Motherhood Desire as a Stimulant for Fertility Tourism Intention

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between participants’ motherhood desire and travel intention and behaviour, through the mediating role of attitude, subjective norm and perceived behaviour control. The study adopted a questionnaire among a sample representative of females with fertility complications in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in Egypt. In total, 138 questionnaires were gathered and tested using a partial least square structural equation modelling using WarpPLS 7.0. The findings support the proposed model and show that motherhood desire has a positive influence on attitude, subjective norm and perceived behaviour control. Also, we found that the positive effect of TPB dimensions on actual behaviour is subject to females’ intention to visit Egypt for fertility tourism. Besides, the study revealed that attitude partially mediates the link between motherhood, tourists’ revisit intention and tourists’ actual behaviour. This suggests that the positive effect of motherhood desire on tourist revisit intention and actual behaviour is subject to attitude. Drawing on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), we develop an integrative model exploring the relationship between three distinct TPB dimensions and their influence on travel behaviour for childbearing. Such findings hold important implications both for the research community and medical tourism practitioners.