , pp. 1 - 21 .

Yusof , A. and Shah , P.M. ( 2008 ), “ Application of leisure motivation scale to sport tourism ”, The International Journal of The Humanities , Vol. 6 , pp. 8 - 16 .

Zuckerman , M. ( 1979 ), Sensation Seeking: Beyond the Optimal Level of Arousal , Lawrence Erlbaum , Hillsdale, NJ .

Corresponding author

Related articles, we’re listening — tell us what you think, something didn’t work….

Report bugs here

All feedback is valuable

Please share your general feedback

Join us on our journey

Platform update page.

Visit emeraldpublishing.com/platformupdate to discover the latest news and updates

Questions & More Information

Answers to the most commonly asked questions here

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Elsevier - PMC COVID-19 Collection
• PMC10005820

The interplay of personality traits and motivation in leisure travel decision-making during the pandemic

Naman sreen.

a O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, India

Anushree Tandon

b University of Eastern Finland, Yliopistokatu 2, Joensuu 80100, Finland

g European Forest Institute, FInland

h University of Turku, Yliopistokatu 6, Joensuu 80100, Finland

Fauzia Jabeen

c College of Business, Abu Dhabi University, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Shalini Srivastava

d Jaipuria Institute of Management, Noida, India

Amandeep Dhir

e Department of Management, School of Business & Law, University of Agder, Norway

f Optentia Research Focus Area, North-West University, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa

COVID-19 has negatively affected the travel and tourism industry and may continue to do so in the future. Therefore, hospitality businesses need to pay attention to consumer reactions, concerns, and motives for travelling in this era. This study leverages the stimulus-organism-behaviour-consequence (SOBC) model to examine psychological factors that influence Japanese travellers' intention to travel and willingness to pay premiums for safe travel by analysing data from 790 respondents. The findings of the study reveal that extraversion positively associates with introjected motivation and negatively with amotivation. Neuroticism personality type positively associates with amotivation and negatively associates with introjected motivation. Introjected motivation positively associates with perception of safe travel during COVID-19, whereas amotivation has a non-significant association with perception of safe travel during COVID-19. Perception of safe travel positively associates with intention to travel and willingness to pay premiums for safe travel. Finally, intention to travel has no effect on willingness to pay premiums for safe travel. These findings provide valuable theoretical and managerial implications.

1. Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in global socio-economic disturbances ( Buheji et al., 2020 ), and the lockdowns enforced by countries in its wake led to severe restrictions on people's leisure travel movement ( Snuggs & McGregor, 2021 ). The travel and leisure industry ranked fourth among the most impacted industries during COVID-19 ( Kaczmarek, Perez, Demir, & Zaremba, 2021 ), with an estimated loss of 62 million jobs worldwide in the tourism industry due to the pandemic as of February, 2022 ( Statista, 2022 ). With the pandemic abating and travel restrictions being lifted worldwide, it is imperative to explore consumers' perspectives on and concerns about safety while travelling in order to boost tourism. Recent studies have shown inconsistent findings in consumers' willingness to pay premiums for safe travel ( Awad-Núñez, Julio, Gomez, Moya-Gómez, & González, 2021 ; Gursoy & Chi, 2020 ). For instance, Gursoy and Chi (2020) found that one third of restaurant customers and 40% of hotel customers are willing to pay premiums for safety. On the other hand, Awad-Núñez et al. (2021) found that most customers want safety features in travel but only a small proportion are willing to pay a premium for safe travel. Such inconsistencies are a significant knowledge gap since implemented safety and hygiene measures to protect travellers, such as sanitization and disinfection of premises, are an additional substantial cost for the organizations in this sector ( Awad-Núñez et al., 2021 ) which is already facing significant economic losses. Since the demand for leisure travel is likely to be impacted in the medium to long term ( Bressan, Duarte Alonso, & Kok, 2021 ) due to the pandemic, understanding the factors that influence consumers' intent, or the lack thereof, to undertake leisure travel and their behavioural indicators, such as willingness to pay premium prices for safe travel, is an important research avenue. The insights drawn from such studies can provide significant benefits to practitioners and policymakers in proposing active measures to encourage leisure travel.

Prior research has provided some insight into aspects related to travelling during a pandemic, such as individuals' unwillingness to travel to locations affected by various pandemics such as Ebola, malaria, and avian flu ( Aro, Vartti, Schreck, Turtiainen, & Uutela, 2009 ; Cahyanto et al., 2016 ). However, these findings are not directly applicable to the COVID-19 context due to the different manner of this pandemic's emergence, its high infection rate ( Kim, Park, Lee, et al., 2022 ), and global spread that has resulted in multiple countries experiencing similar intensities of effect ( Islam et al., 2021 ). As a result, scholars have focused their attention on exploring the pandemic's effect on various aspects of travel-related behaviour, such as willingness to travel during the pandemic ( Nazneen, Hong, & Ud Din, 2020 ). However, the findings so far have been inconsistent, with some scholars finding individuals to be unwilling to travel during COVID-19 ( Uğur & Akbıyık, 2020 ), and others identifying individuals actively planning to do so ( Bae & Chang, 2021 ).

We contend that an individual's psychographic factors could explain these apparently inconsistent findings on consumers' travel behaviour, since prior studies have indicated their influence , particularly personality traits, on eliciting different reactions to COVID-19 ( Talwar, Srivastava, Sakashita, Islam, & Dhir, 2022 ), perhaps due to perceptual variances regarding risks associated with the disease itself ( Modersitzki, Phan, Kuper, & Rauthmann, 2020 ; Stadler et al., 2020 ). We focus on personality as a core psychographic factor that can explain individual travel behaviour during COVID-19 by applying the Big 5 personality model, which consists of openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism ( Costa & McCrae, 1980 ). The model is a well-established theoretical framework that has been previously leveraged, albeit in a limited manner (e.g., Kim et al., 2022 ). For example, Talwar et al. (2022) found that extraversion has the strongest influence of all five personality types on travel intentions during COVID-19, and Haupt et al. (2020) found that individuals with fun-seeking personalities, such as extraversion, were more likely to have travel intentions during COVID-19. These studies show that a person's reaction to travel during COVID-19 may differ depending on their personality type, as well as how they perceive the risk of travelling for leisure during COVID-19 ( Wijngaards, De Zilwa, & Burger, 2020 ). A study on Chinese individuals' engagement with COVID-19 found that extraversion had lower scores for social distancing practices, and conscientiousness had higher scores for social distancing practices ( Carvalho, Pianowski, & Gonçalves, 2020 ). Additionally, Kim et al. (2022) determined that personality traits significantly influenced tourists' biosecurity behaviour by moderating the relationships between personal norms, attitudes, and behaviour. Thus, limited prior research has determined that personality influences travel behaviour in various capacities, including as antecedents and moderators.

Personality is defined as the features and attributes that influence an individual's behaviour, and it develops via experiences, culture, and education ( Feist & Feist, 2009 ; Roy & Goswami, 2007 ). An individual's behaviour is distinctive and consistent when they have a certain personality ( Feist & Feist, 2009 ), which implies that personality may be a viable factor in determining the consistency of individual travel behaviour. However, personality traits remain an under-explored area in the tourism with respect to the COVID-19 context ( Aschwanden et al., 2021 ; Talwar et al., 2022 ). We contend that this is a significant research gap, particularly because personality traits can, in high probability, explain travel intentions and behaviour; particularly with the pandemic still manifesting itself in various forms ( Carvalho et al., 2020 ).

Additionally, aligning with prior studies (e.g., Sheldon and Prentice, 2019 ), this study contends that it is important to understand the psychological mechanisms that can explain how personality traits translate into specific travel-related perceptions and behaviours. The COVID-19 pandemic has raised health risks and security concerns regarding leisure travel ( Humagain & Singleton, 2021 ). As a result, most scholars studying travel behaviour during COVID-19 have concentrated their efforts on exploring demotivators or inhibitors, such as safety and health risks, and studying ways to overcome them, to travel during COVID-19 ( Aebli, Volgger, & Taplin, 2022 ). However, leisure constraint theory indicates that the removal of inhibitors may not increase travel if individuals are not motivated to travel. In fact, travellers may exhibit learned helplessness and may decide not to travel during COVID-19 ( Williams, Armitage, Tampe, & Dienes, 2021 ). Thereby, motivational studies on travel during COVID-19 may help in examining travellers' leisure travel behaviour. To this end, the self-determination of an individual plays a critical role in determining behaviours such as academic performance ( Zhou, 2015 ), learning attitudes ( Butz & Stupnisky, 2016 ), pro-environmental ( Aitken, Pelletier, & Baxter, 2016 ), and travel behaviours ( Nabi, O'Cass, & Siahtiri, 2019 ; Talwar et al., 2022 ). Additionally, motivations have been previously studied and found to explain travel behaviour differences before and during the pandemic. For instance, in a study before COVID-19, Chow, Cheng, and Cheung (2019) found that intrinsic motivation has the highest influence on individuals' inclination to travel to Chinese wetlands for ecological purposes. Similarly, Medeiros, Ozturk, Hancer, Weinland, and Okumus (2022) found that intrinsic motivation, i.e., social benefit, and extrinsic motivation, i.e. self-image, had a positive impact on tourists' intention to share travel-related information through mobile apps during COVID-19. Thus, motivational states may be an important factor that explain how individuals with different dominant personality traits exhibit varied behaviour in similar or dissimilar contexts.

Thus, examining the interplay between personality traits and motivational states, as well as their subsequent association with behavioural outcomes such as travel intentions, could provide more nuanced insights into how the pandemic may have affected long-term travel behaviour. Such an examination would contribute to our understanding of the psychological processes that a post COVID-19 traveller undergoes and raise significant implications for both theory and practice. Thus, informed and motivated by the preceding discussions, this study aims to answer three research questions: RQ1. How are the personality types of extraversion and neuroticism associated with amotivation and introjected motivation? RQ2. How are amotivation and introjected motivation associated with perceptions towards travel? RQ3. How is perception towards travel associated with travelling intentions and willingness to pay premiums for safe travel?

To answer these questions, the study employs the Stimulus-Organism-behaviour-Consequence (SOBC) model and Self-determination theory (SDT) for theoretical grounding. Data were collected using a cross-sectional survey design from 498 respondents in Japan, wherein the travel and tourism sectors have been significantly disrupted by the pandemic ( Yagasaki, 2021 ). The findings of this study, derived from structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis, provide three novel contributions to the literature. First, we utilize the SOBC and SDT theories, which have not received much attention in travel and tourism research in the COVID-19 context. The application of SOBC may result in more nuanced understanding of travelling behaviours as it includes various additional linkages ( Kim, Lee, & Jung, 2020 ). This study, to the best of our knowledge, pioneers the concurrent utilization of these theories in context of travel and tourism research.

Second, to the best of our knowledge, no study has examined the interplay between personality traits and motives as antecedents to individual travelling behaviour. Our focus on explicating this interplay is a significant addition to extant knowledge as we suggest motivational state to be a bridging factor that highlights how individual differences (e.g., in personality) can influence behaviours and intentions in the context of leisure travel. Third, we focus on Japan as our study context as it is relatively under-explored in tourism and consumer behaviour literature. Our findings add significant value to extant knowledge with regard to this economy as a favoured leisure travel destination ( Nippon, 2020 ).

This article presents information in the following seven sections. Section 2 presents the theoretical backdrop, and the hypotheses are discussed in Section 3 . 4 , 5 describe the research methodology and the results of the data analysis, respectively. The research findings are discussed in Section 6 , and Section 7 presents the concluding remarks, implications, limitations and possible future research directions.

2. Theoretical background

2.1. stimulus-organism-behaviour-consequence model.

SOBC is based on the premise of social learning theory ( Bandura, 1977 ) and is an extension stimuli-organism-response theory, or SOR ( Mehrabian & Russell, 1974 ). SOR examines the influence of environmental/internal stimuli (S) on organism's internal states (O), which results in a response (R) ( Laato, Islam, Farooq, & Dhir, 2020 ). In contrast, SOBC considers associations among an individual's internal state (O), behaviour (B), and consequences (C), thereby extending SOR.

A stimulus – a trigger that elicits a specific response or action ( Talwar, Jabeen, Tandon, Sakashita, & Dhir, 2021 ) – can be either external (i.e., originating outside an individual's body or mind) or internal (i.e., originating within) ( Kim & Lennon, 2013 ). While prior research has predominantly focused on external stimuli, both in the context of travel and tourism ( Chang, Shu, & King, 2014 ; Rajaguru, 2014 ) and in other contexts ( Hsiao & Tang, 2021 ; Sultan, Wong, & Azam, 2021 ), it has been shown that internal stimuli can also exert significant influence on buying and use-related behaviours. For instance, Dhir, Talwar, Sadiq, Sakashita, and Kaur (2021) found that optimism positively influences labelling satisfaction and labelling desire, which then positively influence purchase intentions for buying green apparel. Hence, motivated by these findings, we focus on internal stimuli in our study (see Section 2.3 for details).

The concept of organism not only represents the physiological being as in the SOR model but also the psychological being ( Dhir, Talwar, et al., 2021 ). We model motivation and perception of safe travel during COVID-19 as the individual or organism's internal state (O) in our framework. Our choice of these variables as the organism is motivated by prior literature as discussed in Section 2.3 . The SOBC further discusses how individuals' organismic states influence their behaviour, which in turn influences the consequences the organism faces. Behaviour includes overt (observable) and covert (mental, or cerebral) forms, and consequence represents the results obtained from performing that behaviour ( Talwar et al., 2021 ). The present study examines the association of leisure travel intentions (B) on willingness to pay premiums for safety measures (C).

