Social and psychological factors influencing destination preferences of domestic tourists in India

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a leisure study conducted in Indian domestic sector. Nineteen dimensions related to social, travel, destination and miscellaneous aspects were considered to identify their influence on leisure destination choices. These dimensions were administered in a questionnaire form to domestic tourists at two cities in India, Tirupati and Hyderabad. Tirupati has a distinct religious value and Hyderabad has a historical and cultural heritage character. Preliminary data analysis indicated that tourists’ decisions were generally influenced by aspects relating to safety, economics and comfort. However, factor analysis identified three significant factors for each destination. It was observed that factors ‘pre-decision’ and ‘destination-specific’ were influencing tourists’ preferences at both the destinations. In addition, factors ‘safety and comfort’ and ‘comfort and economics’ were found influencing the choices of tourists at religious destination and historical and cultural heritage destination, respectively. Statistical tests indicated that there was significant difference between the mean scores for all the identified factors at the two destinations. Therefore, implementation of a general strategy for tourism promotion will not be effective. The results of the present study can be extended to other destination values and to identify the decision-making path of domestic tourists using structural equation modelling.