My Christmas Day

Alaysha Green Mr. Raymond Villegas ENG 1010 Jan. 31, 2011 FYI: When you are writing papers, make sure everything is evenly spaced. There should only be a double space between the information and the title My Christmas Day Of 2010 As I woke up with the sun’s rays in my eyes, I hit my phone alarm clock, which since it was ringing at 10 a. m. As I walked (the way you wrote this makes it a fragmented sentence. If you add a subject and change the verb it is not fragmented) down the beige hallway, into the ocean theme bathroom. I turned on the bathroom light, and turned then the water on to wash my face.When you have the same action in the same sentence to different objects you can eliminate the second verb so it doesn’t sound so repetitive After washing my face with warm and soapy water, I took my blue face towel to dry my face off. Good, great description Finished with my face, I realized that it was Christmas morning. This is a great revelation here. I was thinking it was a typical day so I’m glad you held off saying it was Christmas till later in your paragraph. It gives that feel that we (audience) are walking up with you and when we come to our senses we realize it’s Christmas. Good job.I walked down the hallway further to my son, Tydarrius’, Cars theme room filled with a car theme. Standing next to his bed, and waking him up, he jumped out of bed, and said â€Å"Yay! It’s Christmas†. He ran to the Christmas tree to turn on the bright and shining lights. He was amazed and dazzled with all the presents in the front of him. His eyes glistened and sparkled as he took the paper off the presents. Good paragraph. There were a few ways of writing some of the sentences you wrote but otherwise it was good Scuffing off to the freshly white painted living room to watch him, open his gifts, I told him. â€Å"I hope you like your gifts, baby†.When I read your draft in lab, it needed some work. Now I like the revisions that you have made to your draft. I can see a vast improvement When he got through with gift wrappings, we threw all of the wrappings in our black gallon size trash can. Sometime later, my mom and dad came over to the house. Tydarrius opened the big red front door with double locks on it for from (is from what you are trying to say here? ) them. Tydarrius and I hugged them and said â€Å"Merry Christmas†. As they walked in the door, they pulled out two gifts with snowman wrapping. Tydarrius ran to the gifts with great excitement and with speed.Tydarrius ripped open the presents. The first present he opened was a yellow and black motorcycle with driver. His second gift was a v-tech reader book called â€Å"What That Noise†. As he played with his toys, I wandered off from the family room directly into the my apple themed kitchen. I turned on the kitchen lights and started to cook on the white gas stove, cooking breakfast for my son and me. The aroma filled the air with t he smell of scrambled eggs, crispy turkey bacon, and buttery grits with cheese. Good I laid his food on the Thomas and Friends plate ware which sits in dining room. I called him to the red oak square dining room table.He ate his food with the speed of lightening. Great paragraph The time was 12:00 p. m. , when we decided to go to my Aunt Shirley’s house for a visit. The sun still shined bright as we walked outside into the cold and crisp air to get into the light blue Nissan pathfinder. As we drove, I saw a lot of people smiling, laughing, and playing with their families. Kids were playing with their Christmas toys too. As the car stopped, we arrived in front of my aunt’s house. My father parked the truck in front of white picket fence of my aunt’s house. My aunt’s house is a brick house with wild flowers growing in and out the front and back yard.It’s surrounded by a bright, white, picket fence with an open and closed gate door to enter in. We arr ived at her house at 12:45 p. m. As we walked in her house, she said, â€Å"Merry Christmas to you. † She offered us to sit down on the black leather sofa, in her Jungle themed living room. This is a great paragraph. Notice I didn’t have to make any corrections. In this paragraph. Everything flowed nicely. The house was filled with the aroma of delicious and tasteful foods like The food she cooked included fried chicken, honey baked ham, fried turkey, barbecue ribs, and fried pork chops.Her sides included were organized in a row and began with rice, collard greens, baked Mac-cheese, squash, green beans, macaroni salad, and pasta salad. Her desserts included There mouth watering deserts such as banana creme pies, pumpkin pies, sweet potato pies, and chocolate cakes. After a long visit at my aunt’s house, it was finally time at eat. We said the Lord’s prayer and ate. When the feast was over, we sat around and sang Christmas songs on the red oak piano in the dinner hall. We sung sang Christmas songs such as Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Silent Night, and Santa Claus is Coming To Town.I don’t think these words have to be underlined because they are not a book. I think they have to be italicized or used with quotation marks. You can check in your resource book Everyone sang all the songs okay, but little Brian from next door sang off key on purpose to get attention from everybody who was singing. This sentence sort of came out of the blue and you didn’t mention before who Brian was or continued talking about him. In this situation you have to ask yourself â€Å"What is the importance for having this sentence about Brian in my story. When the singing was over, we walked back into the living room to pursue more entertaining activities. You should begin a new paragraph here since you are no longer singing. Dancing is in the same genre as singing but it is an action entirely different and you switched to another room. Back in the family room we started a dancing contest which included everyone in the house. We started dancing to old and new hip hop party music. As soon as the music started, my shy and quiet cousin, Jada, was embarrassed about dancing in front of people. I pulled her up off of the black leather sofa.At first she was standing there like a kid who forgot their line in a school play. Good analogy She took a deep breath and danced like a video diva on a BET music video. After dancing, we sat in the den and listened to a Christmas story called, â€Å"It Was the Night Before Christmas†. Everybody sat around my Aunt Shirley, like she was Santa Claus telling the story himself. As she told the story, everyone was as quiet as a mouse. When the story ended, everyone cheered as loud as people that were in a football stadium. Great analogies in this paragraph The time was now 3:00 p. when we decided to play a board game like Sorry and Pictionary. My cousins, Jada and J. D, and I played one game of Sorry together. The game started off with me in 1st place, Jada in 2nd, and J. D in 3rd place. I had 3 pegs on the board. I was red, Jada was blue and had 2 pegs on the board, J. D. was yellow and had 3 pegs on the board. As the game came to an end, I had all my pegs expect one. It was still on the board. My cousin, Jada, had 2 more pegs to get home. My cousin, J. D, had one more to get home. I passed J. D on the game board and won the game. Good.As you write this story it seems to get easier for you to tell it and describe what’s going on. In the beginning of the story your writing seemed forced but now it’s starting to relax. The next game we played was called Pictionary. We split up into two teams. One team included my Aunt Shirley, Cousin Jada, my mother Theresa, Robin, Patricia, and me. We called our team, The Divas. The next team, Ballers, included my father Danny, Alvin, Terrance, Josh, and family friend James. After a long struggle, te am Diva won the game with 10 points. Ballers lost with 7 points. Both teams played an excellent game. There is a nice flow to this paragraph.I didn’t take part in Scramble, because I was tired and needed a break. So I sat in a kitchen chair to watch and listen to the Scramble match that was going on. I watched the Scramble match between my cousins, Jada, Terrance, Larry, and family friend James. Larry won the game. Jada came in 2nd place. James in 3rd place. Terrance lost completely, with no points on the board. He was cooler than a cucumber about the loss. Another great analogy After the game playing was over, I walked from the kitchen to the living room. I sat down on the black sofa in the living room with Cousin Jada as she talked about her new boyfriend.She seemed to be very happy and her face was as bright as northern lights in the night sky. As she talked about him to me, Jada described him as tall, dark-skinned, smart, and handsome man with powerful shoulders and muscl es. I was very happy for her, but felt a little envy too. This was your strongest paragraph in the essay. Good job. After my long conversation with her, I walked slowly outside next to white picket fence, where my cousin J. D was standing. J. D. began talking about his plans after high school graduation. I stood there with him, because I wanted to listen to his ideas. He turned and asked me, â€Å"What choices do I have†?I replied to him, â€Å"You can get a job, go into military, or continue your education at Virginia College like me†. Then I told him,† I am very proud of you for coming so far†. J. D thanked me for believing in him. I said, â€Å"Remember to keep up the good work†. I walked back into the living room to look at the clock. The time was now 6 p. m. You should begin a new paragraph here My family and I told everybody goodbye. We strolled outside thru the gate and jumped into the blue Nissan Pathfinder truck. My parents took Tydarrius an d me back home. They told us goodbye. They jumped back into the truck and left down the black concrete street.As we walked up the seven wooden stairs and into the house, I locked the front door behind us. Then we enjoyed the rest of the evening with each other. I liked your conclusion. I think you could have re-capped the day with your family a bit more. I was having so much fun hearing about the games, singing, dancing, and eating that I forgot your day began with just you and your little boy. A conclusion should include a little of everything you mentioned in your paper. Alaysha Wow! You have come a long way from the 1st draft that I read. There were a lot of editing mistakes and sentence structure mistakes in the beginning of the essay.Please continue to look things up in the reference book (smaller one than your book) to find the answers on correct sentence structure and grammar. In order to be prepared for my job, I have to go back to the resource book often. Rules do change so it’s a never ending battle of study. Also I highlighted some phrases or words in yellow that you use repeatedly. If you describe a room or situation in one way try describing another room in another way. Thank you for your hard work. Your grade is on the next page. 95%= A / -05 points for editing in the beginning of your paper.