Several scholars have applied SOBC in varied contexts in the recent past, such as social media overload ( Whelan, Islam, & Brooks, 2020 ) and organic product consumption ( Talwar et al., 2021 ). Yet, to the best of the authors' knowledge, the SOBC model has so far not been employed in travel and tourism research. However, travel and tourism scholars indicate that post-behaviour constructs such as revisit intention and loyalty are critical in generating repeat customers ( Sreen, Mukherjee, Jebarajakirthy, Kumar, & Sharma, 2022 ). We therefore believe that SOBC would provide a deeper understanding of an individual's psychological mechanisms, especially in terms of the associations between behaviour and consequence in the context of travel and tourism.

Moreover, SOBC considers the possible influence of the social/internal environment on individual (O) ( Talwar et al., 2021 ), which is important in our study because COVID-19 as an environmental situation or context greatly influences an individual's internal state (e.g., their motivations) which can, in turn, have a significant effect on travelling perceptions ( Bae & Chang, 2021 ). Thus, we believe that our utilization of this framework provides deeper insights into individuals' decision-making processes in the currently cautious approach to leisure travel during COVID-19.

2.2. Self-determination theory

The SDT posits that there are of three types of human motivation: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation ( Deci & Ryan, 2010 ). Each motivation type is ranked across a continuum representing a degree of self-determination contingent on the locus of control possessed by an individual ( Deci & Ryan, 1985 ). Intrinsic motivation represents the highest form of self-determination ( Deci & Ryan, 1985 ), wherein individuals are motivated by internal pleasure and the satisfaction of fulfilling personal needs ( Deci & Ryan, 2010 ). On the contrary, extrinsic motivation is derived from external sources, such as the approval of others ( Deci & Ryan, 2010 ) and is classified into four types on the basis of the level of self-determination. Here, integrated motivation has the highest degree of self-determination, followed by identified, introjected, and external motivation which have decreasing levels of self-determination in that order. Lastly, amotivation describes the state of an individual who lacks confidence that the action in question can provide the desired outcome ( Deci & Ryan, 2010 ).

Scholars have previously utilized SDT to determine that different forms of motivation have varying levels of influence on travel behaviours in different contexts. For instance, Zheng, Luo, and Ritchie (2021) found a stronger impact of intrinsic motives on trip purchase intentions than integrated motives for disabled individuals. Additionally, Yu, Wen, and Yang (2020) found that both intrinsic motivations, such as the desire to relieve pain in the dying process, pursue meaning in life, and champion human rights, and extrinsic motivations, such as religious or social considerations, influenced suicide travel intentions. Thus, following prior literature, we believe SDT to be suited to our study context for examining the organismic motivational state (O) of an individual considering leisure travel.

2.3. Conceptual framework

This study develops a conceptual model by integrating the SOBC and SDT frameworks. Using the SOBC model, this study examines extraverted and neurotic personality types as stimuli (S); introjected motivation, amotivation, and perception of safe travel during COVID-19 as facets of individuals' internal state (O); and intention to travel during COVID-19 (B) and willingness to pay premium prices for safe travel (C) as behaviour and consequence respectively. Fig. 1 displays the theoretical framework, and Table 1 presents a brief conceptualization of the study variables.

Hypothesized research model.

Description of study constructs.

2.3.1. Stimuli

We conceptualize stimuli as personality traits as certain prior research has indicated their influence to be significant in determining travel behaviour ( Kim et al., 2020 ; Talwar et al., 2022 ). Personality traits are individual characteristics that lead to varying affective and cognitive responses ( Baloglu, Henthorne, & Sahin, 2014 ; Das, Habib, Saha, & Jebarajakirthy, 2021 ; Gao, Rasouli, Timmermans, & Wang, 2017 ) as personality can influence individuals' ability to cope up with stressful situations ( Youn, Kim, & Song, 2017 ), such as considering travelling during COVID-19. For instance, Talwar et al. (2022) found that of the five primary personality types ( Costa & McCrae, 1980 ), extraversion possesses the highest relative importance in determining travel intentions during COVID-19, followed by conscientiousness, openness to experience, agreeableness, and neuroticism. In our study, we consider the personality traits of extraversion and neuroticism to be stimuli affecting an individual's internal state, i.e. motives. Our focus on these two traits is inspired by studies (e.g., Shokrkon & Nicoladis, 2021 ) that have posited extraversion and neuroticism to be highly relevant to the study of travel during COVID-19 as these personality types tend to have distinctive implications for individuals' social lives.

Prior research on travel and tourism in the COVID-19 context has also propounded that examining extraversion and neuroticism provides a comprehensive understanding of differences in individual reactions to the COVID-19 scenario ( Talwar et al., 2022 ). For instance, Nelson, Pettitt, Flannery, and Allen (2020) found that individuals with high neuroticism have higher scores in anxiety, depression, and concerns related to finances and relationships during COVID-19. Therefore, neuroticism may lead individuals to follow social distancing practices, decline to travel, and generally attempt to avoid risky behaviours ( Wijngaards et al., 2020 ). Contrarily, extraverts are more likely to travel as they strongly desire to have social interactions and develop social relationships ( Talwar et al., 2022 ), and may therefore be disinclined to follow social distancing recommendations during COVID-19 ( Carvalho et al., 2020 ). Based on these findings, we believe that neuroticism and extraversion are suitable stimuli for our study.

2.3.2. Organism

We leverage the SDT to propose that personality traits induce specific motivational states of the organism's or individual's internal state (O). Motivations have been found in prior literature to significantly affect travelling decisions ( Cole, Zhang, Wang, & Hu, 2019 ; Lee & Ewert, 2019 ) and willingness to pay premiums for safe travel ( Huang, Wu, & Shi, 2018 ). Scholars have found that certain personality traits may affect individual's cognitive evaluations, such as motives, which may impact other behavioural outcomes ( Sheldon & Prentice, 2019 ). In line with such findings, we conceptualize that personality traits would influence the motivational state, i.e., internal state of an individual.

The SDT has proposed three major forms of motivation – intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation as discussed in Section 2.2 . A key difference in intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is that while the former is promulgated for one's own benefit, the latter may develop from a sense of duty or obligation to perform a particular behaviour ( Deci & Ryan, 2010 ). We posit that such motivations may also be influenced by an individual's contextual factors, such as the culture they belong to. For instance, our study focuses on Japan as a context whose culture is highly collectivist ( Talwar et al., 2021 ) wherein image consciousness ( Reiher & Yamaguchi, 2017 ) and consideration of others may significantly influence individual behaviour. Thus, it is possible that in such cultures, the feelings and perceived judgements of others may affect one's own behavioural decisions.

Pursuing this supposition, this study considers two forms of motivation as organisms' state (O) – introjected motivation and amotivation. In the present study, introjected motivation refers to the individual's perception that significant others in their life want the individual to travel for leisure ( Cole et al., 2019 ). Introjected motivation is closer to external motivation and creates internalized feelings such as guilt or obligation to perform an action ( Zhang, Cole, Hirt, & Bilgihan, 2017 ). Cole et al. (2019) found that individuals were more likely to travel as a result of introjected motivations rather than intrinsic motivations. They also argued that that items of introjected motivation and extrinsic motivation loaded into a single factor, indicating that both introjected and extrinsic motivation could be similar in nature. Similarly, in our study, we suggest that introjected motivation rests in an individual's belief that family members would experience negative feelings, such as anger, if the individual will not travel for leisure during COVID-19, and may be an essential lens through which to examine attitudes towards travel during COVID-19.

We believe that introjected motivation is a significant facet in our study owing to the context of Japan, wherein family members' expectations have significant influences on an individual's decisions. For instance, a traditional Japanese father may be authoritarian, wield influence over other family members, and command respect ( Ang, 2006 ). Extrapolating this supposition further, we argue that Japanese individuals who live with their family members may be driven by introjected motivation to make certain travel decisions. Our supposition is supported by the findings of Shavanddasht and Schänzel (2017) who found that authoritarian parenting style positively impact introjected motivation for travelling.

Amotivation arises when an individual lacks confidence that an action can provide the desired outcome ( Deci & Ryan, 2010 ). A recent study found that psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness decrease the experience of amotivation ( Behzadnia & FatahModares, 2020 ). According to Cole, Deci, Zhao, and Wang (2022) , the COVID-19 scenario may lead an individual to perceive that (a) the situation is not under their control, (b) they are not sufficiently competent to deal with the situation on their own, and (c) the situational restrictions imposed for combating the pandemic may limit their social activities, and thus their feelings of relatedness. We align with this point to view to posit that in such circumstances (i.e., the pandemic), an individual might feel amotivated or indifferent to the positive outcomes of travelling, which may influence their behaviour and consequent actions.

Perception of safe travel during COVID-19 is an individual's perception that travelling activities, such as transport, hotels, and dining, are safe to use during the pandemic. Scholars have determined changes in the perception of travelling during various health crises situations like Ebola, and H1N1 influenza ( Cahyanto et al., 2016 ; Lee, Song, Bendle, Kim, & Han, 2012 ). While research on such perceptions in the COVID-19 context is limited, prior studies indicate that the willingness to travel ( Gursoy & Chi, 2020 ) and perceived risks of travel during COVID-19 may vary even after restrictions are fully lifted, according to individual characteristics such as motives ( Liu-Lastres, Mirehie, & Cecil, 2021 ; Neuburger & Egger, 2021 ). Motives play a key role in individuals' perception of health risk and may act as an essential parameter in estimating the risk associated with travelling during COVID-19 ( Chua, Al-Ansi, Lee, & Han, 2020 ). Hence, perceptions towards travel is also considered an important facet of individual state in this study and we study its associations with motives (O) as well as behaviour – intent to travel (B).

2.3.3. Behaviour

Our framework conceptualizes the intention to travel as a behaviour (B) and view it as an individual's propensity to travel for leisure during and after COVID-19. While reported intentions may not be a true reflection of actual behaviour, they have been indicated as a close proxy ( Jin, Bao, & Tang, 2022 ). Prior scholars have also used consumers' travel intentions during a health crisis ( Chien, Sharifpour, Ritchie, & Watson, 2017 ; Schroeder, Pennington-Gray, Kaplanidou, & Zhan, 2013 ) as a reflection of their travel behaviour.

2.3.4. Consequence

Lastly, the willingness to pay extra for safety measures when travelling is modelled as the consequence (C), as scholars have found that travellers adopt non-pharmaceutical measures, such as wearing masks, sanitizing hands, and obeying travelling restrictions to improve their safety during COVID-19 ( Aharon, Jacobi, Cohen, Tzur, & Qadan, 2021 ; Chung, Lee, & Park, 2021 ). Additionally, travellers are willing to pay premiums for additional safety measures ( Sánchez-Cañizares, Cabeza-Ramírez, Muñoz-Fernández, & Fuentes-García, 2020 ), but this willingness varies across contexts ( De Silva, Khan, Vorley, & Zeng, 2020 ; Qiu et al., 2020 ), and we consider it interesting and practically beneficial to explore willingness as a consequence in our study. Furthermore, age, gender, personal income, and household income are employed as control variables as they have been previously indicated to influence consumer behaviour ( Sreen, Dhir, Talwar, Tan, & Alharbi, 2021 ), especially in context of travel and tourism ( Khanra, Dhir, Kaur, & Joseph, 2021 ).

3. Hypothesis development

3.1. stimulus – organism, 3.1.1. extraversion.

Studies indicate that individuals with high extraversion are prone to experiencing positive emotions, activity, assertiveness, need for stimulation, and gregariousness ( Matzler, Faullant, Renzl, & Leiter, 2005 ). It is possible that extraverts may therefore have greater ability to cope up with situational crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent studies lend support to this supposition, for example, Shokrkon and Nicoladis (2021) , who found that extraversion to be positively associated with physical, social, and emotional well-being during COVID-19. However, an opposing view also exists which suggests that extraverts may feel uneasy during COVID-19 as they get energy through social interactions and reduce stress by talking to others ( Wijngaards et al., 2020 ). Additionally, considering the connotations of Japan as our study context, we posit that extraverts in this geographic context may be driven to talk to their family members and attempt to comply to the wishes expressed in order to show respect ( Ang, 2006 ).

This proclivity to seek pleasure ( Lyu, Oh, & Lee, 2013 ) and social interactions by travelling ( Tran, Nguyen, & Nguyen, 2015 ) may mean that extraverts are more inclined to demonstrate increased mobility ( Chan et al., 2021 ), regardless of the state of pandemic-related restrictions. We believe that these individuals would be introjectedly motivated by their families' and friends' expectations and reactions in order to avoid expressions of anger or displeasure. While, to the best of our knowledge, there is no a priori for this association, our supposition is based on extant studies which indicate that extraversion is associated positively with social approach motives in various contexts ( Elliot & Thrash, 2002 ; Zimmerman, Boswell, Shipp, Dunford, & Boudreau, 2012 ). Social approach motives predispose individuals towards attaining short term positive outcomes ( Nikitin & Freund, 2015 ). Thus, it is probable that extraverts may be motivated by the desire to comply with the wishes of family and friends regarding leisure travel to avoid negative reactions. Hence, we propose:

Extraversion positively associates with introjected motivation.

The relationship between extraversion and amotivation has not, to the best of our knowledge, been investigated in the context of leisure travel, but the association has been examined in other contexts and the two have been found to share a negative association. For example, Brannon (2010) examined sports motivation and found that amotivation and extraversion are negatively correlated. Similarly, Komarraju, Karau, and Schmeck (2009) found a negative association between extraversion and amotivation for academic performance. We extrapolate these findings to propose that a similar negative association also exists in our context. Our supposition is further supported by prior literature which indicates that extraverts are highly motivated to take part in leisure activities ( Lin et al., 2007 ) and travel ( Talwar et al., 2022 ). Consequently, we believe that extraverts' fun-seeking nature ( Paris & Pietschnig, 2015 ) likely decreases their amotivation towards leisure travel. Hence, the following hypothesis is proposed:

Extraversion negatively associates with amotivation.

