Question

Has it been made redundant and superseded by specific social psychology studies of tourism, or is it still the basis for all analyses of tourist motivation?

Answer 1

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs suggests that people are motivated to fulfill basic needs before moving on to other.

Level 1: Physiological needs: Every tourism destination must meet two basic needs – physiological needs and safety. In tourism, the physiological needs are connected to gastronomy and accommodation. In rural tourism, the supply side is usually concentrated on food and customs adherent to the particular region or village. It can be represented by products such as fruit, vegetables, home-made bread, cakes, mushroom specialties, herbal tea, milk, potatoes, or organic bio-products with distinctive traits in Czech cuisine, habits and traditions.

Level 2: Safety needs – this is a reflection of location’s character, social life, risk of undesired pathological characters. Tourists´ safety, calm and peace are the main requirements of tourist in rural areas. Calm and peace are prerequisites on physical and mental nursing. Entrepreneurs in rural tourism do not provide just comfortable accommodation or tasteful food. Their business is based on friendly atmosphere, safety, serenity, and family peace, traditions and customs of their region, on responsible relation to natural and human surrounding.

Level 3 and 4: Social needs – such as being part of a particular group. These are needs of esteem connected with self-esteem or with esteem of others. In case of rural tourism personality, hospitality, uniqueness and hosts´ courtesy are required. Courage and passion, but also responsibility, devotion and discretion belong to any kind of business. For a businessman´s personality in rural tourism, typical features include diligence, accuracy, dedication, creativity, persistence, but also managerial and organizing skills, ability to communicate with and treat people.

Level 5 and 6: Cognitive and aesthetic needs: Cognitive needs are described such as knowledge and understanding local life-style, heritage and traditions, or aesthetic needs, such as appreciation and search for beauty, balance and form.

Level 7: Self actualization needs (or self realization needs) are on the top of the Maslow’s hierarchy. These refer to the need for personal cultivation, needs realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences. In terms of rural tourism, the level of self realization is dependent on a particular rural locality, structure and quality of tourism services. No doubt these needs can also have sustainable features of tourism.

In general, psychology and psychology research should have its place in tourism practice. But in case of rural tourism, most of them are small or medium size businesses (mostly small farms or family businesses). Their management, however, is focused on running their daily business (in changing business environment and legislation), rather than on the application psychology in practice. Despite of huge benefits of psychological and sociological models in tourism as general, in rural tourism practice it often fail. This is primarily due to the following reasons: analyses are based on a population mean, respondents are viewed as unique individuals, selected by researches, there are differences between thoughts and reality, i.e. what individuals dream of and what they would do in real life (desired demand v. realized demand), motivation of tourists often conflict with other barriers (economical, stress, lack of free time, etc.). In spite of these shortcomings it´s important to know the motives of tourists because they drive for tourist behavior. Furthermore, motivation factors may serve for segmenting of the tourists.