Asian American history Essay

There are so many Asian American cultural productions, such as import automobiles, fashion, and art. However, the most important cultural production is food because cooking and eating have been the oldest human activities since human evolution started. Spreading of the different cultures’ and races’ food became more like art and fashion, but it still remains a fundamental part of our daily lives. Fashion and art vary in style by their origin, and each of them shows the aspects of their culture very strongly, but not as strongly as their food. Unlike fashion and art, traditional food impacts people’s physical traits. Many countries have their own traditional food, such as China which is well known for its Chow-Mien, Japan for its Sushi and India for its Curry. These different food from the different regions, have strong effects on people who live in that region. All traditional food has small differences in their nutrition, but that small difference can cause a big difference, if they are consumed daily. As an example, American food has higher fat percentage than Japanese foods or Indian foods. This results in Americans having higher chances of becoming obese than Japanese or Indians. It means each region’s symbolized food determines their characteristics or the identity of their race. In Rush Hour 3, there was a scene where, Lee and Carter were having a relationship conflict. Lee, who is Chinese, ordered fried chicken on the phone while Carter was in China town ordering Mu-Shu for his dinner and they were both recollecting each other. This scene in the movie strongly shows each character’s cultural and racial identity; Black people delivering KFC and Chinese people’s take-out food. â€Å"As the modern Asian American population continues to develop and evolve, we are also witnessing a fascinating transformation of Asian ethnic cuisine as it blends traditional and contemporary aspects into a uniquely Asian American creation.† Many American and Latino children in the United States tend to be more overweight than any different races living in the United States. The spread of childhood obesity is related to the spread of modernization and it’s advertisement on television. Race is a crucial aspect in the study of media and nutrition for two important reasons. The first reason is â€Å"nutritional problems such as childhood obesity are more prevalent among African-American children than among White children in the United States.† The second reason is that the â€Å"food advertisements aimed at African Americans tend to associate Blackness with less healthy food options.† Stereotypes of races are also applied in food as well, which is White priority. In Neil Gotanda’s article of Multiculturalism and Racial Stratification, she stated, â€Å"how multicultural techniques can function to maintain the centerpiece of the old racial order- white privilege.† (Wu & Song, Pg.380) Today, a variety of cooking shows, cookbooks and restaurants become the new place for multiculturalism. Combining of different cultural foods in one dish is not just great. By putting several cultures into one single dish causes more troublesome issues like â€Å"Asian American’s complicated historical and symbolic relationship with food production, distribution, and preparation.† (Nguyen & Tu, Pg.179) Some of the strong American heartland cities like Chicago refuse to admit Chinese and Middle Eastern food as regular food because of Asian American’s cultural blur of their origin. Asian Americans came to the United States to fill the necessity for the cheap labor in the agricultural industry and to work as meatpackers and take-out delivery men in the modern day period. The long history of Asian American labor in the food production and service industries caused invisibility in the pleasures and presence of Asian, especially Chinese, cuisine. Martin F. Manalansan IV, the author of the article, ‘Cooking up the Senses’, stated â€Å"Asian Americans’ relationship with the material and symbolic aspects of food is part of their continuing marginal and abject status in the American cultural imaginary.† (Nguyen & Tu, Pg.180) Despite the blurriness of their cultural identity, Asian Americans are symbolically and stereotypically linked to their food, which is neither fully Asian nor American. Fusion cuisine has been very popular today because of its bright and modern idea. However, its bright and modern idea is good in one point of view, but bad in another. â€Å"The topic of fusion cuisine became an important source of conversations about cultural in authenticity.† (Nguyen & Tu, Pg. 186) The show ‘East Meets West’, run by the host, Ming Tsai, is a famous Asian American cooking show. From the comment of this forty-five year old Indian man, the Asian dish is not incongruent to the atmosphere of the show, which is very American. Other Asian Americans also commented on the irony of the show, where Ming Tsai, who has a typical Asian-looking appearance, speaks just like the big Irish men who work in Wall Street. â€Å"Despite the Chinese-ness of Tsai’s image and body, and the recipe ingredients, music, and other show accoutrements overtly marked as Asian, participants evaluated the chef and the show as being very American and Western.† (Nguyen & Tu, Pg. 186) The mixing of all different kinds of cultural ingredients is too chaotic and they were making everything culturally illegible. The most important cultural production in one’s race is food. Cooking was very simple before the early civilizations. However, as the civilizations developed, people started to separate themselves by forming communities. Each community tended to have different cultures depending on their region. Each region has its own symbolic food determining their characteristics or determining the identity of their race. Food production is one of the most unique ways to express one’s cultural identity, which becomes a basis of one’s racial identity. However, the mixed ingredients of all different cultures make food culturally illegible and blur its racial identity.

Katherine Philips and her Works Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Katherine Philips and her Works - Essay Example Philips detached herself from Presbyterian traditions and admired the king and his church policy. Katherine’s mother married a Welshman called Hector Philips after the death of his father John Fowler. When Katherine was sixteen years old, she married James Philips a Welsh parliamentarian in 1647. James Philips was said to be fifty-four years old. However, there was little conflict between Katherine and her husband on political issues in that Katherine was a royalist and James was a supporter of Oliver Cromwell. This division is recorded in her poetry works. Katherine spent most of her time in London through her husband continued to reside in Wales. Her husband encouraged her literary creativity. Katherine had two children a daughter a son. Katherine founded the society of friends, which originated from the cult in Neoplatonic love imported by Henrietta Maria in 1630 where members acquired pseudonyms from French romances of cavalier dramas. Katherine Philips borrowed these ideas and dramatized it in her society of friendship. The society of friendship existed between 1651 and 166. This society helped Katherine to establish a standard in literary skills for generations as she managed to establish herself as a model for female writers after her death. She was regarded as the apostle of female friendship and this attached great respect to her name. Katherine Philip’s home became the center of the group. Actually, she wrote one hundred and sixteen poems, completed five verse translations, and translated two plays by Pierre Corneille from the French between 1606 and 1684. Her plays were produced in public theaters in both London and Dublin becoming the first female dramatists to have her works produced in public. Phillips did not receive any payment for her work, unlike Alpha Behn who is the first woman to write for the English stage as a professional. Anne Owen was the most important female member of the circle of friendship. She was known as Lucasia in  Philips’s poems.

(not deciding) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

(not deciding) - Essay Example These paintings all belong to high Renaissance style because they demonstrate unity in pictorial representation. These paintings represent religious characters and themes in naturalistic landscapes, vibrant colors, strong contour lines, contrapposto posing, realistic figures in stable composition with an implicit triangular format, and combined linear and aerial perspectives, although Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels and Madonna and Child with St. Jerome look flatter due to the use of tempera, Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels is less realistic with the addition of angels and halos, and The Flight into Egypt has a stronger three-dimensional form, with soft, glowing colors and shadows that create chiaroscuro effect. These paintings represent religious characters and themes, although Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels is less realistic with the addition of angels and halos. In Madonna and Child with St. Jerome, the three religious characters are Mary, the child Jesus, and St. Jerome. It appears that St. Jerome has visited the mother and child with some solemn or sad news because of the serious, somewhat sad, mood of the latter. In Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels, the religious characters are more numerous, which include Mary, child Jesus, Mary Magdalene, John the Baptist, Jerome, Francis, and Christopher, and two angels. The scene is naturalistic in how the main front characters are doing realistic actions, although the religious theme is apparent in how they all show adoration to the child Jesus, while Francis is experiencing stigmata at the back. The Flight into Egypt features Mary, Joseph, and the child Jesus. The biblical event is their travel to Egypt. These paintings employ religious characters and themes that were prominent subjects of the painters’ times. Apart from the portrayal of religious characters and themes, these paintings are all set in naturalistic landscapes. None of the

A Lexical Phrase Grammar for ESL Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

A Lexical Phrase Grammar for ESL - Essay Example An example is, from the definition of idioms, we can see that they are frozen syntax in complex bits. This definition is does not describe its meaning basing on its constituents (James, 1980). The real meaning of idioms is just the addition of its individual parts such as; raining cats and dogs, kick the bucket, etc. these are just normal phrases same as ordinary English words and are therefore treated as ordinary in ESL texts. Another good example are cliches. Even though they seem alike as idioms they differ in a way that their meaning can be derived from its specific constituents (James, 1980).   Ã‚  Other forms of phrases that are in a way or another patterned are the non-canonical forms. These forms differ from idioms and cliches in that, they constitute of more large stretches of language as well as their meaning can be extracted from single words it contains. e.g the drier the climate, the more he likes it;waste not, want not; down the hatch; off his head (James, 1980). In t his and such a case, the last bit which is off the head, can take other forms since it’s only a single way of completing the pattern. Phrases such as on with the show, down with the king; can also complete the large phrase perfectly without changing the meaning. From this example, we are able to note that it is a kind of pattern (ADV+PREPOSITION (with) + NP)   (James, 1980). Only the preposition will tend to remain constant while the other categories can be filled with other lexical items. This is the reason why they are considered non-canonical.

Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 140

Essay Example It fills the gap by giving a set of frameworks that outlines how to execute strategy mapping in a systematic and practical format. Strategy maps serve as a reference to the four primary interest groups. Many companies are searching for directions and guidance that will allow them implements their own scorecards and maps (Armitage & Scholey, 2003, p. 76). The business world is faced with calamities in strategy from but not because the managers cannot come up with useful strategies but because there is a deficiency in the execution of this strategy. Research shows that seventy percent of the strategy failures arise due to poor performance but not because of poor vision or lack of smarts. Strategy maps refer to diagrams that are used to document the primary strategic goals followed by a management team or organization. Strategy maps are essential elements of the documentation related to the balanced scorecard. Additionally it is a feature of the second generation of balanced scorecard models that initially started in the mid-1990s (Armitage, 2004, p. 104). The initial diagrams were used early 1990s, and Drs discussed the concept of using this map in Balanced Scorecard. Robert Kaplan with David Norton. Strategy map gives out the visual guidelines for integrating a company’s objectives in the four perceptions of a Balanced Scoreca rd. It represents the cause and effect relationships that connect specific abilities in human, organization capital and information with desired outcomes in financial and customer perspective (Scholey & Arnitage, 2004, p. 569). It is worth mentioning that Norton and Kaplan based their work on Michael Porter’s expression of strategy. They chose a set of activities that a company would prosper to create a sustainable difference in the market, and therefore creating a lasting value for the shareholders. Arrows on strategy map indicate cause and effect of a period, and each of this perspective is scrutinized in more detail giving

Dealing With Angry Clients Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Dealing With Angry Clients - Essay Example I worked part time in a call center a few years back. I dealt with clients in the health insurance field. Most of the calls that I had to deal with included angry clients who had a tendency to voice out their anger over the phone. It was my job to placate them, regardless of my own work related stress. But there are just some clients who refuse to be placated and will complain to higher authorities just because they need to vent out their frustrations on people they don't even personally know. Transition II. Body My department meeting early in the shift already had me stressed out after our team leader informed us that we had to handle at least 150 calls a day, per seat. Not so good news for a part time employee such as me since that meant that I had to handle at least 35 calls an hour within a 4 hour time frame. So you can imagine the stress that the situation placed on me when I finally started my shift. Adding aggravation to an already difficult situation was the fact that I kept getting screaming clients on my line demanding their insurance needs be serviced. Although I did my best to get the job done, one of them still complained to my supervisor about me and demanded that I be retrenched. Needless to say, the situation left me very angry and upset because I felt like I was being harassed on two fronts. My supervisor immediately asked me why I should not be suspended based upon the complaint he received.