3.1.2. Neuroticism

The positive association of neuroticism and introjected motivation has been established in prior studies (e.g., Clark & Schroth, 2010 ), such as in the cases of exercising to improve one's weight or appearance ( Ingledew & Markland, 2008 ) and academic performance ( Clark & Schroth, 2010 ). Extrapolating from these studies, we expect a similar positive association in case of leisure travel as well, which is supported by the belief that neurotic individuals struggle to regulate emotions and feelings of anxiety, which may cause a them to be positively inclined to defer to others for advice ( Rhodes, Courneya, & Hayduk, 2002 ) and thus be extrinsically motivated ( Yeh, Wang, Hsu, & Lin, 2020 ). Since introjected motivation is closely linked with extrinsic motivation, we expect that neurotic individuals are motivated by their social groups' (friends and family) persuasive efforts to undertake travel. Hence, we hypothesize:

Neuroticism positively associates with introjected motivation.

Aronson (2008) suggested that individuals with neurotic personality type and high anxiety may engage in substance abuse or unsafe sexual practices because their anxiety levels above a certain threshold lead them to be indifferent to the risks of such behaviours. We believe that Aronson's study (2008) indicates that highly neurotic individuals may exhibit amotivation. This is supported by the limited research that has examined the relationship between neuroticism and amotivation and determined a positive association between the two ( David, 2010 ; Komarraju et al., 2009 ). For instance, West, Rhoden, Robinson, Castle, and St Clair Gibson (2016) found significant positive correlation between neuroticism and amotivation for sports participants, and Khalilzadeh and Khodi (2021) found the same association in an academic context. However, to the best of authors' knowledge, no prior study has examined this association in the context of travel and tourism. We therefore extrapolate from existing research to posit that the environmental uncertainties created by the pandemic cause neurotic individuals to experience anxiety about leisure travelling such that they become amotivated. This amotivation or indifference, in our view, would arise from these individuals' perceived lack of control or sense of powerlessness over the outcome ( Bratko, Butkovic, Hlupic, & Pocrnic, 2022 ). Thus, we propose:

Neuroticism positively associates with amotivation.

3.2. Organism – behaviour

3.2.1. introjected motivation.

Individuals with introjected motivation seek to improve their self-esteem ( Gillison, Osborn, Standage, & Skevington, 2009 ) and avoid unpleasant feelings ( Kramer & Petzoldt, 2022 ) by seeking the approval of others for their actions ( Shupe & Gagné, 2016 ). A recent study ( Cole et al., 2019 ) found that introjected motivation promoted leisure travel among people with disabilities for two possible reasons: (a) perceived positive emotional outcomes (e.g., pride) from their families, and (b) improved self-worth. We extrapolate from these findings to postulate that individuals driven by introjected motives seek to obtain positive emotional reactions, and avoid displeasure, from family and friends. An individual may also experience introjected motivation in this context when members of their social group attempt to persuade them in favour of leisure travel and the individual bows to group pressure in order to avoid stress or guilt ( Ahn & Janke, 2011a ; Osei-Frimpong, 2019 ). Moreover, individuals may experience partial introjected motivation through external messages ( Graves, Sarkis, & Gold, 2019 ). Since the restrictions on travel (domestic and international) are lifting, governments and organizations are actively educating the public about the hygiene standards being adopted to ensure a safe travel environment and encourage travel to boost the economy. Based on the literature (e.g., Graves et al., 2019 ), we postulate that individuals may be inclined to believe such external communication and be introjectedly motivated to conclude that travelling during COVID-19 is safe in order to demonstrate their self-worth, their ability ( Ahn & Janke, 2011b ) to comply with existing hygiene standards and practices, and their commitment ( Lee, Bentley, & Hsu, 2017 ) to undertake leisure travel as a way to support this sector's economic recovery. Hence, we propose:

Introjected motivation positively associates with perception of safe travel during COVID-19.

3.2.2. Amotivation

Scholars in travel and tourism research have previously indicated that amotivation hampers travel intentions ( Allan, Autin, & Duffy, 2016 ; Chow et al., 2019 ). Recently, Cole et al. (2019) found that an individual who believes a travel destination to be inaccessible to them feels amotivated, which negatively impacts their intentions to travel ( Cole et al., 2019 ). Such findings can be attributed to the fact that an amotivated individual may start believing that performing a behaviour is of no use and questioning the merits of the behaviour itself ( Deci & Ryan, 2010 ).

We believe that COVID-19 and the various restrictions placed on travelling may cause an individual to question whether leisure travel during the pandemic yields any positive outcomes and argue that in such cases, the individual may feel amotivated to travel, considering it to be improbable that they will attain the objective of experiencing leisure. We further argue that higher amotivation leads to lower evaluation of positive outcomes (perceptions that such travel would be safe) to be gained from travelling. Hence, a negative relationship. While to the best of our knowledge, there is no a priori support for our argument, our supposition is based on recent findings which indicate that COVID-19 has affected individuals' travel decisions and perceptions of hygiene and safety ( Nazneen et al., 2020 ) with regards to travel duration and use of travel-related services like dining ( Radic et al., 2021 ) and transport ( Khaddar & Fatmi, 2021 ). Thus, we hypothesize:

Amotivation negatively associates with perception of safe travel during COVID-19.

3.2.3. Perception of safe travel during COVID-19

Travelling involves many aspects that individuals may evaluate and question with respect to the perceived safety of travelling during the pandemic. Several scholars who have studied consumers' travel behaviours and intentions during a health crisis suggest that perceived risk of contracting COVID-19 decreases the intentions to travel and generally has a negative impact on all travel-related activities ( Chien et al., 2017 ; Schroeder et al., 2013 ). For example, Khaddar and Fatmi (2021) suggested that individuals may want to avoid public transport or air travel because they fear being infected with COVID-19. Besides the mode of travel, the style of accommodation, such as hotels or Airbnb, may also expose an individual to other travellers and hence increase the risk of contracting COVID-19 ( Lee & Deale, 2021 ). Similarly, dining also presents the risk of contracting COVID-19 because individuals sit together and remove masks to eat ( Radic et al., 2021 ).

These perceived risks can induce individuals to avoid travel ( Joo, Xu, Lee, Lee, & Woosnam, 2021 ; Neuburger & Egger, 2021 ), and we argue that that perceiving travel as ‘safe’ positively influences individuals' intention to travel as well as their willingness to pay extra for measures that they believe to improve safety. Our argument is supported by scholars such as Li, Zhong, Zhang, & Hua (2021) who demonstrated that safety is the watchword when determining the desirability of service industries during and after COVID-19. Thus, leveraging such findings and prior literature, we make the following hypotheses:

Perception of safe travel during COVID-19 positively associates with intention to travel.

Perception of safe travel during COVID-19 positively associates with willingness to pay premium for safe travel.

3.3. Behaviour – consequence

Consumers pay not only for the functional benefits of a product or service but also for its associated health, societal, and environmental benefits ( Chatterjee, Chakraborty, Fulk, & Sarker, 2021 ). Since provision of safety by tourist destinations or hotels during travel includes societal and health benefits, it seems salient to measure an individual's willingness to pay premiums for safe travel and associated activities like dining out.

A recent study showed that intention to travel acts as an antecedent to a willingness to pay premiums for safe travel ( Sánchez-Cañizares et al., 2020 ). Additionally, several scholars (including Zhang et al., 2017 ) have determined that intentions can precede consumers' willingness to pay premium prices for a product or a service, for example in case of eco-tourism ( Hultman, Kazeminia, & Ghasemi, 2015 ) and other allegedly environment-friendly products ( Barber, Kuo, Bishop, & Goodman, 2012 ). In case of eco-tourism and environmentally friendly products, an individual considers the benefits that future generations may obtain by one's actions to save the environment through eco-friendly consumption. We posit that in the COVID-19 context, individuals perceive a great deal of responsibility to protect both current and future generations from the effects of the pandemic. Hence, these individuals would be willing to sacrifice monetary resources to protect their family and loved ones ( Smith, 2020 ). Furthermore, individuals who perceive a reduced risk of contracting COVID-19 if leisure travel activities follow recommended safety standards and guidelines may be more likely to enjoy the personal benefits offered by leisure travel. We thus argue that individuals' concerns for safety during COVID-19 positively incline them to pay a higher price for safe travel environments ( Joo et al., 2021 ). Thus, we hypothesize:

Intention to travel during COVID-19 positively associates with willingness to pay premium for safe travel.

4.1. Instrument development

Two experts familiar with Japanese culture and markets reviewed the pertinent literature to develop the survey instrument. Pre-validated scale items anchored on a seven-point Likert scale (strongly disagree – ‘1’ to strongly agree – ‘7’) were used to collect data on most of the study variables (see Table 2 for details). Four items measuring extraversion and neuroticism were adopted from Donnellan, Oswald, Baird, and Lucas (2006) , and the four items measuring introjected motivation were adopted from Ryan and Connell (1989) . Amotivation was measured through three items from Ryan and Connell (1989) , and five items were taken from Sánchez-Cañizares et al. (2020) to measure travel intent and willingness to pay premium prices for safe travel, for a total of ten items. Six items measuring perception of safe travel during COVID-19 assessed the perceived safety of travelling through plane and public transport, staying in a hotel, using recreational facilities in a hotel, and dining in and were adapted from established scales to suit the context of this study ( Dong, Ma, Jia, & Tian, 2021 ; Khatib, Carvalho, Primavesi, To, & Poirier, 2020 ; Wei, Chen, & Lee, 2021 ). The questionnaire details are presented in Appendix 1.

Factor loadings for the measurement and structural model.

Note: Items are sourced from references mentioned in Table 1 .

One professional translator was hired to translate the survey from English into Japanese to facilitate respondents' clear understanding of the items. Two third-party research professionals helped to review and confirm the translation by back-translating the Japanese questionnaire in English. These professionals also later translated the responses from Japanese into English. The back translation was almost identical to the original English version and confirmed that the translation from English into Japanese was accurate. Any confusing or unclear statements were re-worded to ensure clarity in the final instrument. Since some of the items were adapted, we consulted two experts from the fields of consumer behaviour and psychology to assess the instrument's face validity. Subsequently, a pilot study with 20 respondents (11 male and 9 female) was conducted to test language clarity. Minor changes in the language of the items were made based on the expert recommendations and pilot results.

4.2. Data collection

Our study focuses on Japan as the context since the leisure travel and tourism sector in this country was severely affected by the pandemic. Prior to the arrival of COVID-19 in 2019, Japan had a stable domestic travel market of ¥20–22 trillion (approximately 170 billion USD) and an increase in the number of foreign travellers. However, since COVID-19, the travel market value has declined by 69% ( Yagasaki, 2021 ) and Japan has seen a marked decrease in tourism. To boost this sector, in July 22, 2020 the Japanese government initiated “Go-To” campaigns that provided travel discounts and subsidies of up to 50% to domestic and foreign travellers. Despite the campaigns, >713 travel- and tourism-related companies (restaurants, hotels, and transport companies) declared bankruptcy ( Teikoku Databank, 2020 ). Such statistics indicate a critical need to examine if and why Japanese consumers intend to travel for leisure.

An online survey was conducted and data was collected through the services of Macromill Inc. in Japan during December 2020. Macromill is a leading survey data collecting company that has collected data for various government bodies, academics institutions, and industries ( Dhir, Malodia, Awan, Sakashita, & Kaur, 2021 ) and has network of over 2 million Japanese users ( Kumagai & Nagasawa, 2019 ). The sampling frame included these users and thus the authors believed the frame to be expansive and representative of Japan's population. An online survey was used as it saves time and money and improves response rates ( Van Selm & Jankowski, 2006 ). Moreover, online surveys often offer respondents anonymity, which allows the researchers to reduce the possibility of social desirability and respondent bias and thereby obtain more accurate responses from ( Jebarajakirthy et al., 2021 ).

The data collection was directed at individuals residing in Tokyo, and two selection criteria were determined for recruiting respondents who were selected randomly through Macromill's databases. First, students were excluded; second, an equal proportion of solo and group travellers was selected via filter questions asking respondents' current plans to travel solo or in a group. Students were excluded from the sample because it has been shown that student responses tend to vary significantly from those of the rest of the population and thus may skew results ( Henry, 2008 ). We chose to launch the survey in Tokyo as it is the most populated city in Japan ( Worldometer, 2022 ) and had the highest number of tourists in Japan pre-COVID (10.44 million in 2019, per Arba, 2021).

The Japan Marketing Research Association (JMRA)’s ethical guidelines were followed during the survey. Each respondent was informed that answering the survey was voluntary and that responses were anonymized, and was instructed to read the questionnaire carefully before responding. Respondents were also requested to think of specific businesses allied with the travel industry, e.g., hotels, restaurants, or travel operators while answering the survey questions. This was done to ensure that the respondents considered various aspects and modes of travel and travel-related activities before answering the questions. 980 responses to the survey were received, from which 190 responses with missing values and incomplete data were eliminated, resulting in a final response rate of 80.61%. The final sample of 790 respondents comprised 50.20% males and 49.80% females, and the average age of respondents was 50.02 years. 50.60% of respondents were married, and 57.40% of had children. The sample characteristics align with broader Japanese population statistics, which show roughly equal proportions of gender, low birth rates of around 1.4 children per woman, and a median age of around 49 years ( Worldometer, 2022 ).

5. Data analysis

Before conducting the main analysis, we checked the Kurtosis and skewness values and found that both values fell within the acceptable range (skewness values ranged between −0.5 and + 0.5), indicating that the data was normally distributed and viable for further testing. The statistical software used in this analysis was SPSS 26.0 and AMOS. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was conducted for evaluating the proposed research model and underlying hypotheses using the two-step procedure ( Anderson & Gerbing, 1988 ). The measurement model's reliability and validity were assessed in the first step while the structural model was then put to the test in the second.

