Motivation is a complex subject and understanding why people travel has been something that researchers and tourism companies have struggled to
understand for years (Swarbrooke and Horner, 2007, p. 55). Going into this project, I think I was not aware of just how complex of an issue it was and the challenges that I came across on the way. When I started out, I believed strongly
in Travel Styles and personas as a way of splitting people into categories based on their motivations, but coming out of it I find that it was not as clear-cut a recipe as I imagined.
While I did find similarities between the tourists that travelled to Alta and picked particular products, the answers were more nuanced than I may have expected. First of all, there is still a lot of truth in the theory that people seek authentic experiences, though it is not necessarily only related to culture. People seek something different than what they have in their everyday lives and this contrast is one of the main reasons they make their particular choices.
(MacCannell, 1999, pp. 91-93)
While many come to see a great attraction, the northern lights, they will not say that this is what motivates them. Perhaps it is the everlasting stereotype of the attraction-seeking tourist that they refuse to identify themselves with or perhaps it is just that the reason they make their choices is much more complex?
(O’Reilly, 2005/2017, pp. 52-53)
This is some of what I found most interesting in my findings; the contrast between what people say they seek and what choices they have actually made.
While I knew northern lights tourism was big, I had no idea how much it permeates the rest of the tourism industry in Alta. Yet, the people who come to see the northern lights are not just the ones who come to spend their evening chasing auroras in a crowded bus. There are many who seek a different kind of experience and therefore choose products that can provide them with this.
The people I talked to were generally curious about other cultures. While this was not necessarily the reason they picked a particular product, it was the reason many had a range of different activities to do in Alta. They wanted to see as much of the place as possible and were all very interested to learn about the local culture whenever it came up in the conversation. This is perhaps something local companies should consider focusing more on in general. The guests that I
talked to that had had a richer cultural experience than expected were all very enthusiastic.
This is not necessarily something I would have discovered if I had not used the Travel Styles as a framework and so I think they can be very useful as a tool for the industry in understanding the complexity of tourists’ reasons to travel.
At the same time, it is important not to lean too hard on the categorisation. People did not just choose experiences based on their desire to learn about other cultures, but sometimes it could be as simple as it was in the right kind of package. Or someone else picked it for them.
While typologies and categorisations can be useful in many ways, they have to keep up with an ever-evolving world and it is hard to every fully
understand the complex reasons why people make their travel choices. One of the things that matters the most is keeping an open mind and not close the door to the idea that reality is likely more complex than expected and full of coincidences and decisions made on a whim. (McCabe, 2015, pp. 18-19)
I think the findings in my thesis have shown some of this complexity and how many things can be factored into the process of planning where to go and what to do. There is not just one thing that motivates us and it is not always our decision to visit a particular places. Different kinds of motivations filter through the decision-making process and it is often more than one thing that lands us in a certain situation.
Looking at the situation the world is in now, with Covid-19 still in full swing around the globe, we have an example of something that is likely going to change not just the way we travel, but where and why. At the moment, many borders are shut and people cannot – and will not – travel the way they did a year ago. Perhaps a new range of motivations might appear from this global crisis.
Hopefully the tourism industry will be able to pull through and evolve.
If I had more time, this is something I would explore further. I would want to look at the layers of motivation that drives people’s decisions and it would be especially interesting to understand travelling in the age of a global pandemic.
What will motivate Norwegians to travel north in their own countries during the darkest time of the year? Would it be different from the international tourists? All of this would be interesting to look into.