Abstract
Tourism explores new frontiers by traveling around unknown geographical and technological territories that bring new tourism opportunities and hazards to satisfy visitors’ needs and sustainability and responsibility in destinations. This study introduces a composite model for measuring travel motivation and the impact of social media on travel behavior and applies it to the town of Longyearbyen in the High Arctic. Both aspects were surveyed through qualitative semi-structured visitor interviews. While the motivation to visit Longyearbyen depended on travelers’ needs, their travel experiences, and push and pull motivational factors, respondents gave examples of how social media positively or negatively affected different elements of their motivation and visitation. The study indicates the opportunities and hazards analyzed from social media as well as future research directions needed in the pursuit of a more responsible tourism approach while exploring new technological and geographical frontiers.
Highlights
Despite climate change, temperature increases, and travelers’ awareness of the negative impacts of pollution, mainstream tourism remains at beach and urban tourism destinations
This paper aims to analyze the travel motivation behind visiting Longyearbyen, the High Arctic, by proposing a relevant model from which to analyze travel motivation elements alongside the impact of social media and the opportunities and hazards
The novelty lies in the combination of diverse elements of travel motivation and social media impacts into a single research design, as well as in the proposed model application to the High Arctic which is an underexplored research field
Summary
Temperature increases, and travelers’ awareness of the negative impacts of pollution, mainstream tourism remains at beach and urban tourism destinations. Previous studies on the motivations behind visiting a destination have separately focused on Maslow’s [6] hierarchy of human needs, Pearce’s [7] travel career ladder theory, and Crompton’s [8] push and pull motivation factors. These theories are connected, when combined, they offer a comprehensive list of motivational elements that become relevant for the study of travel behavior. Upon recognizing its massive influence on travel decisions, social media has become an undeniable factor in the management of travel behavior and the influence behind visiting a destination
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