The purpose of this essay is to present the main theories of travel motivation and typologies of tourist behaviour which

are discussed in the academic literature and to illustrate their usefulness for tourism practitioners who are involved in marketing and planning tourism. What tourists do, and why they do it has fascinated a lot of people. What tourists think, how they feel and what influences their thoughts and feelings, is especially fascinating to tourists themselves, to the people who manage their behaviour and to analysts studying contemporary life.(Pearce, 2005) In order to have a better understanding of the typologies presented below a few clarifications regarding the terminology must be made. The term tourist, although dates back two centuries, it had problems in being defined. Today, the World Tourism Organization is referring in their definition as tourist being people who are travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited.( Uherek, 2010) Consumer will also be used within this paper, and it refers to people in both the public and private sector who are involved in the purchasing and experiencing of products (Pearce, 2005). The word customer is not very used in public setting, but it is highly used in the private sector, having more of a business focus. Another term used in professional circumstances is client.It is apparent that the term client connotes a serious professional service and may be used to upgrade the status of an industry sector (Pearce, 2005). As the question to whom does tourist behaviour matter? appears one of the first answers that come out is: the tourist, because they need to understand their experiences and because they want to know how to maximize each experience. Another answer is that it matters to those who take part in the decision making process regarding tourists, and this means the public decision-

makers(who are interested in managing impacts and in helping the community to benefit), marketers in joint public-private cooperative and also business decision makers (who are interested particularly in marketing, sales, management and profitability). After establishing to whom it is important the tourists behaviour it is time to focus on some academic typologies of tourists. Cohen was the first sociologist to propose a theory of different types of tourists. So in 1972, he identified the organized mass tourist, the individual mass tourist, the explorer and the drifter. The organized mass tourist is the tourist with little decision to make. He travels in a big group, stays in hotels that recreate the home environment, has a inflexible predetermined with the host community. The individual mass tourist are similar to the organized mass tourist because their holiday or trip is also being arranged or booked through an operator. The difference is that they buy a looser package that allows them freedom (for example, a fly-drive holiday). They are most likely to look for the occasional novel experience, but still tend to stay on the predetermined track and rely on the established tourism system. The explorer is the type of tourist that makes his/her own travel arrangements and tries to avoid the beaten track by meeting the local people, eating in local restaurants and so on. Even if they set out to meet local people they will expect a certain level of comfort and security. And finally, the drifter situated at the opposite extreme form the organized mass tourist. The drifter has no fixed itinerary and tries to become accepted by the local community. As far as possible, drifters shun all contact with the formal tourism industry (Swarbrooke & Horner, 2007). Smith suggested in 1989 a similar typology to Cohens, based upon tourists behaviour but also linked to the numbers with implications about their impacts on the host environment (Sharpley, 1994). itinerary, and in general doesnt stray far from the hotel, avoiding at all stages any possible contact

So the seven types of tourists he identified are: the explorers, the elite tourists, the off-beat tourists, the unusual tourists, the incipient mass tourists, the mass tourists and the charter tourists. There are very limited numbers of explorers, and when they travel they resemble more to anthropologists than tourists. They also fully accept local lifestyles and culture. The elite tourists are experienced frequent travelers who like expensive tailor-made tours (Swarbrooke & Horner, 2007). They take part in unusual activities and fully adapt to the locals lifestyle. The off-beat tourists, similar to Cohens explorer, try to avoid tourists and adapt well to local rules, using local services. The unusual tourists are those tourists who break away from an organized tour in order to experience the local culture. The incipient mass tourists travel to established destinations where tourism is not yet totally dominant and will tend to seek out Western style amenities. Mass tourists expect the same things they are used to at home. The charter tourists arrive in massive numbers and most of the times they have little interest in the destination itself, as long as they receive the entertainment and standard of food and accommodation they expect. In 1979, Cohen revised his earlier work and suggested a five group classification of tourists, based on the type of experience they were seeking: the recreational tourist, the diversionary tourist, the experiential tourist, the experimental tourist and the existential tourist. The recreational tourist is the tourist who seeks recreational experiences and has no interest in the society and culture where he/she is spending this time. The diversionary tourist is the tourist who seeks ways of forgetting their everyday life at home (Swarbrooke & Horner, 2007).

The experiential tourist is the modern individual who looks for authentic experiences outside of his home life, but doesnt identify with the alternative cultures and societies nor rejects his own society. The experimental tourist wants to be in contact with the local population and considers the authenticity of the experience to be essential. The existential tourist, the opposite extreme to the recreational tourist, becomes fully immersed in the local, foreign culture and society, finding meaning and belonging in the new chosen centre. (Sharpley, 1994) After conducting a survey of 2000 householders in 1979 Perreault, Dorden and Dorden came up with a five group classification of tourists: the budget travelers(who even if they have medium incomes opt for low-cost vacations), the adventurous tourist (who show interest for adventures holidays), the homebody tourists (cautious people who dont discuss their vacation with other people and spend little time planning it), vacationers(people who spend lots of time thinking about their vacation and have lower paid jobs) and moderates(they travel a lot but are not interested in weekend breaks or sports). After knowing what types of tourists exist it is important to understand the motivation of traveling because motivation represents the how, why, when and where of tourism (Sharpley, 1994). The importance of motivation in tourism is quite obvious. It acts as a trigger that sets off all the events in travel (Parrinello, 1993 cited in Sharpley, 1994) . Motivating factors in tourism can be split in two groups: pull factors and push factors. If all the knowledge, information, images and perceptions of a particular holiday or destination are combined they add up to the overall attraction, or pull, of that holiday choice (Sharpley, 1994). Within the decision making process these are described as destination specific attributes (Goodall, 1991:59 cited by Sharpley, 1994).

The factors that influence, or push, the individual into choosing a particular type of holiday, or a holiday opposed to another kind of product are described as person specific motivations. One of the best known theories of motivation is Maslows hierarchy of needs. He believes that individuals have a number of needs which compose a five level hierarchy: physiological needs (hunger, thirst, rest, etc.), safety needs (freedom from threat, a secure and predictable environment), love needs (friendship, affection, etc), esteem needs (self respect, reputation, prestige, etc.) and need for self-actualization (self-fulfillment). Maslow argued that if none of the needs in the hierarchy was satisfied, then the lowest needs, the physiological ones, would dominate behaviour. If these are satisfied, however, they would no longer motivate, and the individual would be motivated by the next level in the hierarchy. (Ross, 1994)