Dubai Shopping Festival: tourists’ nationality and travel motives

Abstract

Purpose – Tourists differ in their needs, motives and activities but they can be described based on demographic characteristics, nationality being one of them. The purpose of this paper is to compare the different nationalities travelling to Dubai during the Dubai Shopping Festival on their travel motives. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 604 English-speaking tourists, using the mall intercept technique, during the XVIII edition of the shopping festival from January-February 2013. Findings – The study found that a total of 23 nationalities differed on their travel motives. Research limitations/implications – Only English-speaking tourists were included in the study. Practical implications – Tourists from different nationalities differ on their travel motives .The findings of this study will help the Destination Marketing Organisation in understanding the travel motives of the tourists which would help in developing products and market-specific destination promotion. Originality/value – Shopping festivals are being promoted by various destinations as a tourism product. Yet there is a lack of research literature on this topic. This empirical study on travel motives of international tourists visiting a shopping festival will be a worthy addition to the literature.