Exploration of tourist motivation and preferred activities in rural areas

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the motives that attract tourists to visit rural areas in Vojvodina Province, Northern Serbia. The authors identified the motivation factors that push tourists to rural areas, the activities that tourists prefer on the destination, and the relationship between these two constructs-motivation and activity preferences. The questionnaire was filled in by 476 rural tourists who spent at least one night in rural accommodation facilities in Vojvodina. For data analysis, the authors used the following: descriptive statistics to provide the characteristics of the sample and general information regarding the variables, correlation analysis with reliability test to identify a relationship between individual items, and canonical correlation analysis to analyze the relationship among dependent and independent variables. The results of the research indicated that the rural environment was one of the primary reasons for choosing rural areas for holiday, but the possibility for adventure or taking adventure activities was the lowest between the motivational factors. The study revealed that there are correlations between the push and pull factors, i.e., that motivations and preferred activities are interlinked.

Analysis on Tourists’ Preferences for Rural Tourism Destinations in Romania

“…The second most important factor for the Romanian respondents was the "variety of services" offered by the rural areas. What is very striking is the fact that the Romanian tourists were focused on the tourism services and not on the traditional attractions within a rural destination, like the previous studies from different countries mentioned: the landscape, farm life, architecture or the environment [6][7][8]16,27].…”

“…Motivational factors that influence the choice of a rural tourism destination were identified and analyzed in order to develop the research instrument. Motivational factors affecting tourists' decision making for visiting a rural destination include the feeling of freedom, relaxation, the desire to try something new and different, the interaction with nature and hosts, the gaining of knowledge of different ways of life, history, culture, educational and emotional experiences and adventure experiences [6][7][8].…”

“…The research method used to collect the primary data was the survey based on a questionnaire. Questionnaires represent a valuable research instrument for acquiring information on tourists' perceptions and have been used in several previous studies [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]16,27,28].…”

“…In contrast to the generic tourism where the tourists' motivations to travel are very broad, rural tourism has become relevant on the tourism market by bringing to the center of interest only one specific attraction that they rely on, such as the landscape, farm life, architecture or environment, therefore the study of the main characteristics of such visitors or tourists was needed [6]. The environment was the main motivational factor for tourists who chose to travel to the rural areas of Serbia, while the possibility for adventure activities was the least desired [7]. Other mentioned motivations included the desire for the feeling of freedom, relaxation, to try something new and different, the interaction with nature and hosts and to gain knowledge of different ways of life, history, culture, etc.…”

Possibilities of Turning Passive Rural Areas into Tourist Attractions Through Attained Service Quality

“…The quality of services is the main indicator of the achieved level of development of each form of tourist movement, and has been dealt with by many scientists, businessmen and other researchers, due to the fact that it has a great impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty, prices, business success and profitability (Klaus et al, 2013;Demirović et al, 2019). Given that there is no unique and generally accepted definition of the term quality, it can be said that quality is a measure of the usefulness of a particular product, the quality of which is being investigated (Fu et al, 2020).…”