Pardoning Death Row Prisoners Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Pardoning Death Row Prisoners - Essay Example She corroborated her claim by not only leading an exemplary life during her time in the prison, but also managed to garner much social and institutional support in favor of her pardon. The second example is of a gangster Stanley Williams who murdered 4 people in cold blood and received a death sentence. In the following years, Stanley not only became a peace activist and a prolific writer, but also claimed that the prison life had made him a good person. Again, Stanley managed to attract the sympathy and support of many prominent citizens and organizations. Yet, both Karla and Stanley were executed, irrespective of their proclaimed rehabilitation on death row. Law serves many purposes in the modern societies. In case of a heinous crime like homicide, the purpose of the law is not only to give justice to the murdered individuals and their family members and associates, but also to set an example before the society, so that people may desist from committing such crimes in the future (Bedau 52). If the state starts pardoning or commuting the death sentences of the criminals who claim to have changed or have become peaceful individuals owing to religious or other benign reasons, this will provide a loophole to most of the death row prisoners to claim pardon by citing similar excuses. ... Such instances will not only set a dangerous precedent, but will amount to reducing the law to a joke. The transformation or improvement of a murderer does not relieve one of the debt one owes to the victims in particular and the society in general. Second Possible Position It is a known fact that in most of the modern societies, their always exists a gap of a couple of years, before the passing of a death sentence to a person guilty of murder and the actual execution. The primary purpose of the law is to make society a safe place to live. Hence, it is perfectly justified to protect society from a dangerous murderer or a habitual criminal by sentencing one to death. Considering the prolonged gaps between the passing of the sentence and the execution, it is quiet possible that a murderer may become a better person owing to introspection and the salubrious influences that one may come across in the prison (Tabak 181). If this fact is further corroborated by a prisoner's good behavior on death row over a prolonged period and is recognized and supported by prominent citizens and organizations, the state can certainly pardon or commute the death sentence of such a prisoner. Once a prisoner has credibly become a peaceful citizen and has managed to attract th e support of the society, executing one simply serves no purpose, but amounts to unnecessary and legal violence (Baird 46). More Agreeable Position In the context of the case presentation under consideration, the first position stands to be more valid and agreeable. The first position takes a more broad based and pragmatic view of the institution of law. The perspective adopted by the first position

Pick a topic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Pick a topic - Essay Example Postal Service Nearing Bankruptcy as Email Asserts Its Dominance†(Wehner). Some people may regard this change in communication because technology has made it cheaper and faster to communicate than every before. Yet, there are many other people who view technology’s changes to communication as a very negative force as it has created a new generation of people who are extremely ignorant in terms of communicating appropriately and effectively. According to the article entitled â€Å"What is Good Communication,† there are distinct characteristics which clearly defines good versus bad communication. In looking at the comparison, it is evident that many of the qualities, which make up â€Å"bad† communication are extremely evident in much of the communication conducted via technology. For example, poor communication has qualities such as â€Å"people wear(ing)masks, the sender attacks the receiver, receiver doesn’t listen to sender, either sender or receiver is distracted, message is garbled or ambiguous, sender has hidden agenda, and one or more of the people involved are overemotional† (â€Å"What is Good Communication†). All of these qualities can be found in how people communicate today due to the influence of technology. This is especially prevalent for Internet based and texting based communication where people are able to hide behind their electronic devices which creates an atmosphe re of anonymity and a false sense of security for the communicators as they are not having to deal with a person in any real capacity. Because of this negative impact, it has become increasingly important in my own life to incorporate the characteristics of good communication with those that I communicate with using methods such as email, Skype, and telephones. People, nowadays, already carry an expectation with them that they are dealing with poor communicators when they technologically communicate with a person. Therefore, I ensure that I strictly

Customer Value and Superior Performance Essay Example for Free

Customer Value and Superior Performance Essay Market Orientation, Customer Value, and Superior Performance Stanley F. Slater and John C Narver Thinking in terms of the market (not marketing) is essential in the highiy competitive arenas of today, o achieve superior performance, a business must develop and sustain competitive advantage. But where competitive advantage was once based on structural characteristics such as market power, economies of scale, or a broad product line, the emphasis today has shifted to capabilities that enable a business to consistently deliver superior value to its customers. This, after all, is the meaning of competitive advantage. Our recent research shows that a market-oriented culture provides a solid foundation for these value-creating capabilities. A business is market-oriented when its culture is systematically and entirely committed to the continuous creation of superior customer value. Specifically, this entails collecting and coordinating information on customers, competitors, and other significant market influencers (such as regulators and suppliers) to use in building that value (see Figure 1). The three major components of market orientation+ustomer orientation, competitor focus, and cross-functional coordination-are long-term in vision and profit-driven. Based on extensive interviews with managers and executives, Kohli and Jaworski (1990) conclude that market orientation provides â€Å"a unifying focus for the efforts and projects of individuals, thereby leading to superior performance. † A developing stream of empirical research has found a strong relation- T ship between market orientation and several measures of business performance, including profitability. customer retention, sales growth, and new product success. Customer Orientation The heart of a market orientation is its customer focus. To create superior value for buyers continuously requires that a seller understand a buyer’s entire value chain, not only as it is today but also as it evolves over time. Buyer value can be created at any point in the chain by making the buyer either more effective in its markets or more efficient in its operations. A market-oriented business understands the cost and revenue dynamics not only of its immediate target buyers but also of all markets beyond, for demand in the immediate and â€Å"upstream† markets is derived from the demand in the original â€Å"downstream† markets. Therefore, a market-driven business develops a comprehensive understanding of its customers’ business and how customers in the immediate and downstream markets perceive value. Employees of market-oriented businesses spend considerable time with their customers. Managers and employees throughout the business call on their customers or bring them into their own facilities in a constant search for new ways to satisfy their needs. For example, Ih Pont has developed a program called â€Å"Adopt a Customer† that encourages a blue-collar worker to visit a customer once a month, learn the customer’s needs, and be the customer representative on the factory floor. Market-driven businesses continuously monitor their customer commitment by making im- proved customer satisfaction an ongoing objective. To maintain the relationships that are critical to delivering superior customer value, they pay close attention to service, both before and after sales. Because of the importance of employees in this effort, these businesses take great care to recruit and retain the best people available and provide them with regular training. Some businesses even involve their customers in hiring, training, and developing contact people as well as in making motivation and reward system decisions. Involving customers in these key areas forges strong customer loyalty. ogy development. Top managers frequently discuss competitors’ strategies to develop a shared perspective on probable sources of competitive threats. A reason for the success of many Japanese companies is that they train managers to understand that competitive intelligence is part of everyone’s job. Using this information, marketdriven businesses often target opportunities for competitive advantage based on competitors’ weaknesses. In any case, they keep competitors from developing an advantage by responding rapidly or anticipating their actions. Interfunctionai Coordination Competitor Focus The third of the three core components of a marCreating superior customer value requires more ket orientation is the coordination of personnel than just focusing on customers. The key quesand other resources from throughout the comtions are which competitors, and what technolopany to create value for buyers. Any point in the gies, and whether target customers perceive them buyer’s value chain is an opportunity for a seller as alternate satisfiers. Superior value requires that to create value for the buyer firm. This means the seller identify and understand the principal that any individual in any function in a seller firm competitors’ short-term strengths and weaknesses can potentially contribute to value creation. As and long-term capabilities and strategies. For Michael Porter (1985) explains: example, a team of Marriott employees traveled the country for six months, staying in economy Every department, facility, branch office, hotels and collecting information about their and other organizational unit has a role facilities and services. Armed with this informathat must be defined and understood. All tion about potential competitors’ strengths and employees, regardless of their distance weaknesses, Marriott invested $500 million in a from the strategy formulation process, new hotel chain. Fairfield Inn, its budget market must recognize their role in helping a entry, achieved an occupancy rate 10 points firm achieve and sustain competitive higher than the industry average in one year. advantage. A seller should adopt a chess-game perspective of its current and principal potential competiTo accomplish this, effective companies have tors. Moreover, it should continuously examine developed horizontal structures that focus on the competitive threats they pose, inferring these building value, such as time-to-market for new threats from intent and value-creation capabilities. This is crucial information to a seller in developFigure 1 ing its contingency competitive Market Orientation strategies. In one case, HewlettPackard decided to accelerate the Interfunctional announcement of a new computer Information Assessment Acquisition peripheral after discovering through its travel agency that a rival had booked conference rooms around the country for a specific date. Knowing that this rival had a similar product in development, H-I-’ rushed its announcement and beat the competition to the market. In market-driven businesses, employees from all functions share information concerning competitors. For example, it is crucial for RD to receive information acquired by the sales group about the pace of a competitor’s technol- Customer Information Competitor Information d Coordinated Superior Customer Value Other Market Information Market Orientation. Customer Value, and Superior Performance 23 products. They manage projects through small multifunctional teams that can move more quickly and easily than businesses that use the tradtional function-by-function, sequential approach. For example, cross-functional teams call on customers to identify additional opportunities for value creation. Engineering becomes involved during preliminary market research to help marketers understand what is feasible. Production is involved during product design to ensure that the product can be manufactured at a reasonable cost. Engineers and production people constantly discuss their capabilities and limitations with sales and marketing so capabilities can be leveraged and limitations avoided when promoting products or sewices. When all functions contribute to creating buyer value this way, more creativity is brought to bear on increasing effectiveness and efficiency for customers. Does This Mean the Marketing Department Is in Charge? Shapiro (1988) tells the anecdote of a company CEO explaining to top managers that because of increasing competition, the business needed to become more market-oriented. With that encouragement the marketing vice president jumped in, â€Å"I’ve been saying all along we need to be more marketing-oriented. Marketing has to be more involved in everything Ixcause we represent the customer and we have an integrated view of the company. † At that point the CEO snarled. â€Å"I said more maet-oriented. not 177arketin~-oriented. † That story is very epresentative of our experience with marketing orientation as well. A marketing orientation implies an emphasis on the marketing function that may not be appropriate. Customer value is created by core capabilities throughout the entire organization. Whereas Procter and Gamble’s competitive advantage may be based on :I core marketing capability, 3M’s advantage is innovation: Canon’s is technology. This does not make 3M or Canon any less market-oriented than Procter and Gaml~le. Because market-driven behavior permeates multiple functions at 3M and Canon, they may be more market-oriented and less marketing-oriented. In our view, lvhen a business achieves the objective of developing a pervasive market orientation, the marketing function may become lessnot more-important, because all functions are dedicated to creating and delivering customer value. This is consistent with Regis McKenna’s (1991) notion that â€Å"Marketing is everything and everything is marketing. † Webster (1992) foresees a time when marketing specialists will become increasingly rare while marketing as a general management function becomes more important. This is the result of a general focus on cross- unctional cooperation, which causes internal functional boundaries to lose meaning. GE’s 1990 Annual Report puts it this way: In a boundary-less company, internal functions begin to blur. Engineering doesn’t design a product, then â€Å"hand it off† to manufacturing. They form a team, along with marketing and sales, finance, and the rest. Customer service? It’s not somebody’s job. It’s everybody’s job. However, for businesses that currently have an internal orientation on production or research and development, the marketing department may have to take the lead role in encouraging marketoriented thinking throughout the firm. As the primary boundary between the business and its markets, marketing is â€Å"management’s window on the world† (Holver and Garda 1985). Because it is dependent on other functional areas for the timely and efficient development, production, and delivery of the product, marketing is likely to be the first function that fully appreciates the benefits of market orientation. To maximize its effectiveness. marketing must demonstrate the benefits of market-driven behavior to top management and to other functions. Marketing may have a key role in the development and maintenance of a culture that is truly arket-oriented The crux is that the responsibility for superior buyer value is beyond that of any one function. Creating value for buyers is analogous to a symphony orchestra in which all members contribute according to a general plan and in which the contribution of each subgroup is tailored and integrated by a conductor-with a synergistic effect. A seller must draw upon a nd integrate effectively all of its human and other resources in an ongoing effort to create superior ,alue for buyers at a profit. This coordinated integration of company resources builds directly on both customer and competitor analysis.