5.1. Measurement model: reliability and validity

Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to test the measurement model, which showed a good fit: χ 2 / df  = 2.44, CFI  = 0.95, TLI  = 0.95, and RMSEA  = 0.05. Composite reliability (CR) values ranged between 0.79 and 0.96 and were above the threshold value of 0.70 ( Fornell & Larcker, 1981 ). Each item factor loading score was >0.50, and all items were retained for further analysis. The average variance extracted (AVE) for each construct was greater than the threshold value of 0.50, indicating suitable convergent validity for the model ( Fornell & Larcker, 1981 ) ( Table 3 , Table 4 ). Heterotrait-Monotrait ratio (HTMT) values were calculated to establish discriminant validity and since all of the HTMT values were less than the recommended threshold of 0.85 ( Henseler, Ringle, & Sarstedt, 2015 ), discriminant validity was established. (See Table 5 .)

Convergent and discriminant validity.

Note: E: Extraversion; N: Neuroticism; AM: Amotivation; IM: Introjected motivation; PTT: Perception to travel during COVID-19; ITT: Intention to travel during COVID-19; WTP: Willing to pay for safe travel.

HTMT- discriminant validity.

Hypotheses results.

5.2. Common method bias

Harman's one-factor test was used to check for common method bias ( Harman, 1967 ). A single unrotated factor with all items was generated which accounted for 27.17% of the variance in the data, which is less than the recommended threshold of 50% ( Jebarajakirthy et al., 2021 ). Thus, we determined that common method bias was not present in the data.

5.3. Structural model and hypotheses testing

The structural model was also found to possess a good model fit: χ 2 / df  = 2.27, CFI  = 0.94, TLI  = 0.93, and RMSEA  = 0.05. Six out of nine hypotheses were supported (H3, H6, and H9 were not supported). Extraversion positively impacts introjected motivation (H1: β  = 0.36, p  < 0.001) and negatively impacts amotivation (H2 : β =  −0.21 , p   <  0.001). Neuroticism does not have a significant association with introjected motivation (H3 : β =  −0.11 , p   >  0.05), whereas it has a significant positive association with amotivation (H4 : β   = 0.24 , p   <  0.001). Introjected motivation has a significant positive association with perception of safe travel during COVID-19 (H5 : β   = 0.58 , p   <  0.001), whereas amotivation has a non-significant negative association with perception of safe travel during COVID-19 (H6 : β = − 0.06 , p   >  0.05). Perception of safe travel during COVID-19 has a significant positive association with intention to travel (H7 : β = 0.68 , p   <  0.001) and willingness to pay premiums for safe travel (H8 : β = 0.69 , p   <  0.001). Intention to travel has a non-significant negative association with willingness to pay premium for safe travel (H9 : β =  −0.12 , p   >  0.05). Among the control variables, both gender and age have a significant positive association with intention to travel (Gender: β = 0 .34 , p   <  0.001 ; Age: β = 0 .04 , p   <  0.05) , whereas gender and marital status both have a significant negative association with willingness to pay premiums for safe travel (Gender: β =  −0.36 , p   <  0.001 ; Marital Status: β =  −0.33 , p   <  0.001) . The R 2 values (extracted variance) for intentions to travel and willingness to pay are 56.60% and 38.90% respectively (See Fig. 2 ) and indicate that the model adequately explains variance in both constructs.

Structural model.

Note: The beta (path co-efficient) values for control variables are provided under Section 5.3 Structural model and hypotheses testing.

6. Discussion

Extraversion was positively related to introjected motivation, lending support to H1. The study's findings suggest that extraverts believe their family and friends want them to undertake leisure travel, which may be attributed to their recognition of the stress that extraverts experienced during COVID-19 ( Wijngaards et al., 2020 ), and the fact that extraverts crave social acknowledgement ( Paris & Pietschnig, 2015 ). The finding aligns with our understanding of Japanese culture as collectivist ( Takano & Osaka, 2018 ), wherein the expectations and advice of others, especially family members, is given great importance in order to adhere to cultural norms and maintain social relationships.

H2 was also supported, as extraversion was negatively associated with amotivation. Prior studies support this finding: some have found that extraverts may feel uneasy during COVID-19 if they are confined to a particular place ( Landmann & Rohmann, 2022 ) owing to their perceived decline in social connections during the pandemic ( Folk, Okabe-Miyamoto, Dunn, & Lyubomirsky, 2020 ). Additionally, the isolating measures taken in response to COVID-19 may have increased stress and worry for extraverts, as they desire social connections way more than other personality types ( Wijngaards et al., 2020 ). It is plausible that individuals high in extraversion may experience low amotivation since extraverts are fun-loving ( Paris & Pietschnig, 2015 ), talkative, assertive, vigorous, sociable, and adventuresome ( Tran et al., 2015 ; Fayombo, 2010 ). Consequently, it is plausible to posit that these individuals usually possess positive inclinations towards travel ( Mei, Tang, & Lam, 2017 ) as they may find leisure travel to be beneficial in terms of gaining energy through social interactions and relieving stress by talking to others ( Wijngaards et al., 2020 ). Thus, extraverts may be less likely believe that there are no benefits of leisure travelling during COVID-19 and hence, feel low amotivation.

The analysis showed that neurotic personality type was insignificantly associated with introjected motivation, and so H3 was not supported. In other contexts, individuals with neurotic personality types seek others advise for exercising ( Rhodes et al., 2002 ), and were extrinsically motivated to digital entrenuership ( Yeh et al., 2020 ). The probable explanation for no relationship between neurotic personality type and introjected motivation could be that travel is not a necessary step in obtaining counsel or seeking external motivation. We believe that due to their concern of contracting COVID-19, neurotics may wish to adopt social distancing measures which could explain the non-significant connection ( Abdelrahman, Li, & Wang, 2020 ). Talwar et al. (2022) also found that neuroticism has the least relative importance of all five personality traits in predicting travel intentions during COVID-19. As a result, even if friends and family members advise them to travel, neurotics are unlikely to listen since they may be afraid of contracting COVID-19 ( Nikčević & Spada, 2020 ). However, we found support for H4 as neuroticism positively was associated with amotivation, a finding which is lent credence by prior research as well (e.g., Komarraju et al., 2009 ; West et al., 2016 ). The high levels of anxiety they face during the pandemic ( Khosravi, 2020 ) may make individuals with this personality type indifferent to the outcome of leisure travel, as they feel powerless in this situation ( Anicich, Foulk, Osborne, Gale, & Schaerer, 2020 ). The sense of powerlessness or lack of control may therefore make them believe that there are no benefits of leisure travelling, and hence feel amotivated towards leisure travel.

The analysis shows that introjected motivation has a strong positive association with perceptions of safe travel during COVID-19, and so H5 is supported. Individuals with primarily introjected motivation seek to avoid unpleasant feelings ( Kramer & Petzoldt, 2022 ) and improve their self-worth by conforming to others' expectations and desires ( Gillison et al., 2009 ). Japan is a collectivistic culture in which an individual gives priority to family goals over individual goals ( Sreen, Purbey, & Sadarangani, 2018 ). Thus, family members and friends persuading an individual to leisure travel during COVID-19 in this geographical context may induce the individual follow their advice to avoid the negative feelings that may arise from disagreeing. Additionally, taking leisure trips during COVID-19 helps people increase self-worth since they can demonstrate their capacity to adhere to safety precautions and contribute to economic recovery. Hence, individuals may be introjectedly motivated to undertake leisure travel and have positive perceptions of safe travel during COVID-19.

H6 was not supported as amotivation shared a non-significant association with perception of safe travel during COVID-19. The restrictions and limitations placed on travelling may have led individuals not to consider leisure travel but undertake only necessary travel related to their employment and sustenance. Amotivated individuals may not have any intention to travel for leisure ( Cole et al., 2019 ) or believe travelling to be sufficiently safe in this scenario, which may be a reason for our findings.

We found support for H7 in that perception of safe travel during COVID-19 was positively associated with travel intentions. Perceived risk reduces one's desire to travel and engage in recreational activities ( Chien et al., 2017 ; Schroeder et al., 2013 ). An individual performing a leisure travel activity during COVID-19 has to ensure the safety of the airplane, the other public transport they may need to take, their accommodation, and even dining facilities. As a result, safety has become a buzzword in COVID-19 contexts ( Li et al., 2021 ). It is like that people's perceptions of safety when engaging in leisure activities increases their desire to travel, which may explain our findings.

The significant positive association between perception of safe travel during COVID-19 and willingness to pay premiums for safe travel (H8) indicates that even if individuals consider travel to be safe, they are still willing to pay more for purportedly safer travel. This result is unsurprising as multiple institutions have reported the importance of practicing adequate hygiene while travelling to limit exposure to COVID-19 ( Khaddar & Fatmi, 2021 ; Machida et al., 2020 ). Since the Japanese culture is collectivist, the consumers in this economy may be more inclined to follow recommended hygiene practices and may also see significant value addition in purchasing services from travel and tourism organizations who claim to provide safe and hygienically-produced services, and therefore be willing to pay higher prices for these services. Such research would significantly aid practitioners in designing products/services and pricing strategies to address consumer concerns in a clear and transparent manner.

Intention to travel has a non-significant association with willingness to pay premium for safe travel and, hence, H9 is rejected. The result is surprising considering prior literature ( Hultman et al., 2015 ; Zhang et al., 2017 ) which found a positive association between these two variables. A possible reason for the result could be that once individuals form the intent to travel, they may be indifferent to the prices being charged. This is clear from surveys of both domestic and foreign tourists, which demonstrate how keen they are to travel to Japan. For instance, the Japan Travel Bureau Foundation (JTBF) polled overseas visitors to Japan from Asia, Europe, the United States, and Australia and discovered that 80% of the respondents wished to travel to Japan after the COVID-19 restrictions were lifted ( Japan Travel Bureau Federation, 2021 ). A survey by Japan Travel Bureau Federation (2021) in January 2021 that asked domestic tourists if they “wanted to travel more than ever” or “wanted to travel as much as they did before” after COVID-19 restrictions were eased found that 69.40% of them did. Hence, it is possible that Japanese residents may have saved money for future travel plans as a result of the COVID-19's impact on service prices and to overcome the feeling of ‘being stuck’ at home ( Japan Travel Bureau Federation, 2021 ). This could explain the insignificant association between travel intention and willingness to pay premium prices, as respondent may have become immune to pricing considerations. However, it is also possible that this is a context specific finding which requires further investigations before any generalizations may be made.

7. Conclusion

Several academics have advocated for a more thorough examination of customers' travel choices ( Kim et al., 2022 ; Talwar et al., 2022 ) in order to aid the tourism industry's efforts to recover from COVID-19-related losses of around 935 billion USD worldwide ( Forbes, 2021 ). This study responds to this call by empirically examining an individual's travel decision-making using novel mechanisms and pathways based on the SOBC and SDT theoretical lenses. We raised three RQs and evaluated relationships between personality traits, motivational states, safe travel perception, travel intentions, and willingness to pay a premium for safe travel during COVID-19. The findings supported six of the nine hypotheses and revealed a previously unknown mechanism via which individual attributes of personality and motives influence leisure travel decision-making. Given the possibility that COVID-19 may continue to affect individual lives for a long time ( Mckinsey, 2022 ), the findings of our study have valuable implications for theory and practice, allowing us to develop propositions that may encourage people to travel safely in these uncertain times. While our contributions are discussed in the following sections, we conclude by emphasizing the need for more research into individual's personal and situational characteristics that can encourage their return to leisure travel and social activities as the world tries to develop a ‘new normal’ of life in tandem with COVID-19.

7.1. Theoretical implications

The present study makes four key theoretical contributions to travel and tourism literature. First, several scholars have applied the SOR framework to examine affective and behavioural responses for travelling behaviours ( Chang et al., 2014 ; Jang & Namkung, 2009 ; Rajaguru, 2014 ) but SOBC is a new theory in this field. Our application of the SOBC framework in the context of travel and tourism contributed to existing literature by exploring its applicability and validating its effectiveness to explain travel-related behaviour in a new context. We urge scholars to further leverage SOBC to explore other travel-related behaviours, such as eco-friendly travel, and food wastage during travel.

Second, we focused on understanding new pathways and previously less studied variables to investigate the influence of individual motives and traits on travel intent during COVID-19. To the best of our understanding, only one recent study included personality traits in the COVID-19 context ( Talwar et al., 2022 ), and the interplay between personality traits and motives to examine consumers' perceptions towards travel during COVID-19 has not been previously investigated. Moreover, scholars have long argued about moving beyond static personality traits in order to explore more dynamic perspectives, such as motives, to define personalities ( Sheldon & Prentice, 2019 ; Koole, Schlinkert, Maldei, & Baumann, 2019 ). Our study thus expands existing literature and adds valuable insights into travelling during the pandemic by integrating the static personality traits theory with a more dynamic viewpoint of SDT ( Cole et al., 2019 ).

Third, the unsupported correlation of travel intentions and willingness to pay premium for safe travel is a rather surprising result that warrants further examination in our view. We attribute this result to the sample and our inclusion of the select motives and personality traits we focused on. It would be interesting to examine if testing this association in future yields similar results once restrictions are fully lifted since it could have implications for researching the role of pricing (and related factors, such as the perceived severity of COVID-19 and consumers' psychological well-being) in travel-related decision-making. We believe that this finding also provides an opportunity for scholars to investigate impact of specific hygiene practices on travel intentions and willingness to pay premium prices for safe travel.

Finally, most studies investigating consumers' psychological predispositions towards travelling during COVID-19 have examined culturally western nations like the Netherlands, Norway, and Australia ( Butler, Szili, Cutler, Hay, & Saikia, 2021 , Isaac & Keijzer, 2021 , Jacobsen, Farstad, Higham, Hopkins, & Landa-Mata, 2021 ). Contrary to prior research, the findings of this study offer valuable knowledge about the relatively under-studied economy and culture of Japan, wherein individual behaviour may differ significantly from that of Japan's western counterparts. For example, the Japanese give much consideration to complying with social regulations and norms, as well as to saving face, which leads to them ensure that others are not embarrassed or perceivably offended in any way ( Tashiro & Shaw, 2020 ). Thus, understanding the travel behaviour of the Japanese adds significant value to current literature.

