The role of travelling distances in tourism: different planning, different motives

Abstract

The impact of travel distance on tourist travel planning and motives for travelling represents a notable research gap. This study aims to demonstrate that the impacts of tourist travel intention predictors are different, since longer distance increases the complexities of planning; also, that long-haul travelling is driven by different motives among tourists than short-haul travelling. The study is based on analysis of survey data from Lithuania. The findings showed differences in how beliefs impact tourists' intentions to travel to relatively distant and nearby cities: behavioural and normative beliefs had stronger impacts on intentions for nearby destinations, whereas control beliefs had strong impacts for distant destinations. Also, the sets of tourists' motives for long-haul destinations and for short-haul destinations had different structures and differed in the motives they included. The findings deepen our understanding of the importance of travel distance in tourism as an aspect that differentiates impacts of travel intention antecedents and generates different sets of travel motives for long-haul and short-haul travelling of tourists.