Motivational Theories for Travel and Tourism

Motivational Theories for Travel and Tourism Abstract The purposes of this dissertation are to demonstrate how the motivational theories in travel and tourism can be used as a foundation for research into ceasing participation in organized leisure activities, and to discuss methodological implications that emerge from such an approach. The research problem is the identification of three motivational factors that mostly influence the choice of leisure activity in the Lebanese tourism sector. The dissertation will rely heavily on literature review and primary research that used university students and a focus group of industry professionals in Lebanon. The theoretical background of this study is structured according to Iso-Ahola’s motivational theory. Iso-Ahola’s theory asserts that personal escape, personal seeking, interpersonal escape, and interpersonal seeking motivate tourism and recreation. This dissertation operationalizes and empirically tests Iso-Ahola’s theory for similar tourism and recreation experiences. The motivation dimensions are monitored using scenario-based data for sporting events, beaches, amusement parks, and natural parks. The first investigation used confirmatory factor analysis to explore the efficacy of six competing motivational structures. Three of these competing models achieved superior and similar fit statistics, with one model incorporating the most parsimonious structure. This model gave equal and direct salience to each of the four motivations. The second investigation examined the differences in motivation levels for tourism and recreation experiences. Tourism experiences exhibited higher levels of motivation, particularly for the personal seeking and personal escape dimensions. The third investigation found no relationship between the number of recent domestic and international vacations and tourism motivations among the subjects. Chapter I Introduction This dissertation seeks to explore the rationale for, and difficulties of operationalizing, the measurement of tourists’ satisfaction with their experiences in particular destinations. It suggests that the on-going systematic measurement of satisfaction with destinations is a valuable exercise that will have tangible benefits, but acknowledges the difficulties of doing this in a meaningful manner. The principal argument presented is that the measurement of tourists’ satisfaction with a particular destination involves more than simply measuring the level of satisfaction with the services delivered by individual enterprises. There needs to be a much broader, more encompassing means of measuring satisfaction, one that relates closely to the motivations which tourists have for visiting the destination in the first place. The tourism industry consists of a number of different sectors including the travel, hospitality and visitor services sector. Within each of these sectors there are a number of individual enterprises that provide a range of services to people who are traveling away from their home environment. This travel could be for a variety of reasons including for pleasure, to visit friends and relatives, to work on a short term basis, to attend conferences, to participate in business activities, or any of a number of specific reasons. While the industry distinguishes between the various groups according to their purpose for travel, convention has it that all these short-term travelers are defined as ‘tourists† Likewise, the industry distinguishes between various ‘markets’ according to their place of origin (international, domestic, intra-state, interstate, etc). These distinctions are not relevant to this paper which is concerned with all these forms of tourism. Tourists visit destinations and engage in various activities while there. These destinations can be classified in various ways and at various scales of analysis. For example, Lebanon could be regarded as a destination for international visitors while Beirut could be one for people from northern Lebanon. At a different scale, a city or even a region could be regarded as a destination. This paper is concerned with all these levels. It is not concerned with individual enterprises which exist within certain destinations. As noted below, there appears to be adequate analysis of tourism satisfaction at the individual enterprise level. What is missing is a broader view that looks at the way tourists respond to the totality of their experiences in a particular destination irrespective of the particular activities that they engage in. I am going to provide an explanation of the Lebanese tourism economy because this market is the model that this dissertation uses as the benchmark for testing Iso-Ahola’s motivational theory. I have chosen this country due to its reputation of being the jewel of the Middle East and one of the most desired destinations in the region. The understanding of the characteristics of this market will play a critical role in laying the foundations for the research and would allow to increase the integrity and reliability of this research. Moreover, the market is highly concentrated and the geographic area is small; this aspect would play a paramount role in diminishing sources of error; and in case of their occurrence it would be easier to isolate and rectify. In addition, being my home country; I view studying this market as a personal passion which would allow me to present with a high â€Å"motivational† level. I will start by providing a review of the state of Lebanese tourism and highlight the trends, review precious research findings, and pinpoint the market characteristics. Tourism in the Lebanese Economy Over the last decade the tourism industry has emerged as a significant sector of the Lebanese economy generating approximately $5 billion in income, employing 1 in 9 Lebanese and contributing about $1.5 billion in export earnings. While approximately 55% of tourism activity involves domestic travel, the fastest growing sector is in-bound travel. This has been increasing significantly over the last decade with Lebanon receiving 1.1 million visits in 2004. Despite the recent downturn in the economies of major source countries, and the unstable political landscape visitor arrivals to Lebanon are expected to grow at an average annual rate of between 5.7 and 7.8 per cent to reach between 1.4 and 1.7 million visitors in 2010. Being a relatively new industry characterized by growth, the focus has been on marketing, visitor numbers, and length of stay, expenditure patterns and other measures of consumption. As the industry has begun to mature in the last five or so years; there has been an increasing interest in such things as quality of service, accreditation procedures, and measurement of client satisfaction. The issues discussed in this paper should be seen as part of this maturation process in which the industry is looking to achieve long-term sustainable growth that generates benefits for the industry, the clients and the community as a whole. Methodology of Research Collecting data in marketing research often involves several different strategies, such as interviewing and analyzing documents (Merriam, 1998). Using multiple sources of information is useful in our research since we have doubts that a single source of information will provide a complete and comprehensive understanding of the research problem, so in our research we use multiple sources of information. Basically, there are two forms of data: primary and secondary data. While writing the dissertation, I will use several different sources when collecting data in order to increase the validity of the collected data. Secondary data is the data that has been previously collected and published. The secondary data used in the beginning of our research, originated from various sources. In the preparatory period, we have started by studying literature related to relationship tourism marketing, tourism buying and motivational behavior and motivational marketing concepts in order to get deeper insight into and understanding of the researched area. The other sources used for collection of our secondary data were: newspaper and magazine articles, course materials, on-line sources (Internet databases) and tourism companies’ materials (internal and external). The methodology used for primary research will be depicted at greater length in the third chapter. Current Measurement of Tourist’s Satisfaction Levels Despite the large body of literature available on satisfaction research in general, only a few academic studies have focused directly on customer satisfaction amongst tourists. Of these, an even more limited number have been undertaken in Lebanon. The major studies include Fick and Ritchie (1991), Reisinger and Waryszak (1994), Arnold and Price (1993), Crompton and Love (1995), Geva and Goldman (1991), Maddox (1985) and Ryan (1995). Because of the limited material available in the academic literature, a preliminary survey of organizations that may have investigated tourist satisfaction was undertaken. Given the broad focus of the paper and the limited space, no attempt was made to look at individual tourism enterprises measuring the satisfaction level of clients as part of their on-going quality assurance program. The most common example of this is the questionnaire that is left in individual hotel rooms. These vary from single response questions to sophisticated instruments designed to elicit quite detailed responses from guests. Most of these are diagnostic in the sense that they are aimed at identifying specific measures that can be taken to improve the service. Some specifically enquire about customer’s perceptions of the service’s value for money. In some instances, particularly amongst 5 star hotel chains, these are used for benchmarking or as performance indicators. Because of this decision to exclude individual enterprises, the preliminary survey focused on the following organizations: Academic departments of Lebanese universities State tourist offices Non-government tourist industry organizations and associations The search found a range of studies has been completed most of which are primarily data-gathering research exercises rather than conceptual studies. The prime studies are described in appendix I. It is clear that some work has been done in this area by a smattering of agencies each of which approaches it from a quite different perspective. Despite acknowledgement of the potential value of the data, current efforts are not coordinated resulting in a lack of comparability that makes it impossible to identify trends and monitor changes in a systematic fashion. More importantly, the diversity of approaches demonstrates a need for substantial conceptual work on the nature of tourist satisfaction in general and the measurement of tourist satisfaction with destinations in particular. What is required is further exploration into the application of concepts and ideas drawn from the broader consumer literature to the specific challenge of measuring the satisfaction of tourists with particular destinations. This may require a quite different approach to that adopted for other services. Why measure satisfaction at the level of the destination? There are a number of reasons why it would be appropriate to look at extending the measurement of tourist satisfaction to the more global level of the tourist destination. It is critical to understand the underlying motivational factors in order to be able to get a clearer barometer for the measurement of satisfaction of tourists. Without pre-empting the nature of this measurement, these reasons include: Millions of dollars are spent each year on destination marketing by national and state tourism offices, airlines and regional tourism bodies. This includes detailed surveys of potential markets as well as extensive advertising and promotional campaigns in source countries. While there is considerable research into the impact of the promotional effort through awareness studies, tracking studies, etc, these all concentrate on the inputs (i.e. has the campaign reached its target audience?). What is missing is an understanding of the client’s reaction to the product offering, in particularly whether it meets the needs of the target market. This would become an integral part of the understanding what the market(s) is/are seeking. Peak organizations in the tourism industry recognize the need to encourage both new and repeat business. The latter can best be achieved by ensuring that our current offerings are satisfying the needs, expectations and desires of current tourists and