Motivation for domestic tourism in Tanzania

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to investigate various forms of motivation for domestic tourism in Tanzania. A structured personal interview was conducted by using questionnaires to interview 273 domestic tourists who visited Mikumi N.P and Bagamoyo Cultural Heritage Site. Systematic sampling approach was used. This study revealed that the prominent sources of tourist information were books and friends/ relatives. Day trips among tourist who visited either Bagamoyo or Mikumi National Park accounted for 20.6 percent of the total visitations. Through the application of multinomial Logistic Regression Analysis, the most significant variables of motivation for tourists to travel were found to be; motivation for physical relaxation, knowing culture of the place, escaping from daily stressful environment, opportunity for learning sports, performing sports, practing sports and to spend time with people cared most. It was further revealed that tourist socio-economic characteristics had significant effects on tourist motivational attitudes. It can be noted that there are lack of knowledge and awareness of Tanzania’s tourism products among the local communities. For instance it was found that approximately more than fifty percents of the tourists who visited Bagamoyo had no ideas of the things to see in that particular area. This calls for marketing campaigns to enhance awareness on tourism products among the local community.