Title: Evolutionary approach to tourist motives

Authors: İlker Gül

Addresses: School of Applied Disciplines, Gastronomy and Culinary Arts, Bahçeşehir University, İstanbul, 34353, Turkey

Abstract: The objective of this study is to determine the source of tourism motives and how it persists. Why do tens of millions of people spend their savings to travel somewhere they have never been before? Many tourism researchers think the answer lies in touristic motivations. Tourism is a human behaviour, and psychology and the evolutionary sciences are looking for reasons for this human behaviour with the support of history and anthropology. This article examines evolutionary motives and tourism motives to understand their possible relationship. In addition, a framework is presented in order to state the ultimate reason for tourism - and the role of tourist motives and behaviour - that seems to be a tool for the evolutionary process.

Keywords: evolution; tourism motives; tourism behaviour; touristic motives; evolutionary tourism.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTA.2021.122352

International Journal of Tourism Anthropology, 2021 Vol.8 No.3, pp.213 - 227

Received: 08 Aug 2020
Accepted: 21 Jun 2021
Published online: 21 Apr 2022 *

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