their propensity to recommend the destination to others. The measure could become a barometer of the ‘health’ of the industry for strategic planning purposes. The tourism industry itself is grappling with the issue of service quality and recognizes that this is the key to long term success. At present its focus is on establishing accreditation mechanisms to ensure that individual firms conform to appropriate standards. Monitoring tourists’ satisfaction at the more global level would provide a valuable framework for this and enable comparison between the efforts of the individual enterprise and those of the industry as a whole. Government agencies are now recognizing the value of assessing the success of their programs in terms of outcomes rather than inputs. As Lebanese government agencies move in this direction the need for the systematic collection of the type of data proposed will increase. In the case of tourism, this is particularly relevant to national, state and regional tourism development bodies responsible for destination marketing. Using the level of satisfaction experienced by visitors to their destination as a measure of success would transfer the focus away from the efforts of the organization towards their achievements. Governments of all persuasions are looking critically at their financial commitments and questioning whether they should continue the traditionally high level of support. If the industry can demonstrate a relationship between the level of support and the satisfaction of visitors to their destination then the argument for continued support would be strengthened greatly. This would complement other measures such as visitor numbers, expenditure, etc. With an appropriate measurement instrument it could be possible for individual sectors of the industry to be compared with other sectors. In an industry where the success of the whole depends on the contribution of each part, this information will help to identify those sectors that need to improve. Recent developments in consumer protection have extended into the area of satisfaction. The 1993 European Union Directive on Travel has required member states to implement laws giving tourists the right to obtain compensation from packaged tour operators in the event that they are ‘dissatisfied’ with their holiday. This applies in all destinations, including Lebanon. The results of the proposed survey will help to focus the attention of the industry on this issue and provide data on how the industry is going and what needs to be improved. Perspectives on Measuring Tourists’ Satisfaction with a Destination Measuring tourists’ satisfaction with a destination is conceptually different from measuring satisfaction at the transaction specific level. Moreover, it is contended that while satisfaction at the destination level is influenced by the various transactions that occur at that destination, an individual’s level of satisfaction is influenced by much broader, global factors, some of which are beyond the capacity of the tourism industry to affect. The purpose of this section is to outline some ideas that should be taken into account when developing a method to measure satisfaction at this relatively abstract level. Johnson, Anderson et al., (1995) have distinguished between two different general conceptualizations of satisfaction: transaction-specific satisfaction and cumulative satisfaction. The former is concerned with â€Å"satisfaction as an individual, transaction-specific measure or evaluation of a particular product or service experience† (Johnson, Anderson et al. 1995). Cumulative satisfaction, on the other hand, is â€Å"a cumulative, abstract construct that describes customer’s total consumption experience with a product or service† (Johnson, Anderson et al., 1995). As a customer’s overall evaluation of the purchase or consumption experience, cumulative satisfaction is the most relevant conceptualization when the focus is on the tourist’s evaluation of their overall experience at a destination. This is sometimes referred to as market-level satisfaction. The literature suggests that satisfaction measurement must be treated differently at these two levels of abstraction. Moreover, when considering consumer satisfaction with their consumption experiences, a major distinction has been made between the consumption of goods and services (Lovelock, 1991). Measures of satisfaction are not the same for these different consumption experiences, largely because of the role of the consumer in the service encounter. It could also be argued that tourism is a ‘special’ service in that, like recreation or education, it is largely self-produced (Williams, 1988). The individual plays a central role in determining the experiences achieved and the benefits derived. The ‘special’ nature of tourism can be understood by adopting the behavioral perspective first developed within the recreation and leisure literature. This literature demonstrates the value of perceiving recreation as activity that creates experiences which, in turn, result in benefits for the individual (Driver and Tocher, 1970; Mannel and Iso-Ahola, 1987). This created a focus on the factors which determine the quality of those experiences and the benefits derived. Measurement of satisfaction has therefore involved an assessment of whether the experiences have resulted in the desired benefits sought by the individual. In his seminal paper (Wagar 1966) suggested that the quality of recreation experience depends upon how well desired outcomes are realized. Satisfaction is therefore more a function of the needs and interests of the individual than the attributes and characteristics of the service provided. These ideas have gradually become the basis of the conceptualization of the tourist experience and informed much of the work about tourist motivations and expectations (Crompton and Love, 1995; Ryan, 1995). Therefore tourist experiences can be regarded as the result of an active endeavor by the individual to create a situation in which to achieve satisfaction. It is this active involvement of the individual in the creation of his or her personal experiences that needs to be acknowledged. In a similar vein, the early recreation literature also recognized the implications of this approach for the assessment of recreation service quality. It was recognized that â€Å"the quality of the experiences can be influenced by input factors provided by managers . . . but to a considerable extent the quality of experiences depends upon choices made by recreationists and how they use the many factors of production† (Brown, 1988: 413). In other words, the satisfaction levels experienced by recreationists are recognized as being a function of a number of different variables including those brought by the recreationist him/herself which are beyond the influence of the service provider. Drawing on the consumer literature, it is too easy to assume that the outcomes of the tourist activity are solely the creation of the tourist operators/industry. However, it is perhaps more enlightening to adopt a ‘transactional perspective’ outlined in the recreation literature. Here, the tourist â€Å"actively creates the recreation(tourist) experience, through a transaction with the physical and social setting, including what the recreationist (tourist) brings to the process in terms of history, perceptions, companions, skills, equipment, identities, hopes and dreams† (Williams, 1988). With this perspective, more emphasis is placed on the behavior of the individual and their role in creating the experience. Not all the responsibility for creating high levels of satisfaction rests with the service deliverer. With this in mind, (Crompton and Love, 1995) make a distinction between quality of opportunity and quality of experience. â€Å"Quality of opportunity is defined as qualities of the attributes of a service that are under the control of a supplier. Evaluation is concerned with judgments about the performance of the leisure opportunity supplier. . . . In contrast, quality of experience involves not only the attributes provided by a supplier, but also attributes brought to the opportunity by the visitor or recreationist. . Quality of experience is a psychological outcome or emotional response. . Satisfaction is measured by how well leisure activities are perceived to fulfill the basic needs and motives that stimulated the idea to participate in the activity (Crompton and Love, 1995:12)†. When the objective is to measure satisfaction with a holiday in a particular destination, it will be important to note this distinction and ensure that both aspects are included in the assessment. We have been reasonably good at assessing tourists’ perceptions of the quality of opportunity but largely ignored the question of quality of experience. A further perspective that could be of relevance here is that of Herzberg (1966). While his work mainly focused on the workplace, his theory of motivation has relevance to the expenditure of discretionary time such as going on a holiday. Herzberg (1966) suggests that all aspects of an experience can be classified as either a motivational or a hygienic factor. Motivational factors are those that positively encourage people to do something. For example, a desire to make new friends may motivate people to go on an organized tour rather than travel alone. On the other hand, hygienic factors are those things which would not encourage one to travel, but their absence would discourage such travel. A good example is the availability of clean drinking water. Having this available is unlikely to motivate someone to travel, while its absence could cause someone to not choose a particular destination. According to Roger James Associates (1996) â€Å"the absence of motivational factors does not lead to ‘dissatisfaction’ but rather to ‘unsatisfaction’ a sense of emptiness rather than a sense of anger or disappointment. On the other hand, the absence of a hygienic factor will lead to dissatisfaction. The presence of such a factor will not lead to ‘satisfaction’ but rather to ‘satisficing’, that is, a passive (albeit benign) feeling† (Roger James Associates, 1996 : 34). If we adopt this framework it could be suggested that we have tended to focus on the hygienic factors which are represented by the measurement of how well the services (hotels, airports, travel companies, etc) are provided. These are important because without these being done well, the customer would be very dissatisfied. However, we have not also measured the motivational factors. These are akin to the experience factors how well the destination facilitates the satisfaction of personal needs. The best way of ensuring that we are providing this is to understand the client’s needs, etc and to develop product that is relevant to these. In turn, this is linked to the benefits to be derived from the experience thus creating satisfaction. The work by Arnold and Price (1993) confirms the role that needs and desires play in the consumer’s evaluation of a particular experience. They present very clear evidence that the satisfaction of participants in this recreational (or possibly tourist?) activity is related to the extent to which the experience enhances their individual cultural script and are â€Å"interpreted within the broader narrative context of the consumer’s life† (Arnould and Price, 1993). They suggest that â€Å"satisfaction with river rafting . . . does not seem to be embodied in attributes of the experience such as amounts of time spent freezing in wet clothes, uncomfortable toilet facilities, bad food or any summary index of specific attributes of the trip† (Arnould and Price, 1993). These general thoughts appear to be in line with the fundamentals of the marketing concept most commonly described as â€Å"satisfying the needs and desires of the consumer† (Keith, 1960 :38) and the whole notion of benefit segmentation which suggests that purchases are selected on the basis of the benefits derived by consumers (Haley, 1968). It is also consistent with the recent work of Spreng and his associates which emphasizes the role that desires, as opposed to expectations, plays in determining satisfaction within the disconfirmation framework (Spreng, Mackenzie et al., 1996). Proposed Path Space does not permit an exhaustive examination of the extensive literature outlining the various models used as the basis for measuring customer satisfaction and gauging the behavioral aspects (see Parasuraman, Zeithaml et al., 1994). However, a review of this literature has uncovered a model that could be developed to provide a satisfactory method