Psychological Theories Of Tourism

1.2.1 Motivation

Motivation is a theoretical construct that has been used to explain behaviors, it explains the reason for people’s actions, desires, and needs. Motivation also can be defined as one’s direction to behaviour or what causes a person wants to repeat a behaviour. According to psychological theories, motivation can be conceived as a cycle in which thoughts influence behaviours, behaviours drive performance, performance affects thoughts and the cycle will keep on rotating. There are two types of motivation that exist in one’s self, which is intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is the self-desire to seek out new things and new challenges, to analyse one’s capacity, to observe and to gain knowledge. The interest

According to the World Tourism Organization (WTO), tourism is something which goes ‘beyond the common perception of tourism as being limited to holiday activity only’, as people ‘travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business, and other purposes’. Tourism can be domestic or international, and international tourism has both incoming and outgoing implications on a country’s balance of payments. Now, tourism is a major source of income for many countries and affects the economy of both the source and host countries. Tourism brings in large amounts of income into a local economy in the form of payment for goods and services needed by tourists, accounting for 30% of the world’s trade of services and 6% of overall exports of goods and services. Tourism also creates opportunities for employment in the service sector of the economy associated with

• Inbound tourism: non-residents travelling in the given country.

• Outbound tourism: residents travelling in another country.

The terms tourism and travel are used interchangeably, travel has the same definition as tourism, but it implies more purposeful journey. The terms ‘tourist’ and ‘tourism’ are often used to imply a shallow interest in the cultures or locations visited. The sociology of tourism has studied the cultural values underpinning these distinctions and their implications for class relations.

Malaysia is ranked the 11th in the world and the second in the Southeast Asia for the tourist arrivals. The government put in an effort to introduce the tourism in Malaysia in order to be less dependent on exports. As a result, the tourism sector is the third largest source of foreign exchange income and accounted for 7% of Malaysia’s economy as of 2005. The table below shows that the tourist arrivals and receipts to Malaysia by year.

Year Arrivals (million) Receipts (RM in billion)

2011 24.71