7.2. Practical implications

7.2.1. implications for policy makers.

Our findings about the associations between personality and motives can assist government and incumbent policymakers to redesign old programs and launch new campaigns that can draw the attention of individuals with these personality traits and motivational sources. For example, raising awareness about job losses in the travel industry and the drastic effects on travel industry employees may catch the attention of individuals high on introjected motivation and extraversion since they may be inclined to actively pursue leisure travel and assist this industry's recovery owing to their propensity for seeking social recognition and positive emotional reactions. The policy makers may create campaigns and commercials that showcase travellers as heroes of the tourism industry and economy.

Additionally, the belief that travel is safe during COVID-19 favourably influences travel intentions, showing that if people believe that leisure travel is safe, they will be more likely to take flights and public transportation, stay in hotels, and eat at restaurants. In light of this conclusion, regulators might collaborate with lodging establishments and travel agencies to develop safety-related criteria and certifications that these businesses could display, perhaps fostering positive attitudes about how the safety of travel is improving. A star rating system for safety may be created by policymakers, wherein a 5-star rating denotes the presence of the finest safety practises and a 1-star rating denotes the presence of the bare minimum.

7.2.2. Implications for hotel managers

Findings showcase that extraverts have introjected motivation to travel during COVID-19. Extraverts look for social relationships and feel energised from interacting with others ( Lyu et al., 2013 ; Tran et al., 2015 ). Following this finding, we posit that hotel managers can design private dining areas that let patrons converse with one another (their travel group and others) while limiting their exposure to other diners. For example, open private cabins that are six feet away from the next cabin but allows the travellers to talk to each other. Furthermore, managers can fulfil the desire of extraverted individuals to mingle and converse with others by organising theme and activity related events, such as karaoke night. Due to their propensity for introjection, extraverts may be motivated to travel for leisure if family members suggest it. In order to advertise and promote leisure travel in collectivistic communities like Japan, hotel management might also get in touch with formal or informal opinion leaders, such as local celebrities and social media influencers. These influencers and celebrities may help start a conversation between family members and friends to undertake leisure travel.

Additionally, the hotel managers should concentrate on improving travellers' (and potential travellers') knowledge about the safety of their facilities to promote leisure travel during COVID-19. Hotels should make sure, for instance, that information on hygiene standards, such as clean rooms and dining areas, is available on their website along with photographs from the property to back these claims. Such actions might persuade those who may otherwise decide not to use the hotels' amenities. Booking confirmations may also include information on any safety measures being taken, like the use of masks or hand sanitizers in dining areas. The hospitality sector might run programmes to educate and inform guests about travel safety. It might also post all the safety precautions it is taking on screens located around its facilities. It may also be beneficial for hotels to create campaigns that emphasize appreciation towards visitors who travel and thus contribute to the recovery of the hotel as a business.

7.2.3. Implications for travel agencies

Introjected motivation positively influences perception of safe travel during COVID-19, which then influences travel intentions and willingness to pay premiums for safe travel. Because introjected motivation arises from the desire to increase one's self-worth, travel agencies may provide recognition certificates to leisure travellers that thank them for their contribution in helping the Japanese leisure travel industry and economy recover. Such certificates may increase introjected motivation by offering external validation from which one may gain a greater sense of self-worth. These certifications may be posted in social media that further enhances individual's self-worth in the community.

Furthermore, it is crucial to cultivate a sense of security when travelling in the era of COVID-19, according to our findings regarding perceptions towards travel during COVID-19 and travel intentions. A number of parameters, including vehicle transportation, hotel stay, dining, and ordering food, are considered as potential safety risks by leisure travellers and any weak links may make them apprehensive of travelling during COVID-19. Travel agencies may mitigate these concerns by creating a travel package plan that pick people up from their homes in completely secure and hygienic vehicles, transport them to the airport, obtain flight tickets with little contact from others, and guarantee transportation to the hotel once at the destination.

7.3. Limitations and future research

When considering the results of this report, researchers should keep the following five limitations in mind and develop future research strategies to address these limitations. First, common method bias and social desirability biases can be present in surveys. We tested for common method bias using Harman's one-factor test. To minimize biases in social desirability, we have also ensured the privacy of respondents by keeping them anonymous. However, these strategies may not ensure the elimination of such biases. Scholars may conduct a field experiment or a mixed-method research that would ensure both internal and external validity.

Second, we considered select personality and motivational forms in line with the study objective and this could have limited our findings. Third, this study is a cross-sectional study conducted at a singular point in time. A longitudinal study after the restrictions are lifted or concern about COVID-19 declines may reveal interesting findings. Fourth, the current study looked at safety procedures for all aspects of travel, including transportation, hotel stays, and dining. Individuals may have differing reactions to each travel-related activity, and may regard any of them as posing challenges that significantly influence their travel intentions. For instance, an individual may believe that transport has the highest associated risk of contracting COVID-19 or that dining has the least risk. The present study does not consider the varying reaction to each activity of leisure travel but considers all of them in single construct of perception of safe travel during COVID-19. Future researchers may investigate the impact of individual travel-related activities on travel inclinations.

Last, defining the boundary conditions by including moderators, such as fear of COVID-19, social norms, and mortality salience, may provide interesting insights for the current theoretical model. Additionally, future scholars may include the effects of other variables that may directly or indirectly affect tested associations – including social demographics – which we included as control variables.

Contribution statement

NS, AT and FB did the conceptualization, writing-original draft, & writing-reviewing and editing. SS and AD did data curation, methodology, project administration, supervision. & writing-reviewing and editing.

Declaration of Competing Interest

Acknowledgements, biographies.

Naman Sreen (PhD) is a professor at O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, India. His research appears in Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services among others.

Anushree Tandon (PhD) is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Turku School of Economics, University of Turku, Finland. Her research appears in Computers in Human Behaviour, Computers in Industry, Appetite among others.

Fauzia Jabeen (PhD) is a Full Professor of Management at the College of Business at Abu Dhabi University. She has published works on organizational behaviour, gender studies, entrepreneurship, social responsibility, sustainability, etc., in high impact factor journals. She also serves as the Head of Engagement and Corporate Relations and Beta Gamma Sigma society-chapter advisor at Abu Dhabi University. She has been a Visiting Professor to the Burgundy School of Business, Dijon, France.

Shalini Srivastava (Ph.D.) is a professor at Jaipuria Institute of Management, India. Her research appears in Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, Personnel Review among others.

Amandeep Dhir (DSc, PhD) is a Professor of Research Methods at University of Agder, Norway. He is also a visiting professor at Norwegian School of Hotel Management, University of Stavanger, Norway. His research appears in the Technology Forecasting and Social Change, Internet Research, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, International Journal of Information Management, Computers in Human Behaviour, Computers in Industry, International Journal of Hospitality Management, Journal of Cleaner Production, Food quality and preferences, Appetite, Information Technology & People, Australasian Marketing Journal, Enterprise Information Systems among others.

Appendix A. Questionnaire

Instruction to participants.

This survey is aimed to understand peoples' opinion towards travelling, exclusively for academic purpose. Travelling means travels for leisure purposes only (no business travels). Travelling can be abroad or domestic; it can also be alone or group travels.

Screening question one

How many times were you travelling (abroad or domestic; alone or group) on average per one year before COVID19?

(answers: 1 = 0 times, 2 = 1times, 3 = 2times, 4 = 3times, 5 = 4times, 6 = 5times, 7 = 6times, 8 = 7times, 9 = 8times, 10 = 9times, 11 = 10 + times) – > pick 3(2 times per year on average) or more.

Screening question two

As for the travels you answered in the previous question, mostly do you travel alone, or with someone before COVID-19 pandemic? (1 = Alone, 2 = with friend(s), 3 = with partner (girlfreind/boyfriend), 4 = with family member (spouse only), 5 = with family members (spouse, children, and/or parents, etc.), 6 = with other people (colleagues or business partners, classmates, etc.) – > We need 50% solo travellers, and 50% group travellers).

Scale items anchored on a seven-point Likert scale (strongly disagree – ‘1’ to strongly agree – ‘7’).

Extraversion

• 1. I talk to a lot of different people at parties
• 2. I feel comfortable around people
• 3. I start conversations
• 4. I make friends easily

Neuroticism

• 1. I get stressed out easily
• 2. I worry about things
• 3. I fear the worst
• 4. I am filled with doubts

Introjected/External motivation

• 1. My family would be mad if I didn't travel for leisure anymore due to COVID-19 pandemic
• 2. My friends would be mad if I didn't travel for leisure anymore due to COVID-19 pandemic
• 3. My family tell me to keep travelling for leisure despite COVID-19 pandemic
• 4. My friends tell me to keep travelling for leisure despite COVID-19 pandemic

Amotivation

• 1. I'm not sure why I still travel for leisure during COVID-19 pandemic; I do not seem to be getting any benefits from it
• 2. I used to have good reasons for travelling for leisure, but now I question if I should continue due to COVID-19 pandemic
• 3. It is not clear to me anymore; I don't really think travel for leisure is my thing due to COVID-19 pandemic

Perception towards travel during COVID-19 pandemic

• 1. It is safe to travel for leisure by airplane during the COVID-19 pandemic
• 2. It is safe to travel for leisure by public transport (e.g., bus, train) during the COVID-19 pandemic
• 3. It is safe to stay in a chain hotel during the COVID-19 pandemic
• 4. It is safe to use the hotel's recreational facilities (e.g., gym, pool) during the COVID-19 pandemic
• 5. It is safe to stay in an independent hotel during the COVID-19 pandemic
• 6. It is safe to order take out during the COVID-19 pandemic

Willingness to pay for safe travel during COVID-19 pandemic

• 1. I am willing to pay more for increased safety precautions when I fly to my travel destination for leisure during the COVID-19 pandemic
• 2. I am willing to pay more for increased safety precautions when I stay in a hotel at my travel destination for leisure during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• 3. I am willing to pay more for increased safety precautions when ordering food via room service at my travel destination for leisure during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• 4. I am willing to pay more for increased safety precautions when I dine out at my travel destination for leisure during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• 5. I am willing to pay more for increased safety precautions when commuting locally at my travel destination for leisure during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Intention to travel (during pandemic)

• 1. I hope to travel for leisure during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic
• 2. I intend to travel for leisure during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic
• 3. If everything goes as I think, I plan to travel for leisure during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic
• 4. I predict that I should travel for leisure to a tourist destination during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic
• 5. I am willing to visit a tourist destination during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic

Demographic profile

Please mention your age? ____.