of evaluating tourists’ satisfaction at the level of the destination and their motivational map. This model has been developed by Iso-Ahola and has become the basis of extensive work at the national and international level. The index provided by the Iso-Ahola model provides a cumulative evaluation of a sector’s market offering coupled with individual evaluation of a specific transaction. Called the ‘Customer Satisfaction Index/Barometer’, it has been introduced in: Sweden, Germany and the United States of America (Fornell, Johnson et al, 1996). Taiwan and New Zealand are also in the process of introducing a similar national satisfaction indicator. While much work still needs to be done, the framework provided by Iso-Ahola model provides a good starting point. It should be possible to make the necessary changes required to produce a useful index that will contribute to the on-going development of this important industry. Chapter II Literature Review It is imperative to start with a review of literature that addressed motivation in the travel and tourism industry. By adopting this approach we will be able to present a much more comprehensive and inclusive approach to understanding the theories of motivation in the travel and tourism industry; and thus, we will be able to lay the foundations of clear parameters that can help scholars and decision makers measure the satisfaction of tourists and the underlying motivational factors. This part of the paper is dedicated to reviewing the literature that currently assesses the main theories of motivation. These theories span across a wide spectrum; therefore we will tackle the various theories of travel motivation in the first part and then we will focus our discussions on Iso-Ahola’s motivational theory. The main theories of travel motivation Knowledge of peoples travel motivations and its association with destination selection plays a critical role in predicting future travel patterns. The essay talks about the various theories propounded by the theorists and analyses their practical benefits for the tourism industry. Tourist motivation can be defined as the global integrating network of biological and cultural forces which gives value and direction to travel choices, behavior and experience. (Pearce, Morrison Rutledge, 1998) as cited by Allan R. Rhodes Espinoza. According to Seaton (1997) motivation is a state of arousal of a drive or need which impels people to activity in pursuit of goals. Once the goals have been achieved the need subsides and the individual returns to the equilibrium-but only briefly because new motives arise as the last one is satisfied. Krippendorf (1987), as cited in Seaton (1997) suggests that the motivation of the individual person to travel, to look outside for what he cannot find inside have been largely created by society and shaped by everyday life. People who live in cities, for example, are motivated to travel as tourists to wilderness areas because they need to escape from an artificial, monotonous environment. (Dann Matley, 1976) as cited in Mansfeld 1992). Grays travel-motivation theory, as noted by Mansfeld (1992), gives us two motives about why people go to natural settings. The first motive is the desire to go from a known to an unknown place, called in Grays theory wanderlust. Secondly, a place which can provide the traveler with specific facilities that do not exist in his or her own place of residence, referred in Grays theory as sun lust (Mansfeld, 1992). It is a common practice to consider traveler or tourist types as potential market segments for travel and tourism marketing (Smith, 1989 as cited in Theobald, 1996).Some of the motives which determine their travel choices are recreation, pleasure, new experiences, cultural interest, shopping. Any reader of literature of tourism motivation cannot help being struck by the similarity in findings by many researchers. The adjectives and categorizations of tourists based upon motivations may differ in number, but recurrent themes emerge. For example the need to escape from everyday surroundings for the purpose of relaxation, and discovering new things, places and people are often alluded to. According to Crompton (1979), as cited in Bello Etzel (1985), the need for relaxation, exploration, social interaction and enhancement of kinship relationships act as dominant push motives in the vacation decision. Reversely, pull motives are aroused by the destination and include factors like scenic attractions, historical sites. Push factors are thought to establish the desire for travel and pull factors are thought to explain actual destination choice. Seaton (1997) suggests that the push factors include avoidance of work, cultural/social pressures at home. The pull factors include seeking leisure /play, freedom and escape. Maslow (1943) identified two motivational types: tension-reducing motives; arousal-seeking motives. According to Maslow, there are five needs forming a hierarchy, progressing from the lower to the higher needs. Maslow argued that if the lower needs [physiological {hunger, thirst, rest}, safety {security}, belonging and love {affection, giving and receiving love}] are fulfilled the individual would be motivated by needs of the next level of the hierarchy [esteem {self-esteem and esteem for others}, self-actualization {personal self-fulfillment}]. Cooper et al(2005) criticizes Maslows theory saying that why and how Maslow selected the basic five needs remain unclear, although Page(2003) feels that it has relevance in understanding how human action is understandable and predictable compared to research which argues that human behavior is essentially irrational and unpredictable. Cooper et al (2005) also questions the arrangement of the needs. Though Cooper et al (2005) criticizes much about Maslows theory, he feels that tourism industry has borrowed a lot from Maslow because he provides a convenient set of containers that can be relatively labeled. Hudman (1980) as cited in Davidson and Maitland (1997) argue that Maslows (1943) hierarchy of needs provides a useful framework for understanding psychological motivational factors in tourism. Thus, for example, although the apparent purpose of a trip may be to visit friends and relatives, the underlying psychological motivation may be a need for belonging Motivational Theories for Travel and Tourism Motivational Theories for Travel and Tourism Abstract The purposes of this dissertation are to demonstrate how the motivational theories in travel and tourism can be used as a foundation for research into ceasing participation in organized leisure activities, and to discuss methodological implications that emerge from such an approach. The research problem is the identification of three motivational factors that mostly influence the choice of leisure activity in the Lebanese tourism sector. The dissertation will rely heavily on literature review and primary research that used university students and a focus group of industry professionals in Lebanon. The theoretical background of this study is structured according to Iso-Ahola’s motivational theory. Iso-Ahola’s theory asserts that personal escape, personal seeking, interpersonal escape, and interpersonal seeking motivate tourism and recreation. This dissertation operationalizes and empirically tests Iso-Ahola’s theory for similar tourism and recreation experiences. The motivation dimensions are monitored using scenario-based data for sporting events, beaches, amusement parks, and natural parks. The first investigation used confirmatory factor analysis to explore the efficacy of six competing motivational structures. Three of these competing models achieved superior and similar fit statistics, with one model incorporating the most parsimonious structure. This model gave equal and direct salience to each of the four motivations. The second investigation examined the differences in motivation levels for tourism and recreation experiences. Tourism experiences exhibited higher levels of motivation, particularly for the personal seeking and personal escape dimensions. The third investigation found no relationship between the number of recent domestic and international vacations and tourism motivations among the subjects. Chapter I Introduction This dissertation seeks to explore the rationale for, and difficulties of operationalizing, the measurement of tourists’ satisfaction with their experiences in particular destinations. It suggests that the on-going systematic measurement of satisfaction with destinations is a valuable exercise that will have tangible benefits, but acknowledges the difficulties of doing this in a meaningful manner. The principal argument presented is that the measurement of tourists’ satisfaction with a particular destination involves more than simply measuring the level of satisfaction with the services delivered by individual enterprises. There needs to be a much broader, more encompassing means of measuring satisfaction, one that relates closely to the motivations which tourists have for visiting the destination in the first place. The tourism industry consists of a number of different sectors including the travel, hospitality and visitor services sector. Within each of these sectors there are a number of individual enterprises that provide a range of services to people who are traveling away from their home environment. This travel could be for a variety of reasons including for pleasure, to visit friends and relatives, to work on a short term basis, to attend conferences, to participate in business activities, or any of a number of specific reasons. While the industry distinguishes between the various groups according to their purpose for travel, convention has it that all these short-term travelers are defined as ‘tourists† Likewise, the industry distinguishes between various ‘markets’ according to their place of origin (international, domestic, intra-state, interstate, etc). These distinctions are not relevant to this paper which is concerned with all these forms of tourism. Tourists visit destinations and engage in various activities while there. These destinations can be classified in various ways and at various scales of analysis. For example, Lebanon could be regarded as a destination for international visitors while Beirut could be one for people from northern Lebanon. At a different scale, a city or even a region could be regarded as a destination. This paper is concerned with all these levels. It is not concerned with individual enterprises which exist within certain destinations. As noted below, there appears to be adequate analysis of tourism satisfaction at the individual enterprise level. What is missing is a broader view that looks at the way tourists respond to the totality of their experiences in a particular destination irrespective of the particular activities that they engage in. I am going to provide an explanation of the Lebanese tourism economy because this market is the model that this dissertation uses as the benchmark for testing Iso-Ahola’s motivational theory. I have chosen this country due to its reputation of being the jewel of the Middle East and one of the most desired destinations in the region. The understanding of the characteristics of this market will play a critical role in laying the foundations for the research and would allow to increase the integrity and reliability of this research. Moreover, the market is highly concentrated and the geographic area is small; this aspect would play a paramount role in diminishing sources of error; and in case of their occurrence it would be easier to isolate and rectify. In addition, being my home country; I view studying this market as a personal passion which would allow me to present with a high â€Å"motivational† level. I will start by providing a review of the state of Lebanese tourism and highlight the trends, review precious research findings, and pinpoint the market characteristics. Tourism in the Lebanese Economy Over the last decade the tourism industry has emerged as a significant sector of the Lebanese economy generating approximately $5 billion in income, employing 1 in 9 Lebanese and contributing about $1.5 billion in export earnings. While approximately 55% of tourism activity involves domestic travel, the fastest growing sector is in-bound travel. This has been increasing significantly over the last decade with Lebanon receiving 1.1 million visits in 2004. Despite the recent downturn in the economies of major source countries, and the unstable political landscape visitor arrivals to Lebanon are expected to grow at an average annual