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Top1. Introduction
The tourism industry is considered one of the largest and fastest growing industries in the world (Ninemeier & Perdue, 2005; Cooper & Hall, 2008). As a worldwide occurrence it forms a very important part of the service sector strongly influencing the economy (Ninemeier & Perdue, 2008; Kay, 2003; Koc, 2004). For the tourism industry to maintain or improve its current status it is dependent on tourists’ travel decisions which are reflected in travel behaviour. Papatheodorou (2006) stated that destination choice has always been an important aspect in tourism literature. These factors constitute of culture, travel motivations, finances and previous experiences, to name a few (Ankomah, Crompton & Baker, 1996). Cooper and Hall (2008) state that tourism is subject to a collection of influences and factors that determine its relative distribution. Travel motivations forms an integral part of travel behaviour and has been widely researched and applied in tourism marketing strategies. The need to see the unseen and know the unknown drives people to travel to new places and motivates them to visit new destinations (Venkatesh, 2006).
It is therefore important for tourism products such as resorts to understand the travel behaviour and more specific the travel motivations of tourists, as it may assist in product development, improved marketing strategies, enhanced service delivery approaches and the creation of a competitive advantage. Therefore, travel behaviour plays an important role in tourism as concept, industry and economy, and demands investigation. Tourists are subject to certain behaviour before, during and after travelling. This is conceptualized as travel behaviour. This behaviour is the direct result of interaction between certain personal and environmental variables on a continuous basis. Notice is given to the influence of people and situations on both sides and the reaction according to this influence. Travel behaviour can therefore be defined as the way tourists behave according to their attitudes towards a certain product and their response by making use of the product (March & Woodside, 2005; George, 2004).
March and Woodside (2005:116) state that specific decisions embraces one or more of the behavioural intensions based on the need to behave in a certain way according to highly defined situations. In order to predict travel behaviour it is important to understand how individual characteristics of a person interact with the characteristics of the situation, therefore understanding the positive and negative evaluative factors influencing destination choices of the tourists (March & Woodside, 2005; Laws, 1995; Holloway, 2004).