Marital Status

Do you have children

• Abdelrahman Z., Li M., Wang X. Comparative review of SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and influenza a respiratory viruses. Frontiers in, immunology. 2020:2309. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Aebli A., Volgger M., Taplin R. A two-dimensional approach to travel motivation in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Current Issues in Tourism. 2022; 25 (1):60–75. [ Google Scholar ]
• Aharon D.Y., Jacobi A., Cohen E., Tzur J., Qadan M. COVID-19, government measures and hospitality industry performance. PLoS One. 2021; 16 (8) [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ahn Y.J., Janke M.C. Motivations and benefits of the travel experiences of older adults. Educational Gerontology. 2011; 37 (8):653–673. [ Google Scholar ]
• Ahn Y.-j., Janke M.C. Motivations and benefits of the travel experiences of older adults. Educational Gerontology. 2011; 37 (8):653–673. doi: 10.1080/03601271003716010. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Aitken N.M., Pelletier L.G., Baxter D.E. Doing the difficult stuff: Influence of self-determined motivation toward the environment on transportation proenvironmental behaviour. Ecopsychology. 2016; 8 (2):153–162. [ Google Scholar ]
• Allan B.A., Autin K.L., Duffy R.D. Self-determination and meaningful work: Exploring socioeconomic constraints. Frontiers in Psychology. 2016; 7 :71. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Anderson J.C., Gerbing D.W. Structural equation modeling in practice: A review and recommended two-step approach. Psychological Bulletin. 1988; 103 (3):411. [ Google Scholar ]
• Ang R.P. Effects of parenting style on personal and social variables for Asian adolescents. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry. 2006; 76 :503–511. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Anicich E.M., Foulk T.A., Osborne M.R., Gale J., Schaerer M. Getting back to the “new normal”: Autonomy restoration during a global pandemic. Journal of Applied Psychology. 2020; 105 (9):931. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Aro A.R., Vartti A.M., Schreck M., Turtiainen P., Uutela A. Willingness to take travel-related health risks-a study among Finnish tourists in Asia during the avian influenza outbreak. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine. 2009; 16 (1):68–73. doi: 10.1007/s12529-008-9003-7. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Aronson E. Fear, denial, and sensible action in the face of disasters. Social Research: An International Quarterly. 2008; 75 (3):855–872. [ Google Scholar ]
• Aschwanden D., Strickhouser J.E., Sesker A.A., Lee J.H., Luchetti M., Stephan Y.…Terracciano A. Psychological and behavioural responses to coronavirus disease 2019: The role of personality. European Journal of Personality. 2021; 35 (1):51–66. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Awad-Núñez S., Julio R., Gomez J., Moya-Gómez B., González J.S. Post-COVID-19 travel behaviour patterns: Impact on the willingness to pay of users of public transport and shared mobility services in Spain. European Transport Research Review. 2021; 13 (1) doi: 10.1186/s12544-021-00476-4. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bae S.Y., Chang P.J. The effect of coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) risk perception on behavioural intention towards ‘untact’ tourism in South Korea during the first wave of the pandemic (March 2020) Current Issues in Tourism. 2021; 24 (7):1017–1035. doi: 10.1080/13683500.2020.1798895. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Baloglu S., Henthorne T.L., Sahin S. Destination image and brand personality of Jamaica: A model of tourist behaviour. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing. 2014; 31 (8):1057–1070. doi: 10.1080/10548408.2014.892468. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bandura A. Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioural change. Psychological Review. 1977; 84 (2):191. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Barber N., Kuo P.J., Bishop M., Goodman R. Measuring psychographics to assess purchase intention and willingness to pay. Journal of Consumer Marketing. 2012; 29 (4):280–292. doi: 10.1108/07363761211237353. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Behzadnia B., FatahModares S. Basic psychological need-satisfying activities during the COVID-19 outbreak. Applied Psychology. Health and Well-Being. 2020; 12 (4):1115–1139. doi: 10.1111/aphw.12228. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Brannon D.R. University of Georgia; 2010. Sport motivation and personality traits in NCCA division I student-athletes: An examination of amotivation. Doctoral dissertation. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bratko D., Butkovic A., Hlupic T.V., Pocrnic M. Etiology of basic psychological needs and their association with personality: A twin study. Journal of Research in Personality. 2022; 97 [ Google Scholar ]
• Bressan A., Duarte Alonso A., Kok S.K. Confronting the unprecedented: Micro and small businesses in the age of COVID-19. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research. 2021; 27 (3):799–820. doi: 10.1108/IJEBR-09-2020-0602. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Buheji M., da Costa Cunha K., Beka G., Mavrić B., Leandro do Carmo de Souza Y., Souza da Costa Silva S.…Chetia Yein T. The extent of COVID-19 pandemic socio-economic impact on global poverty. A global integrative multidisciplinary review. American Journal of Economics. 2020; 10 (4):213–224. doi: 10.5923/j.economics.20201004.02. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Butler G., Szili G., Cutler C., Hay I., Saikia U. Changing Australian leisure mobilities in the COVID-19 pandemic: Exploring the role of automobilities. Leisure Studies. 2021; 40 (5):698–713. [ Google Scholar ]
• Butz N.T., Stupnisky R.H. A mixed methods study of graduate students’ self-determined motivation in synchronous hybrid learning environments. The Internet and Higher Education. 2016; 28 :85–95. [ Google Scholar ]
• Cahyanto I., Pennington-Gray L., Thapa B., Srinivasan S., Villegas J., Matyas C., Kiousis S. Predicting information seeking regarding hurricane evacuation in the destination. Tourism Management. 2016; 52 :264–275. [ Google Scholar ]
• Carvalho L.D.F., Pianowski G., Gonçalves A.P. Personality differences and COVID-19: Are extroversion and conscientiousness personality traits associated with engagement with containment measures? Trends in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy. 2020; 42 :179–184. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Chan H.F., Moon J.W., Savage D.A., Skali A., Torgler B., Whyte S. Can psychological traits explain mobility behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic? Social Psychological and Personality Science. 2021; 12 (6):1018–1029. [ Google Scholar ]
• Chang C.H., Shu S., King B. Novelty in theme park physical surroundings: An application of the stimulus-organism-response paradigm. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research. 2014; 19 (6):680–699. doi: 10.1080/10941665.2013.779589. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Chatterjee S, Chakraborty S, Fulk HK, Sarker S. Building a compassionate workplace using information technology: Considerations for information systems research. Int J Inf Manag. 2021; 56 :102261. doi: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.10226. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Chien P.M., Sharifpour M., Ritchie B.W., Watson B. Travelers’ health risk perceptions and protective behaviour: A psychological approach. Journal of Travel Research. 2017; 56 (6):744–759. [ Google Scholar ]
• Chow A.S., Cheng I.N., Cheung L.T. Self-determined travel motivations and ecologically responsible attitudes of nature-based visitors to the Ramsar wetland in South China. Annals of Leisure Research. 2019; 22 (1):42–61. [ Google Scholar ]
• Chua B.L., Al-Ansi A., Lee M.J., Han H. Tourists’ outbound travel behavior in the aftermath of the COVID-19: Role of corporate social responsibility, response effort, and health prevention. Journal of Sustainable Tourism. 2020; 29 (6):879–906. [ Google Scholar ]
• Chung J.Y., Lee C.K., Park Y.N. Trust in social non-pharmaceutical interventions and travel intention during a pandemic. Journal of Vacation Marketing. 2021; 27 (4):437–448. [ Google Scholar ]
• Clark M.H., Schroth C.A. Examining relationships between academic motivation and personality among college students. Learning and Individual Differences. 2010; 20 (1):19–24. [ Google Scholar ]
• Cole S., Deci E.L., Zhao H., Wang W. How environmental and psychological factors interact with travel participation after spinal cord injury. Rehabilitation Psychology. 2022; 67 (2):152–161. doi: 10.1037/rep0000439. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Cole S., Zhang Y., Wang W., Hu C.M. The influence of accessibility and motivation on leisure travel participation of people with disabilities. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing. 2019; 36 (1):119–130. doi: 10.1080/10548408.2018.1496218. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Costa P.T., McCrae R.R. Influence of extraversion and neuroticism on subjective well-being: Happy and unhappy people. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1980; 38 (4):668. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Das M., Habib M., Saha V., Jebarajakirthy C. Bandwagon vs snob luxuries: Targeting consumers based on uniqueness dominance. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 2021; 61 [ Google Scholar ]
• David A. Examining the relationship of personality and burnout in college students: The role of academic motivation. Educational Measurement and Evaluation Review. 2010; 1 :90–104. [ Google Scholar ]
• De Silva M., Khan Z., Vorley T., Zeng J. Transcending the pyramid: Opportunity co-creation for social innovation. Industrial Marketing Management. 2020; 89 :471–486. [ Google Scholar ]
• Deci E.L., Ryan R.M. The general causality orientations scale: Self-determination in personality. Journal of Research in Personality. 1985; 19 (2):109–134. [ Google Scholar ]
• Deci E.L., Ryan R.M. Self-determination. The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology. 2010:1–2. [ Google Scholar ]
• Dhir A., Malodia S., Awan U., Sakashita M., Kaur P. Extended valence theory perspective on consumers' e-waste recycling intentions in Japan. Journal of Cleaner Production. 2021; 312 doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.127443. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Dhir A., Talwar S., Sadiq M., Sakashita M., Kaur P. Green apparel buying behaviour: A stimulus–organism–behaviour–consequence (SOBC) perspective on sustainability-oriented consumption in Japan. Business Strategy and the Environment. 2021; 30 (8):3589–3605. [ Google Scholar ]
• Dong H., Ma S., Jia N., Tian J. Understanding public transport satisfaction in post COVID-19 pandemic. Transport Policy. 2021; 101 :81–88. [ Google Scholar ]
• Donnellan M.B., Oswald F.L., Baird B.M., Lucas R.E. The mini-IPIP scales: Tiny-yet-effective measures of the big five factors of personality. Psychological Assessment. 2006; 18 (2):192. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Elliot A.J., Thrash T.M. Approach-avoidance motivation in personality: Approach and avoidance temperaments and goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2002; 82 (5):804–818. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.82.5.804. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fayombo G. The relationship between personality traits and psychological resilience among the Caribbean adolescents. International Journal of Psychological Studies. 2010; 2 (2):105. [ Google Scholar ]
• Feist J., Feist G.J. McGraw Hill Higher Education; Boston, MA: 2009. Theories of personality. [ Google Scholar ]
• Folk D., Okabe-Miyamoto K., Dunn E., Lyubomirsky S. Did social connection decline during the first wave of COVID-19?: The role of extraversion. Collabra: Psychology. 2020; 6 (1):1–13. doi: 10.1525/collabra.365. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Forbes (2021). The Covid-19 Pandemic Has Cost The Global Tourism Industry $935 Billion. Accessed on 12-12-22.https://www.forbes.com/sites/duncanmadden/2021/01/14/the-covid-19-pandemic-has-cost-the-global-tourism-industry-935-billion/?sh=50aaaa877d40.
• Fornell C., Larcker D.F. Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research. 1981; 18 (1):39–50. [ Google Scholar ]
• Gao Y., Rasouli S., Timmermans H., Wang Y. Understanding the relationship between travel satisfaction and subjective well-being considering the role of personality traits: A structural equation model. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour. 2017; 49 :110–123. doi: 10.1016/j.trf.2017.06.005. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gillison F., Osborn M., Standage M., Skevington S. Exploring the experience of introjected regulation for exercise across gender in adolescence. Psychology of Sport and Exercise. 2009; 10 (3):309–319. [ Google Scholar ]
• Graves L.M., Sarkis J., Gold N. Employee proenvironmental behavior in Russia: The roles of top management commitment, managerial leadership, and employee motives. Resources, Conservation and Recycling. 2019; 140 :54–64. [ Google Scholar ]
• Gursoy D., Chi C.G. Effects of COVID-19 pandemic on hospitality industry: Review of the current situations and a research agenda. Journal of Hospitality Marketing and Management. 2020; 29 (5):527–529. [ Google Scholar ]
• Harman D. A single factor test of common method variance. Journal of Psychology. 1967; 35 (1967):359–378. [ Google Scholar ]
• Haupt M.R., Weiss S.M., Chiu M., Cuomo R., Chein J.M., Mackey T. Profiles of Social Distance Compliance: Psychological and Situational Predictors of Risky Behavior during COVID-19. medRxiv. 2020 2020–06. [ Google Scholar ]
• Henry P.J. Student sampling as a theoretical problem. Psychological Inquiry. 2008; 19 (2):114–126. [ Google Scholar ]
• Henseler J., Ringle C.M., Sarstedt M. A new criterion for assessing discriminant validity in variance-based structural equation modeling. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. 2015; 43 (1):115–135. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hsiao C.H., Tang K.Y. Who captures whom–Pokémon or tourists? A perspective of the stimulus-organism-response model. International Journal of Information Management. 2021; 61 [ Google Scholar ]
• Huang Y., Wu J., Shi W. The impact of font choice on web pages: Relationship with willingness to pay and tourism motivation. Tourism Management. 2018; 66 :191–199. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hultman M., Kazeminia A., Ghasemi V. Intention to visit and willingness to pay premium for ecotourism: The impact of attitude, materialism, and motivation. Journal of Business Research. 2015; 68 (9):1854–1861. [ Google Scholar ]
• Humagain P., Singleton P.A. Examining relationships between COVID-19 destination practices, value, satisfaction and behavioral intentions for tourists’ outdoor recreation trips. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management. 2021; 22 [ Google Scholar ]
• Ingledew D.K., Markland D. The role of motives in exercise participation. Psychology and Health. 2008; 23 (7):807–828. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Isaac R.K., Keijzer J. Leisure travel intention following a period of COVID-19 crisis: A case study of the Dutch market. International Journal of Tourism Cities. 2021; 7 (3):583–601. [ Google Scholar ]
• Islam T., Pitafi A.H., Arya V., Wang Y., Akhtar N., Mubarik S., Xiaobei L. Panic buying in the COVID-19 pandemic: A multi-country examination. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 2021; 59 [ Google Scholar ]
• Jacobsen J.K.S., Farstad E., Higham J., Hopkins D., Landa-Mata I. Travel discontinuities, enforced holidaying-at-home and alternative leisure travel futures after COVID-19. Tourism Geography. 2021:1–19. [ Google Scholar ]
• Jang S.S., Namkung Y. Perceived quality, emotions, and behavioural intentions: Application of an extended Mehrabian–Russell model to restaurants. Journal of Business Research. 2009; 62 (4):451–460. [ Google Scholar ]
• Japan Travel Bureau Federation 2021. https://www.dbj.jp/en/topics/investigate/2021/html/20210623_203339.html (Accessed on 22 nd January, 2022)
• Jebarajakirthy C., Das M., Maggioni I., Sands S., Dharmesti M., Ferraro C. Understanding on-the-go consumption: A retail mix perspective. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 2021; 58 [ Google Scholar ]
• Jin X., Bao J., Tang C. Profiling and evaluating Chinese consumers regarding post-COVID-19 travel. Current Issues in Tourism. 2022; 25 (5):745–763. [ Google Scholar ]
• Joo D., Xu W., Lee J., Lee C.K., Woosnam K.M. Residents’ perceived risk, emotional solidarity, and support for tourism amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management. 2021; 19 [ Google Scholar ]
• Kaczmarek T., Perez K., Demir E., Zaremba A. How to survive a pandemic: The corporate resiliency of travel and leisure companies to the COVID-19 outbreak. Tourism Management. 2021; 84 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Khaddar S., Fatmi M.R. COVID-19: Are you satisfied with travelling during the pandemic? Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives. 2021; 9 (December 2020) doi: 10.1016/j.trip.2020.100292. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Khalilzadeh S., Khodi A. Teachers’ personality traits and students’ motivation: A structural equation modeling analysis. Current Psychology. 2021; 40 (4):1635–1650. [ Google Scholar ]