rate of between 5.7 and 7.8 per cent to reach between 1.4 and 1.7 million visitors in 2010. Being a relatively new industry characterized by growth, the focus has been on marketing, visitor numbers, and length of stay, expenditure patterns and other measures of consumption. As the industry has begun to mature in the last five or so years; there has been an increasing interest in such things as quality of service, accreditation procedures, and measurement of client satisfaction. The issues discussed in this paper should be seen as part of this maturation process in which the industry is looking to achieve long-term sustainable growth that generates benefits for the industry, the clients and the community as a whole. Methodology of Research Collecting data in marketing research often involves several different strategies, such as interviewing and analyzing documents (Merriam, 1998). Using multiple sources of information is useful in our research since we have doubts that a single source of information will provide a complete and comprehensive understanding of the research problem, so in our research we use multiple sources of information. Basically, there are two forms of data: primary and secondary data. While writing the dissertation, I will use several different sources when collecting data in order to increase the validity of the collected data. Secondary data is the data that has been previously collected and published. The secondary data used in the beginning of our research, originated from various sources. In the preparatory period, we have started by studying literature related to relationship tourism marketing, tourism buying and motivational behavior and motivational marketing concepts in order to get deeper insight into and understanding of the researched area. The other sources used for collection of our secondary data were: newspaper and magazine articles, course materials, on-line sources (Internet databases) and tourism companies’ materials (internal and external). The methodology used for primary research will be depicted at greater length in the third chapter. Current Measurement of Tourist’s Satisfaction Levels Despite the large body of literature available on satisfaction research in general, only a few academic studies have focused directly on customer satisfaction amongst tourists. Of these, an even more limited number have been undertaken in Lebanon. The major studies include Fick and Ritchie (1991), Reisinger and Waryszak (1994), Arnold and Price (1993), Crompton and Love (1995), Geva and Goldman (1991), Maddox (1985) and Ryan (1995). Because of the limited material available in the academic literature, a preliminary survey of organizations that may have investigated tourist satisfaction was undertaken. Given the broad focus of the paper and the limited space, no attempt was made to look at individual tourism enterprises measuring the satisfaction level of clients as part of their on-going quality assurance program. The most common example of this is the questionnaire that is left in individual hotel rooms. These vary from single response questions to sophisticated instruments designed to elicit quite detailed responses from guests. Most of these are diagnostic in the sense that they are aimed at identifying specific measures that can be taken to improve the service. Some specifically enquire about customer’s perceptions of the service’s value for money. In some instances, particularly amongst 5 star hotel chains, these are used for benchmarking or as performance indicators. Because of this decision to exclude individual enterprises, the preliminary survey focused on the following organizations: Academic departments of Lebanese universities State tourist offices Non-government tourist industry organizations and associations The search found a range of studies has been completed most of which are primarily data-gathering research exercises rather than conceptual studies. The prime studies are described in appendix I. It is clear that some work has been done in this area by a smattering of agencies each of which approaches it from a quite different perspective. Despite acknowledgement of the potential value of the data, current efforts are not coordinated resulting in a lack of comparability that makes it impossible to identify trends and monitor changes in a systematic fashion. More importantly, the diversity of approaches demonstrates a need for substantial conceptual work on the nature of tourist satisfaction in general and the measurement of tourist satisfaction with destinations in particular. What is required is further exploration into the application of concepts and ideas drawn from the broader consumer literature to the specific challenge of measuring the satisfaction of tourists with particular destinations. This may require a quite different approach to that adopted for other services. Why measure satisfaction at the level of the destination? There are a number of reasons why it would be appropriate to look at extending the measurement of tourist satisfaction to the more global level of the tourist destination. It is critical to understand the underlying motivational factors in order to be able to get a clearer barometer for the measurement of satisfaction of tourists. Without pre-empting the nature of this measurement, these reasons include: Millions of dollars are spent each year on destination marketing by national and state tourism offices, airlines and regional tourism bodies. This includes detailed surveys of potential markets as well as extensive advertising and promotional campaigns in source countries. While there is considerable research into the impact of the promotional effort through awareness studies, tracking studies, etc, these all concentrate on the inputs (i.e. has the campaign reached its target audience?). What is missing is an understanding of the client’s reaction to the product offering, in particularly whether it meets the needs of the target market. This would become an integral part of the understanding what the market(s) is/are seeking. Peak organizations in the tourism industry recognize the need to encourage both new and repeat business. The latter can best be achieved by ensuring that our current offerings are satisfying the needs, expectations and desires of current tourists and their propensity to recommend the destination to others. The measure could become a barometer of the ‘health’ of the industry for strategic planning purposes. The tourism industry itself is grappling with the issue of service quality and recognizes that this is the key to long term success. At present its focus is on establishing accreditation mechanisms to ensure that individual firms conform to appropriate standards. Monitoring tourists’ satisfaction at the more global level would provide a valuable framework for this and enable comparison between the efforts of the individual enterprise and those of the industry as a whole. Government agencies are now recognizing the value of assessing the success of their programs in terms of outcomes rather than inputs. As Lebanese government agencies move in this direction the need for the systematic collection of the type of data proposed will increase. In the case of tourism, this is particularly relevant to national, state and regional tourism development bodies responsible for destination marketing. Using the level of satisfaction experienced by visitors to their destination as a measure of success would transfer the focus away from the efforts of the organization towards their achievements. Governments of all persuasions are looking critically at their financial commitments and questioning whether they should continue the traditionally high level of support. If the industry can demonstrate a relationship between the level of support and the satisfaction of visitors to their destination then the argument for continued support would be strengthened greatly. This would complement other measures such as visitor numbers, expenditure, etc. With an appropriate measurement instrument it could be possible for individual sectors of the industry to be compared with other sectors. In an industry where the success of the whole depends on the contribution of each part, this information will help to identify those sectors that need to improve. Recent developments in consumer protection have extended into the area of satisfaction. The 1993 European Union Directive on Travel has required member states to implement laws giving tourists the right to obtain compensation from packaged tour operators in the event that they are ‘dissatisfied’ with their holiday. This applies in all destinations, including Lebanon. The results of the proposed survey will help to focus the attention of the industry on this issue and provide data on how the industry is going and what needs to be improved. Perspectives on Measuring Tourists’ Satisfaction with a Destination Measuring tourists’ satisfaction with a destination is conceptually different from measuring satisfaction at the transaction specific level. Moreover, it is contended that while satisfaction at the destination level is influenced by the various transactions that occur at that destination, an individual’s level of satisfaction is influenced by much broader, global factors, some of which are beyond the capacity of the tourism industry to affect. The purpose of this section is to outline some ideas that should be taken into account when developing a method to measure satisfaction at this relatively abstract level. Johnson, Anderson et al., (1995) have distinguished between two different general conceptualizations of satisfaction: transaction-specific satisfaction and cumulative satisfaction. The former is concerned with â€Å"satisfaction as an individual, transaction-specific measure or evaluation of a particular product or service experience† (Johnson, Anderson et al. 1995). Cumulative satisfaction, on the other hand, is â€Å"a cumulative, abstract construct that describes customer’s total consumption experience with a product or service† (Johnson, Anderson et al., 1995). As a customer’s overall evaluation of the purchase or consumption experience, cumulative satisfaction is the most relevant conceptualization when the focus is on the tourist’s evaluation of their overall experience at a destination. This is sometimes referred to as market-level satisfaction. The literature suggests that satisfaction measurement must be treated differently at these two levels of abstraction. Moreover, when considering consumer satisfaction with their consumption experiences, a major distinction has been made between the consumption of goods and services (Lovelock, 1991). Measures of satisfaction are not the same for these different consumption experiences, largely because of the role of the consumer in the service encounter. It could also be argued that tourism is a ‘special’ service in that, like recreation or education, it is largely self-produced (Williams, 1988). The individual plays a central role in determining the experiences achieved and the benefits derived. The ‘special’ nature of tourism can be understood by adopting the behavioral perspective first developed within the recreation and leisure literature. This literature demonstrates the value of perceiving recreation as activity that creates experiences which, in turn, result in benefits for the individual (Driver and Tocher, 1970; Mannel and Iso-Ahola, 1987). This created a focus on the factors which determine the quality of those experiences and the benefits derived. Measurement of satisfaction has therefore involved an assessment of whether the experiences have resulted in the desired benefits sought by the individual. In his seminal paper (Wagar 1966) suggested that the quality of recreation experience depends upon how well desired outcomes are realized. Satisfaction is therefore more a function of the needs and interests of the individual than the attributes and characteristics of the service provided. These ideas have gradually become the basis of the conceptualization of the tourist experience and informed much of the work about tourist motivations and expectations (Crompton and Love, 1995; Ryan, 1995). Therefore tourist experiences can be regarded as the result of an active endeavor by the individual to create a situation in which to achieve satisfaction. It is this active involvement of the individual in the creation of his or her personal experiences that needs to be acknowledged. In a similar vein, the early recreation literature also recognized the implications of this approach for the assessment of recreation service