Tourism sustainability as part of travel motivations: a case of visitors to Tanzania

This study explored the importance of sustainability as part of tourists’ travel motivations for visiting Tanzania. A few studies on leisure and vacation have been conducted and incorporate tourists’ concern for sustainability as part of their motivation to travel. The overall objective of this study was to investigate sustainability as part of tourists’ travel motivations and its effect on overall satisfaction with the trip, behavioral intention and willingness to support sustainable tourism, with attention being given to Tanzania. Employing the survey strategy, data were collected from international tourists using a self-administered questionnaire and one thousand and seven (1,007) responses were obtained and analyzed. Both Factor Analysis (FA) and Multiple Regression Analysis (MRA) were employed to analyze the data. Based on the analysis, eleven travel motivational dimensions were identified, which were nature, family, friends, accomplishment, culture, warmth, fitness, peace, environ-cultural sustainability, socio- economic sustainability and ambience. The results indicate that the concern for sustainability is one important part of tourists’ motivations for visiting Tanzania. Similarly, statistical results revealed the following; firstly there is a significant relationship between travel motivational factors (nature, family, ambience, environ-cultural sustainability and socio-economic sustainability) and overall satisfaction with the trip. Secondly, travel motivational factors (nature, environ-cultural sustainability, friends and socio-economic sustainability) significantly relate to behavioural intentions. Thirdly, overall satisfaction with the trip significantly relate to behavioural intentions. Fourthly, overall satisfaction with the trip significantly relate to tourists’ willingness to support sustainable tourism. And fifth, travel motivational factors (accomplishment, warmth, family, nature and friends) significantly relate to tourists’ willingness to support sustainable tourism. It was concluded that sustainability is among tourists’ motivations for taking a vacation and engaging in leisure activities. Therefore, the findings can be used by destination managers and service providers as an input that could be helpful for improving their offerings. In addition, practitioners and policy makers may utilize the findings to improve tourism policies and regulations which support sustainability in terms of product development, pricing, promotion and distribution. Finally, the present study discovered that sustainability was one of the dimensions for measuring tourists’ travel motivations, which adds new knowledge to tourism studies. It is suggested that practices that ensure sustainability should be utilized by tourist businesses to create a unique business strategy that would lead to competitive advantage.