• Khanra S., Dhir A., Kaur P., Joseph R.P. Factors influencing the adoption postponement of mobile payment services in the hospitality sector during a pandemic. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management. 2021; 46 :26–39. doi: 10.1016/j.jhtm.2020.11.004. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Khatib A.N., Carvalho A.M., Primavesi R., To K., Poirier V. Navigating the risks of flying during COVID-19: A review for safe air travel. Journal of Travel Medicine. 2020; 27 (8):1–9. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Khosravi M. Neuroticism as a marker of vulnerability to COVID-19 infection. Psychiatry Investigation. 2020; 17 (7):710. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kim J., Lennon S.J. Effects of reputation and website quality on online consumers’ emotion, perceived risk and purchase intention. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing. 2013; 7 (1):33–56. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kim J., Park J., Lee J., et al. COVID-19 and extremeness aversion: The role of safety seeking in travel decision making. Journal of Travel Research. 2022; 61 (4):837–854. doi: 10.1177/00472875211008252. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kim M.J., Lee C.K., Jung T. Exploring consumer behaviour in virtual reality tourism using an extended stimulus-organism-response model. Journal of Travel Research. 2020; 59 (1):69–89. doi: 10.1177/0047287518818915. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Komarraju M., Karau S.J., Schmeck R.R. Role of the big five personality traits in predicting college students’ academic motivation and achievement. Learning and Individual Differences. 2009; 19 (1):47–52. [ Google Scholar ]
• Koole S.L., Schlinkert C., Maldei T., Baumann N. Becoming who you are: An integrative review of self‐determination theory and personality systems interactions theory. Journal of Personality. 2019; 87 (1):15–36. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kramer J., Petzoldt T. The role of self-concordance for self-reported strategic, tactical, and operational eco-driving. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour. 2022; 84 :83–98. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kumagai K., Nagasawa S.Y. Psychological switching mechanism of consumers’ luxury and non-luxury brand attitude formation: The effect of store location prestige and self-congruity. Heliyon. 2019; 5 (5) doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e01581. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Laato S., Islam A.K.M.N., Farooq A., Dhir A. Unusual purchasing behaviour during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic: The stimulus-organism-response approach. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 2020; 57 (March) doi: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2020.102224. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Landmann H., Rohmann A. When loneliness dimensions drift apart: Emotional, social and physical loneliness during the COVID-19 lockdown and its associations with age, personality, stress and well-being. International Journal of Psychology. 2022; 57 (1):63–72. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lee C.K., Song H.J., Bendle L.J., Kim M.J., Han H. The impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions for 2009 H1N1 influenza on travel intentions: A model of goal-directed behavior. Tourism Management. 2012; 33 (1):89–99. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lee K., Ewert A. Understanding the motivations of serious leisure participation: A self-determination approach. Annals of Leisure Research. 2019; 22 (1):76–96. [ Google Scholar ]
• Lee K.F., Bentley J., Hsu H.-Y.M. Using characteristics of serious leisure to classify rock climbers: A latent profile analysis. Journal of Sport and Tourism. 2017; 21 (4):245–262. doi: 10.1080/14775085.2017.1327369. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lee S.H., Deale C. Consumers’ perceptions of risks associated with the use of Airbnb before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. International Hospitality Review. 2021; 35 (2):225–239. [ Google Scholar ]
• Li B., Zhong Y., Zhang T., Hua N. Transcending the COVID-19 crisis: Business resilience and innovation of the restaurant industry in China. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management. 2021; 49 :44–53. [ Google Scholar ]
• Lin J. Y.-C., Wang E. S.-T., Cheng J. M.-S. The relationship between extroversion and leisure motivation: Evidence from fitness center participation. Social Behavior and Personality: an International Journal. 2007; 35 (10):1317–1322. [ Google Scholar ]
• Liu-Lastres B., Mirehie M., Cecil A. Are female business travellers willing to travel during COVID-19? An exploratory study. Journal of Vacation Marketing. 2021; 27 (3):252–266. [ Google Scholar ]
• Lyu S.O., Oh C.O., Lee H. The influence of extraversion on leisure constraints negotiation process: A case of Korean people with disabilities. Journal of Leisure Research. 2013; 45 (2):233–252. [ Google Scholar ]
• Machida M., Nakamura I., Saito R., Nakaya T., Hanibuchi T., Takamiya T.…Inoue S. Incorrect use of face masks during the current COVID-19 pandemic among the general public in Japan. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2020; 17 (18):6484. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Matzler K., Faullant R., Renzl B., Leiter V. The relationship between personality traits (extraversion and neuroticism), emotions and customer self-satisfaction. Innovative Marketing. 2005; 1 (2):32–39. [ Google Scholar ]
• Mckinsey 2022. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare-systems-and-services/our-insights/when-will-the-covid-19-pandemic-end (Accessed on 30 th May 2021)
• Medeiros M., Ozturk A., Hancer M., Weinland J., Okumus B. Understanding travel tracking mobile application usage: An integration of self determination theory and UTAUT2. Tourism Management Perspectives. 2022; 42 [ Google Scholar ]
• Mehrabian A., Russell J. MIT Press; Cambridge, MA: 1974. An approach to environmental psychology. [ Google Scholar ]
• Mei C., Tang F., Lam D. The role of extraversion and agreeableness traits on Gen Y's attitudes and willingness to pay for green hotels. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. 2017; 29 (1):607–623. doi: 10.1108/IJCHM-02-2016-0048. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Modersitzki N., Phan L.V., Kuper N., Rauthmann J.F. Who is impacted? Personality predicts individual differences in psychological consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. Social Psychological and Personality Science. 2020 doi: 10.1177/1948550620952576. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Nabi N., O’Cass A., Siahtiri V. Status consumption in newly emerging countries: The influence of personality traits and the mediating role of motivation to consume conspicuously. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 2019; 46 :173–178. [ Google Scholar ]
• Nazneen S., Hong X., Ud Din N. COVID-19 crises and tourist travel risk perceptions. SSRN. 2020 doi: 10.2139/ssrn.3592321. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Nelson B.W., Pettitt A., Flannery J.E., Allen N.B. Rapid assessment of psychological and epidemiological correlates of COVID-19 concern, financial strain, and health-related behaviour change in a large online sample. PLoS One. 2020; 15 (11) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0241990. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Neuburger L., Egger R. Travel risk perception and travel behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic 2020: A case study of the DACH region. Current Issues in Tourism. 2021; 24 (7):1003–1016. doi: 10.1080/13683500.2020.1803807. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Nikčević A.V., Spada M.M. The COVID-19 anxiety syndrome scale: Development and psychometric properties. Psychiatry research. 2020; 292 :113322. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Nikitin J., Freund A.M. The indirect nature of social motives: The relation of social approach and avoidance motives with likeability via extraversion and a agreeableness. Journal of Personality. 2015; 83 (1):97–105. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Nippon 2020. https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00803/ Accessed on 20 th June 2022.
• Osei-Frimpong K. Understanding consumer motivations in online social brand engagement participation: Implications for retailers. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management. 2019; 47 (5):511–529. [ Google Scholar ]
• Paris C.M., Pietschnig J. 2015. ‘But first, let me take a selfie’: Personality traits as predictors of travel selfie taking and sharing behaviors. [ Google Scholar ]
• Qiu J., Shen B., Zhao M., Wang Z., Xie B., Xu Y. A nationwide survey of psychological distress among Chinese people in the COVID-19 epidemic: implications and policy recommendations. General psychiatry. 2020; 33 (2) [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Radic A., Lück M., Al-Ansi A., Chua B.L., Seeler S., Han H. Cruise ship dining experiencescape: The perspective of female cruise travellers in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. International Journal of Hospitality Management. 2021; 95 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rajaguru R. Motion picture-induced visual, vocal and celebrity effects on tourism motivation: Stimulus organism response model. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research. 2014; 19 (4):375–388. [ Google Scholar ]
• Reiher C., Yamaguchi T. Food, agriculture and risk in contemporary Japan. Contemporary Japan. 2017; 29 (1):2–13. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rhodes R.E., Courneya K.S., Hayduk L.A. Does personality moderate the theory of planned behaviour in the exercise domain? Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology. 2002; 24 (2):120–132. [ Google Scholar ]
• Roy S., Goswami P. Structural equation modeling of value-psychographic trait-clothing purchase behavior: A study on the urban college-goers of India. Young Consumers. 2007; 8 (4):269–277. [ Google Scholar ]
• Ryan R.M., Connell J.P. Perceived locus of causality and internalization: Examining reasons for acting in two domains. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1989; 57 (5):749. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sánchez-Cañizares S.M., Cabeza-Ramírez L.J., Muñoz-Fernández G., Fuentes-García F.J. Impact of the perceived risk from COVID-19 on intention to travel. Current Issues in Tourism. 2020:1–15. [ Google Scholar ]
• Schroeder A., Pennington-Gray L., Kaplanidou K., Zhan F. Destination risk perceptions among US residents for London as the host city of the 2012 summer olympic games. Tourism Management. 2013; 38 :107–119. [ Google Scholar ]
• Shavanddasht M., Schänzel H.A. Effects of perceived parental style on adolescents’ motivations in a tourism context. Anatolia. 2017; 28 (2):263–275. [ Google Scholar ]
• Sheldon K.M., Prentice M. Self-determination theory as a foundation for personality researchers. Journal of Personality. 2019; 87 (1):5–14. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shokrkon A., Nicoladis E. How personality traits of neuroticism and extroversion predict the effects of the COVID-19 on the mental health of Canadians. PLoS One. 2021; 16 (5) [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shupe F.L., Gagné P. Motives for and personal and social benefits of airplane piloting as a serious leisure activity for women. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. 2016; 45 (1):85–112. [ Google Scholar ]
• Smith (2020). Accessed on 12-01-23. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_your_sacrifices_during_pandemic_matter .
• Snuggs S., McGregor S. Food & meal decision making in lockdown: How and who has COVID-19 affected? Food Quality and Preference. 2021; 89 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sreen N., Dhir A., Talwar S., Tan T.M., Alharbi F. Behavioural reasoning perspectives to brand love toward natural products: Moderating role of environmental concern and household size. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 2021; 61 doi: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2021.102549. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sreen N., Mukherjee S., Jebarajakirthy C., Kumar S., Sharma H. Role of personal values on revisiting green hotels: A hierarchical value map approach. Tourism Recreation Research. 2022:1–21. [ Google Scholar ]
• Sreen N., Purbey S., Sadarangani P. Impact of culture, behaviour and gender on green purchase intention. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 2018; 41 :177–189. [ Google Scholar ]
• Stadler M., Niepel C., Botes E., Dörendahl J., Krieger F., Greiff S. 2020, March 31. Individual psychological responses to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: Different clusters and their relation to risk-reducing behaviour. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Statista COVID-19: Job loss in travel and tourism worldwide 2020, by region. 2022. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104835/coronavirus-travel-tourism-employment-loss/ Accessed through: Accessed on 8-05-2022.
• Sultan P., Wong H.Y., Azam M.S. How perceived communication source and food value stimulate purchase intention of organic food: An examination of the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) model. Journal of Cleaner Production. 2021; 312 [ Google Scholar ]
• Takano Y., Osaka E. Comparing Japan and the United States on individualism/collectivism: A follow‐up review. Asian Journal of Social Psychology. 2018; 21 (4):301–316. [ Google Scholar ]
• Talwar S., Jabeen F., Tandon A., Sakashita M., Dhir A. What drives willingness to purchase and stated buying behaviour toward organic food? A stimulus–organism–behaviour–consequence (SOBC) perspective. Journal of Cleaner Production. 2021; 293 doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.125882. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Talwar S., Srivastava S., Sakashita M., Islam N., Dhir A. Personality and travel intentions during and after the COVID-19 pandemic: An artificial neural network (ANN) approach. Journal of Business Research. 2022; 142 :400–411. doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.12.002. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Tashiro A., Shaw R. COVID-19 pandemic response in Japan: What is behind the initial flattening of the curve? Sustainability. 2020; 12 (13):5250. [ Google Scholar ]
• Teikoku Databank New coronavirus related bankrupt. 2020. https://www.tdb.co.jp/tosan/covid19/index.html Available at: (Accessed on 19 February 2021)
• Tran X., Nguyen B.L., Nguyen M.C. Effects of the Big Five personality traits on recreation types—The case of Vietnam tourism. Travel and Tourism Research Association: Advancing Tourism Research Globally. 2015 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1043&context=ttra Retrieved from. [ Google Scholar ]
• Uğur N.G., Akbıyık A. Impacts of COVID-19 on global tourism industry: A cross-regional comparison. Tourism Management Perspectives. 2020; 36 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Van Selm M., Jankowski N.W. Conducting online surveys. Quality and Quantity. 2006; 40 (3):435–456. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wei C.V., Chen H., Lee Y.M. Factors influencing customers’ dine out intention during COVID-19 reopening period: The moderating role of country-of-origin effect. International Journal of Hospitality Management. 2021; 95 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• West J., Rhoden C., Robinson P.D., Castle P., St Clair Gibson A. How motivated are you? Exploring the differences between motivational profiles and personality traits. Sport and Exercise Psychology Review. 2016; 12 (1):28–42. [ Google Scholar ]
• Whelan E., Islam A.N., Brooks S. Applying the SOBC paradigm to explain how social media overload affects academic performance. Computers & Education. 2020; 143 [ Google Scholar ]
• Wijngaards I., De Zilwa S.C.M.S., Burger M.J. Extraversion moderates the relationship between the stringency of COVID-19 protective measures and depressive symptoms. Frontiers in Psychology. 2020; 11 (October):1–9. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.568907. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Williams S.N., Armitage C.J., Tampe T., Dienes K.A. Public perceptions of non-adherence to pandemic protection measures by self and others: A study of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom. PLoS One. 2021; 16 (10) [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Worldometer 2022. https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/japan-demographics/ Accessed on 10 th March, 2022.
• Yagasaki N. Impact of COVID-19 on the Japanese travel market and the travel market of overseas visitors to Japan, and subsequent recovery. IATSS Research. 2021; 45 (4):451–458. doi: 10.1016/j.iatssr.2021.11.008. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Yeh C.H., Wang Y.S., Hsu J.W., Lin S.J. Predicting individuals’ digital autopreneurship: Does educational intervention matter? Journal of Business Research. 2020; 106 :35–45. [ Google Scholar ]
• Youn H., Kim J.H., Song H. The leading causes and consequences of citizenship pressure in the hotel industry. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. 2017; 29 (6):1541–1559. doi: 10.1108/IJCHM-09-2015-0472. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Yu C.E., Wen J., Yang S. Viewpoint of suicide travel: An exploratory study on YouTube comments. Tourism Management Perspectives. 2020; 34 [ Google Scholar ]
• Zhang Y., Cole S., Hirt E., Bilgihan A. Self-determined travel facilitation with mental construal priming. Tourism Management. 2017; 61 :472–483. [ Google Scholar ]
• Zheng D., Luo Q., Ritchie B.W. Afraid to travel after COVID-19? Self-protection, coping and resilience against pandemic ‘travel fear’ Tourism Management. 2021; 83 doi: 10.1016/j.tourman.2020.104261. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zhou M. Moderating effect of self-determination in the relationship between big five personality and academic performance. Personality and Individual Differences. 2015; 86 :385–389. [ Google Scholar ]
• Zimmerman R.D., Boswell W.R., Shipp A.J., Dunford B.B., Boudreau J.W. Explaining the pathways between approach-avoidance personality traits and employees’ job search behaviour. Journal of Management. 2012; 38 (5):1450–1475. doi: 10.1177/0149206310396376. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