quality. It was recognized that â€Å"the quality of the experiences can be influenced by input factors provided by managers . . . but to a considerable extent the quality of experiences depends upon choices made by recreationists and how they use the many factors of production† (Brown, 1988: 413). In other words, the satisfaction levels experienced by recreationists are recognized as being a function of a number of different variables including those brought by the recreationist him/herself which are beyond the influence of the service provider. Drawing on the consumer literature, it is too easy to assume that the outcomes of the tourist activity are solely the creation of the tourist operators/industry. However, it is perhaps more enlightening to adopt a ‘transactional perspective’ outlined in the recreation literature. Here, the tourist â€Å"actively creates the recreation(tourist) experience, through a transaction with the physical and social setting, including what the recreationist (tourist) brings to the process in terms of history, perceptions, companions, skills, equipment, identities, hopes and dreams† (Williams, 1988). With this perspective, more emphasis is placed on the behavior of the individual and their role in creating the experience. Not all the responsibility for creating high levels of satisfaction rests with the service deliverer. With this in mind, (Crompton and Love, 1995) make a distinction between quality of opportunity and quality of experience. â€Å"Quality of opportunity is defined as qualities of the attributes of a service that are under the control of a supplier. Evaluation is concerned with judgments about the performance of the leisure opportunity supplier. . . . In contrast, quality of experience involves not only the attributes provided by a supplier, but also attributes brought to the opportunity by the visitor or recreationist. . Quality of experience is a psychological outcome or emotional response. . Satisfaction is measured by how well leisure activities are perceived to fulfill the basic needs and motives that stimulated the idea to participate in the activity (Crompton and Love, 1995:12)†. When the objective is to measure satisfaction with a holiday in a particular destination, it will be important to note this distinction and ensure that both aspects are included in the assessment. We have been reasonably good at assessing tourists’ perceptions of the quality of opportunity but largely ignored the question of quality of experience. A further perspective that could be of relevance here is that of Herzberg (1966). While his work mainly focused on the workplace, his theory of motivation has relevance to the expenditure of discretionary time such as going on a holiday. Herzberg (1966) suggests that all aspects of an experience can be classified as either a motivational or a hygienic factor. Motivational factors are those that positively encourage people to do something. For example, a desire to make new friends may motivate people to go on an organized tour rather than travel alone. On the other hand, hygienic factors are those things which would not encourage one to travel, but their absence would discourage such travel. A good example is the availability of clean drinking water. Having this available is unlikely to motivate someone to travel, while its absence could cause someone to not choose a particular destination. According to Roger James Associates (1996) â€Å"the absence of motivational factors does not lead to ‘dissatisfaction’ but rather to ‘unsatisfaction’ a sense of emptiness rather than a sense of anger or disappointment. On the other hand, the absence of a hygienic factor will lead to dissatisfaction. The presence of such a factor will not lead to ‘satisfaction’ but rather to ‘satisficing’, that is, a passive (albeit benign) feeling† (Roger James Associates, 1996 : 34). If we adopt this framework it could be suggested that we have tended to focus on the hygienic factors which are represented by the measurement of how well the services (hotels, airports, travel companies, etc) are provided. These are important because without these being done well, the customer would be very dissatisfied. However, we have not also measured the motivational factors. These are akin to the experience factors how well the destination facilitates the satisfaction of personal needs. The best way of ensuring that we are providing this is to understand the client’s needs, etc and to develop product that is relevant to these. In turn, this is linked to the benefits to be derived from the experience thus creating satisfaction. The work by Arnold and Price (1993) confirms the role that needs and desires play in the consumer’s evaluation of a particular experience. They present very clear evidence that the satisfaction of participants in this recreational (or possibly tourist?) activity is related to the extent to which the experience enhances their individual cultural script and are â€Å"interpreted within the broader narrative context of the consumer’s life† (Arnould and Price, 1993). They suggest that â€Å"satisfaction with river rafting . . . does not seem to be embodied in attributes of the experience such as amounts of time spent freezing in wet clothes, uncomfortable toilet facilities, bad food or any summary index of specific attributes of the trip† (Arnould and Price, 1993). These general thoughts appear to be in line with the fundamentals of the marketing concept most commonly described as â€Å"satisfying the needs and desires of the consumer† (Keith, 1960 :38) and the whole notion of benefit segmentation which suggests that purchases are selected on the basis of the benefits derived by consumers (Haley, 1968). It is also consistent with the recent work of Spreng and his associates which emphasizes the role that desires, as opposed to expectations, plays in determining satisfaction within the disconfirmation framework (Spreng, Mackenzie et al., 1996). Proposed Path Space does not permit an exhaustive examination of the extensive literature outlining the various models used as the basis for measuring customer satisfaction and gauging the behavioral aspects (see Parasuraman, Zeithaml et al., 1994). However, a review of this literature has uncovered a model that could be developed to provide a satisfactory method of evaluating tourists’ satisfaction at the level of the destination and their motivational map. This model has been developed by Iso-Ahola and has become the basis of extensive work at the national and international level. The index provided by the Iso-Ahola model provides a cumulative evaluation of a sector’s market offering coupled with individual evaluation of a specific transaction. Called the ‘Customer Satisfaction Index/Barometer’, it has been introduced in: Sweden, Germany and the United States of America (Fornell, Johnson et al, 1996). Taiwan and New Zealand are also in the process of introducing a similar national satisfaction indicator. While much work still needs to be done, the framework provided by Iso-Ahola model provides a good starting point. It should be possible to make the necessary changes required to produce a useful index that will contribute to the on-going development of this important industry. Chapter II Literature Review It is imperative to start with a review of literature that addressed motivation in the travel and tourism industry. By adopting this approach we will be able to present a much more comprehensive and inclusive approach to understanding the theories of motivation in the travel and tourism industry; and thus, we will be able to lay the foundations of clear parameters that can help scholars and decision makers measure the satisfaction of tourists and the underlying motivational factors. This part of the paper is dedicated to reviewing the literature that currently assesses the main theories of motivation. These theories span across a wide spectrum; therefore we will tackle the various theories of travel motivation in the first part and then we will focus our discussions on Iso-Ahola’s motivational theory. The main theories of travel motivation Knowledge of peoples travel motivations and its association with destination selection plays a critical role in predicting future travel patterns. The essay talks about the various theories propounded by the theorists and analyses their practical benefits for the tourism industry. Tourist motivation can be defined as the global integrating network of biological and cultural forces which gives value and direction to travel choices, behavior and experience. (Pearce, Morrison Rutledge, 1998) as cited by Allan R. Rhodes Espinoza. According to Seaton (1997) motivation is a state of arousal of a drive or need which impels people to activity in pursuit of goals. Once the goals have been achieved the need subsides and the individual returns to the equilibrium-but only briefly because new motives arise as the last one is satisfied. Krippendorf (1987), as cited in Seaton (1997) suggests that the motivation of the individual person to travel, to look outside for what he cannot find inside have been largely created by society and shaped by everyday life. People who live in cities, for example, are motivated to travel as tourists to wilderness areas because they need to escape from an artificial, monotonous environment. (Dann Matley, 1976) as cited in Mansfeld 1992). Grays travel-motivation theory, as noted by Mansfeld (1992), gives us two motives about why people go to natural settings. The first motive is the desire to go from a known to an unknown place, called in Grays theory wanderlust. Secondly, a place which can provide the traveler with specific facilities that do not exist in his or her own place of residence, referred in Grays theory as sun lust (Mansfeld, 1992). It is a common practice to consider traveler or tourist types as potential market segments for travel and tourism marketing (Smith, 1989 as cited in Theobald, 1996).Some of the motives which determine their travel choices are recreation, pleasure, new experiences, cultural interest, shopping. Any reader of literature of tourism motivation cannot help being struck by the similarity in findings by many researchers. The adjectives and categorizations of tourists based upon motivations may differ in number, but recurrent themes emerge. For example the need to escape from everyday surroundings for the purpose of relaxation, and discovering new things, places and people are often alluded to. According to Crompton (1979), as cited in Bello Etzel (1985), the need for relaxation, exploration, social interaction and enhancement of kinship relationships act as dominant push motives in the vacation decision. Reversely, pull motives are aroused by the destination and include factors like scenic attractions, historical sites. Push factors are thought to establish the desire for travel and pull factors are thought to explain actual destination choice. Seaton (1997) suggests that the push factors include avoidance of work, cultural/social pressures at home. The pull factors include seeking leisure /play, freedom and escape. Maslow (1943) identified two motivational types: tension-reducing motives; arousal-seeking motives. According to Maslow, there are five needs forming a hierarchy, progressing from the lower to the higher needs. Maslow argued that if the lower needs [physiological {hunger, thirst, rest}, safety {security}, belonging and love {affection, giving and receiving love}] are fulfilled the individual would be motivated by needs of the next level of the hierarchy [esteem {self-esteem and esteem for others}, self-actualization {personal self-fulfillment}]. Cooper et al(2005) criticizes Maslows theory saying that why and how Maslow selected the basic five needs remain unclear, although Page(2003) feels that it has relevance in understanding how human action is understandable and predictable compared to research which argues that human behavior is essentially irrational and unpredictable. Cooper et al (2005) also questions the arrangement of the needs. Though Cooper et al (2005) criticizes much about Maslows theory, he feels that tourism industry has borrowed a lot from Maslow because he provides a convenient set of containers that can be relatively labeled. Hudman (1980) as cited in Davidson and Maitland (1997) argue that Maslows (1943) hierarchy of needs provides a useful framework for understanding psychological motivational factors in tourism. Thus, for example, although the apparent purpose of a trip may be to visit friends and relatives, the underlying psychological motivation may be a need for belonging