Why People Travel (4) ; The push and pull factors
Could I ask you to try a practical scenario on your close associates? Could you just pick one fine moment, pack your travelling bag and announce you are trekking to, say, Sunyani (actually mention a place in Ghana that has no connection with your family or business activities).
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Say you are heading there to spend a few days to relax and discover the place. Add that you would be staying in a hotel. Explain that while there, you may like to try out a few local hobbies, activities, etc.
Hellooo! I am sure within minutes people who ‘love’ you will start calling others who ‘care’ to check whether you are all right. If you insist, despite the pressure to ‘get real,’ your pastor may receive a phone call to command the ‘wayward’ demon inside you to die!
And when your spouse gets suspicious and adds this latest attempted ‘escapade’ to your growing list of incompatible ‘sins’ and decides to notify your head of family, there is one thing I ask you not to do. Do not mention that the idea came from Kofi Akpabli. I beg ooo!
The above set up tells of how we relate to the phenomenon of leisure travel. It is hardly part of us. When we do, the purpose is layered with other more ‘acceptable’ reasons.
The scenario I have set up above also tells us that once in a while, people have legitimate motives for taking a break from their normal social circles.
On that note, we continue with our series on the motivations for tourism travel. As we said earlier, understanding why the tourist would save money, plan and actually hit the road helps stakeholders to serve the tourist better while gaining much more from him.
I proceed to use an analogy which pertains to the hospitality sector. When a drinking bar is aware that folks come there not only to drink but to hold serious discussions, they would be careful about their choice of songs as well as the volume. But if they think everybody comes for fun, then the music is going to be loud and raucous like nobody’s business.
There are a couple of ways of identifying the reasons that push leisure travel. Some analysts use the internal and external factors.
Others also analyse travel motivations by using the kinds of tourism products that the tourists is going after. Because, on this platform, we are examining the totality of the travellers’ experience as well as the motivations underpinning it is prudent to look at why people travel through the ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors.
In other words, what factors will force a man or woman to leave home for the sake of a holiday or an excursion? Conversely, what factors would make someone find a destination so appealing that he is drawn to visit against all odds?
Some of these factors are related to the physical, others are psychological, while a few are even spiritual.
When one thinks of Abraham Marlow’s hierarchy of needs, one could juxtapose the motivations to travel within. For instance, some people invest in a holiday for very private reasons just for prestige.
In Italy, it is said that during the holiday season, certain folks lock up and leave home just to go and hide somewhere cheap.
After a few days, they come back home to create the impression that they had returned from an exotic vacation. This proves how compulsive the holiday culture is in that society.
Push factors in travel studies are considered as those motivations which include escape from routine everyday life, relaxation, exploration, social interaction, relationship enhancement and prestige.
Change: For many tourists, the glory of travel is change, change from our routines, change from the irritations of weather, work and culture. Such travellers swap city for country, affluence for simplicity, fast-living for slow-living (or vice versa), sloth for action and security for risk.
Seeing new places, trying new things (e.g. foods, activities, languages), meeting new people — it is all about change.
Simply by changing our surroundings alone, we are able to change our mindset and free ourselves from the stresses and strains of everyday life.
An opportunity to consume
Modern society is preoccupied with consumption. We consume not simply to survive, but to achieve happiness, to build our status and self-perception.
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Travel is not immune from this insatiable consumerism. When we travel, we consume cultures, experiences and vistas like brands.
So travel makes a commodity of local culture. Everything comes with a price, a visit to the palace - GH¢12; mountain trek - GH¢35; traditional dance performance - GH¢8; sense of self-worth - priceless.
We are pushed to buy these things for the same reason we buy any other product: to look better, feel better or else appear better.
TO BE CONTINUED
The writer is a CNN Award-winning journalist and author of ‘Romancing Ghanaland the Beauty of Ten Regions’ & ‘Harmattan a Cultural Profile of Northern Ghana.’ For copies of books please contact 0202496880 Email: [email protected]
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