Serious Leisure, Leisure Satisfaction and Subjective Well-Being of Chinese University Students

• Published: 02 July 2014
• Volume 122 , pages 159–174, ( 2015 )

Cite this article

• Huimei Liu 1 &

2806 Accesses

54 Citations

Explore all metrics

The purposes of this study were to examine the associations between serious leisure, leisure satisfaction and subjective well-being (SWB), and the variances of the leisure satisfaction and SWB domains as well. Serious leisure participants ( n  = 193) were selected from seven arts groups in a key eastern Chinese university. A contrasting cohort ( n  = 225) was enrolled who were not committed to serious leisure activities. Independent Samples T Tests results indicated that: (a) serious leisure participants scored significantly higher than non-serious leisure participants in every facets of leisure satisfaction and the overall leisure satisfaction, with social satisfaction being the most important for the former and relaxation being the most for the latter; (b) serious leisure participants also had significantly greater SWB, including life as a whole and other seven domains, than non-serious leisure participants; (c), both serious and non-serious leisure participants have highest satisfaction in standard of living, but serious leisure participants also have highest satisfaction (tied) in safety, community connectedness and spirituality or religion as well. Findings are discussed, theoretical and practical implications are outlined, and future research directions are recommended.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price includes VAT (Russian Federation)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Rent this article via DeepDyve

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

The role of leisure interest and engagement for subjective well-being, predicting personal growth and happiness by using serious leisure model, are people who participate in cultural activities more satisfied with life.

Anderson, L., & Taylor, J. D. (2010). Standing out while fitting in: Serious leisure identities and aligning actions among skydivers and gun collectors. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 39 , 34–59.

Article   Google Scholar  

Ashby, J. S., Kottman, T., & DeGraaf, D. (1999). Leisure satisfaction and attitudes of perfectionists: Implications for therapeutic recreation professionals. Therapeutic Recreation Journal, 2 , 142–151.

Google Scholar  

Baldwin, C., & Norris, P. (1999). Exploring the dimensions of serious leisure: “Love Me - Love My Dog!”. Journal of Leisure Research, 31 , 1–17.

Beard, J. G., & Ragheb, M. G. (1980). Measuring leisure satisfaction. Journal of Leisure Research, 12 (1), 20–33.

Brislin, R. W. (1970). Back-translation for cross-cultural research. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 1 , 185–216.

Brown, C. A. (2007). The Carolina shaggers: Dance as serious leisure. Journal of Leisure Research, 39 (4), 623–647.

Chen, Y.B. (2008). The relationship between leisure motivation, leisure satisfaction and SWB in college students. Unpublished thesis, Sichuan Normal University.

Chen, C. R., Gao, Y. H., & Shen, H. Y. (2012). A meta-analysis of relationship between subjective well-being and big three personality. Advances in Psychological Science, 20 (1), 19–26.

Cheng, H.P. (Eva) (2010). Serious leisure, leisure satisfaction and gardening by older adults. Doctoral dissertation, School of Tourism, University of Queensland.

Chi, X. M. (2012). An analysis of the problems of university students’ leisure. Journal of Socialism Institute of Yunnan, 1 , 115–117.

Cohen, J. (1992). A power primer. Psychological Bulletin, 112 , 155–159.

Cortina, J. M. (1993). What is coefficient alpha? An examination of theory and applications. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78 (1), 98–104.

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior . New York, NY: Plenum.

Book   Google Scholar  

Diener, E., Suh, E. M., Lucas, R. E., & Smith, H. L. (1999). Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress. Psychological Bulletin, 125 (7), 276–302.

Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis . New York: Norton.

Gaskin, J. (2012). “Data screening”, Gaskination’s StatWiki. Retrieved June 20, 2013, from http://statwiki.kolobkreations.com .

Green, B. C., & Jones, I. (2005). Serious leisure, social identity and sport tourism. Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media Politics, 8 (2), 164–181.

Haavio-Monnika, E. (1971). Satisfaction with family, work, leisure and life among men and women. Human Relations, 24 (6), 585–601.

Hastings, D.W., Kurth, S.S., Schloder, M., & Cyr, D. (1995). Reasons for participating in a serious leisure career: Comparison of US and Canadina masters swimmers. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 30 (1), 101–117.

Hsieh, S., Spaulding, A., & Riney, M. (2004). A qualitative look at leisure benefits for Taiwanese nursing students. The Qualitative Report, 9 , 604–629.

International Wellbeing Group. (2006). Personal wellbeing index: 4th edition. Melbourne: Australian center on quality of life, Deakin University. Retrieved on March 2013 http://www.deakin.edu.au/research/acqol/instruments/wellbeing-index/pwi-adult-english.pdf .

International Wellbeing Group. (2013). Personal Wellbeing Index: 5th edition. Melbourne: Australia Center on quality of life, Deakin University. Retrieved on March 2013 http://www.deakin.edu.au/research/acqol/iwbg/wellbeing-index/pwi-a-english.pdf .

Ito, E., Liu, H.M., Mitas, O. & Walker, G. (in press) A Cross-cultural study of Canadian, Chinese, and Japanese university students’ leisure satisfaction and subjective well-being, Leisure Sciences.

Iwasaki, Y. (2007). Leisure and quality of life in an international and multicultural context: What are major pathways linking leisure to quality of life? Social Indicators Research, 82 , 233–264.

Iwasaki, Y., & Bartlett, J. G. (2006). Culturally meaningful leisure as a way of coping with Stress among aboriginal individuals with diabetes. Journal of Leisure Research, 38 (3), 321–338.

Jones, I. (2000). A model of serious leisure identification: The case of football fandom. Leisure Studies, 19 (4), 283–298.

Kane, M. J., & Zink, R. (2004). Package adventure tours: Markers in serious leisure. Leisure Studies, 23 , 329–346.

King, F. L. (2001). Social dynamics of quilting. World Leisure Journal, 43 (2), 26–29.

Lapa, T. Y. (2013). Life satisfaction, leisure satisfaction and perceived freedom of park recreation participants. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 93 , 1985–1993.

Lau, A. L. D., Cummins, R. A., & McPherson, W. (2005). An investigation into the cross-cultural equivalence of the personal wellbeing index. Social Indicators Research, 72 , 403–430.

Li, S.R. (2009). A study of effects among catch & release behavior, serious leisure, flow experience and place attachment for mountain stream recreational anglers. MA thesis, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology.

Liao, W.Q. (2010). The relationship between serious leisure and leisure benefit for school volunteers. MA thesis. Asia University.

Lin, W.X. (2011). The study of participant’s attitude of serious leisure and flow experience on Tai-Chi Sport. MA thesis. Asia University.

Lin, H. B. (2013). Research on the relationship between college student subjective happiness sense and personality characteristics and social support. Journal of Chongqing Technology and Business University (Social Sciences Edition), 30 (3), 154–160.

Liu, H.M., & Stebbins, R. (in press). Concerted Singing: Leisure Fulfillment in a University Faculty Chorus. Leisure Studies .

Liu, Y. W., & Zhang, X. X. (2009). University education of leisure under the education for all-around development goal. Journal of High Education Research, 30 (1), 26–30.

London, M., Crandall, R., & Seals, G. (1977). The contribution of job and leisure satisfaction to quality of life. Journal of Applied Psychology, 62 , 328–334.

Lu, L., & Argyle, M. (1994). Leisure satisfaction and happiness as a function of leisure activity. Kaohsiung Journal of Medical Sciences, 10 , 89–96.

Lu, L., & Hu, C. H. (2005). Personality, leisure experiences and happiness. Journal of Happiness Studies, 6 (3), 325–342.

Lu, L., & Kao, S. F. (2009). Leisure participation and leisure satisfaction: Moderating effects of personality traits. Journal of Sport and Recreation Research, 3 (3), 1–11.

Lysyk, M., Brown, T., Rodrigues, E., Ncnally, J., & Loo, K. (2002). Translation of the Leisure satisfaction scale into French: A validation study. Occupational Therapy International, 9 (1), 76–89.

Major, W. F. (2001). The benefits and costs of serious running. World Leisure Journal, 43 (2), 12–25.

Newman, D. B., Tay, L., & Diener, E. (2013). Leisure and subjective well-being: A model of psychological mechanisms as mediating factors. Journal of Happiness Studies , 1–24.

Nunnally, J. C. (1978). Psychometric Theory (Vol. 2). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

O’Connor, J. P., & Brown, T. D. (2010). Riding with the sharks: Serious leisure cyclist’s perceptions of sharing the road with motorists. Journal of Science & Medicine in Sport, 13 (1), 53–58.

Özbay, G. (1997). Developing a scale aiming at determining the problem areas of university students: study of validity and reliability . Unpublished Master’s Thesis, Karadeniz Technical University, Trabzon.

Patterson, I. (2001). Serious leisure as a positive contributor to social inclusion for people with intellectual disabilities. World Leisure Journal, 43 (3), 16–24.

People’s Daily (2011) China’s higher education students exceed 30 million. Retrieved Mar 22 2014 at http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/98649/7315789.html .

Ragheb, M., & Tate, R. (1993). A behavioral model of leisure participation, based on leisure attitude, motivation and satisfaction. Leisure Studies, 1 , 61–70.

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: classic definitions and new directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25 , 54–67.

Schulenberg, J. E., Bryant, A. L., & O’Malley, P. M. (2004). Taking hold of some kind of life: How developmental tasks relate to trajectories of well-being during the transition to adulthood. Development and Psychopathology, 16 , 1119–1140.

Sheldon, K. M., Elliot, A. J., Kim, Y., & Kasser, T. (2001). What is satisfying about satisfying events? Testing 10 candidate psychological needs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80 (2), 325–339.

Shen, J.X. (2012). More than half of the college students are unhappy with their life. Retrieved June 2014 from http://sh.eastday.com/m/20120322/u1a6441403.html .

Sheng, L. X. (2011). Survey of college students’ time use- a case study of Henan University. Academic Journal of Zhouzhou, 185 (5), 135–136.

Siegenthaler, K. L., & O’Dell, I. (2003). Older golfers: Serious leisure and successful aging. World Leisure Journal, 45 (1), 47–54.

Song, J. M., & Fan, H. Y. (2013). A meta-analysis of the relationship between social support and subjective well-being. Advances in Psychological Science, 21 (8), 1357–1370.

Stalp, M. C. (2006). Negotiating time and space for serious leisure: Quilting in the modern U.S. home. Journal of Leisure Research, 38 , 104–132.

Stebbins, R. A. (1992). Amatuer, professionals, and serious leisure . Montreal: McGillQuen’s University Press.

Stebbins, R. A. (1997). Casual leisure: A conceptual statement. Leisure Studies, 16 , 17–25.

Stebbins, R. A. (2004). Career and life course: Leisure as process. Leisure Studies Association Newsletter, 68 , 18–20.

Sun, M. M. (2011). A research on college students’ leisure education and countermeasure—a case study of university students in Ningbo. Journal of Zhejiang Wanli University, 24 (1), 86–90.

Walker, G. J., Halpenny, E., Spiers, A., & Deng, J. Y. (2011). A prospective panel study of Chinese–Canadian immigrants’ leisure participation and leisure satisfaction. Leisure Sciences: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 33 (5), 349–365.

Xie, M. F. & Li. L. (2008) A survey of the subjective well- being of college students. Journal of Shaoxing University , 28 (8), 103-106, 120.

Xie, X. D., Huang, Y., & Huang, J. (2003). An investigation of leisure sports participation mode of university students. Journal of Wuhan Institute of Physical Education, 5 , 78–80.

Yan, B. B., Zheng, X., & Qiu, L. (2003). A study of the factors which influence the subjective well-being of college students. Journal of South China Normal University (Natural Science Edition), 2 , 137–142.

Yang, S., Xiao, H., & Tse, C. (2011). Leisure in an urban environment: A perspective of university students. Journal of China Tourism Research, 7 (2), 168–183.

Ye, L. (2011). Analysis on the situation of contemporary college students’ leisure life. Journal of Shanxi College for Youth Administrators, 24 (4), 28–30.

Zhang, W. S. (2010). Investigation and study about leisure sports behaviour of the university students. Journal of Inner Mongolia University for Nationalities, 25 (2), 231–233.

Zhou, J. W., & Zhang, M. F. (2007). Survey of the leisure time of college students. Youth Studies, 6 , 23–25.

Download references

Acknowledgments

Preparation of this article was supported by Grants to the first author from the Chinese Social Science Fund (10BGL047), the Fundamental Research Fund for Central Universities (2011023), and the Seed Fund for Multidisciplinary Research from Zhejiang University (2011027).

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Associate Professor, School of International Studies, and the Asian Pacific Centre for the Education and Study of Leisure, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

Huimei Liu & Bin Yu

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Huimei Liu .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Liu, H., Yu, B. Serious Leisure, Leisure Satisfaction and Subjective Well-Being of Chinese University Students. Soc Indic Res 122 , 159–174 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-014-0687-6

Download citation

Accepted : 25 June 2014

Published : 02 July 2014

Issue Date : May 2015

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-014-0687-6

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Leisure satisfaction
• Serious leisure
• Subjective well-being
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research