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The relationship between the 'push' and 'pull' factors of a touristdestination: the role of nationality - an analytical qualitative researchapproachGirish Prayaga; Chris Ryanb

a Department of Tourism, CERAM Business School, Nice, France b Department of Tourism andHospitality Management, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

First published on: 06 April 2010

To cite this Article Prayag, Girish and Ryan, Chris(2011) 'The relationship between the 'push' and 'pull' factors of a touristdestination: the role of nationality - an analytical qualitative research approach', Current Issues in Tourism, 14: 2, 121 —143, First published on: 06 April 2010 (iFirst)To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/13683501003623802URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13683501003623802

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The relationship between the ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors of a touristdestination: the role of nationality – an analytical qualitativeresearch approach

Girish Prayaga and Chris Ryanb�

aDepartment of Tourism, CERAM Business School, Nice, France; bDepartment of Tourism andHospitality Management, University of Waikato, Gate 7 Hillcrest Road, Hamilton 3240,New Zealand

(Received 18 October 2009; final version received 12 January 2010)

Using qualitative research techniques, this paper explores the relationship between the‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors of a destination and the influence of nationality on thesefactors. These relationships were explored for a sample of 103 international touriststo Mauritius. The data were analysed by using (a) thematic analysis and (b) ananalysis using the text analysis programme, CatPac. The results indicatedrelationships between specific motives, cognitive and affective images and it was alsofound that nationality has a strong influence on these variables. Different motives forvisiting Mauritius were found to exist between different national groupings.Implications for use of thematic and content analysis, management of destination,marketing and tourist experiences are provided.

Keywords: push factors; pull factors; destination image; place attachment; nationality;thematic analysis; content analysis; CatPac

Introduction

The objectives of this paper are three-fold. First, it attempts to understand the underlyingpush factors that determine international tourists’ choice of Mauritius as a holiday destina-tion. Second, it identifies the pull attributes of the destination using images as surrogates,and identifies visitors’ feelings towards the place. Third, it seeks an enhanced understandingof the relationship between push and pull factors through an initial application of thematicanalysis and subsequently a content analysis using the CatPac software, and the interveningrole of nationality in shaping this relationship. Consequently, the paper initially outlines thepush and pull framework and the role of destination image as a pull attribute that shapesvisitors’ perceptions of place. This is then followed by a discussion of the interveningrole of nationality in these relationships. The nature of the research, the place, methods,sample and data collection are then introduced as well as the methods of analysis.Finally, the implications of the findings are discussed with reference to both Mauritiusand the wider literature.

ISSN 1368-3500 print/ISSN 1747-7603 online

# 2011 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/13683501003623802

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�Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Current Issues in TourismVol. 14, No. 2, March 2011, 121–143

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The push and pull framework

Early discussions of motivations related to visitors’ choice of a holiday destinationsuggested that these motives can be classified into ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors (Crompton,1979; Dann, 1977; Epperson, 1983; McIntosh & Goeldner, 1990). The ‘push’ factors orig-inate from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Mayo & Jarvis, 1981) and have been described asmotivational factors or needs that arise due to a state of disequilibrium or tension in themotivational system (Dann, 1977; Iso-Ahola, 1982; Kim, Lee, & Klenosky, 2003). Forexample, Gray (1970) in the very first classification of pleasure travellers, defined two var-ieties of tourists namely, the wanderlust (push) and sunlust (pull). The former emphasisesdestination cultures, people and landscape while the latter prefers destination amenities.Dann (1977) suggests that motivational factors can be classified as ‘anomie’ and ‘ego-enhancement’. Anomie refers to the desire to transcend the feeling of isolation inherentin everyday life and to simply ‘get away from it all’ while ego-enhancement derivedfrom the need for recognition and is obtained through the status conferred by travel(Fodness, 1994). Crompton (1979) on the other hand, identified seven socio-psychologicaland two ‘alternate cultural’ motives guiding visitors’ choice of a holiday destination andthese were, escape from a perceived mundane environment, exploration and evaluationof self, relaxation, prestige, regression, enhancement of kinship relationships, facilitationof social interaction, novelty, and education. Iso-Ahola (1982) confirmed that escape andseeking were two primary motives associated with pleasure travellers. More recently, inthe context of national parks, Kim et al. (2003) identified four broad domains of pushfactors namely, family togetherness and study, appreciating natural resources and health,escaping from everyday routine, and adventure and building friendship. Thus, existingstudies suggest common push factors such as escape, novelty, social interaction, andprestige. These tend to explain why tourists choose a place over another, what type ofexperiences they seek and the type of activities they want (Ryan, 1991).

Pull factors on the other hand have been described as those factors influencing when,where, and how people travel (Mill & Morrison, 1985) and are related to the features, attrac-tions, or attributes of the destination itself (Klenosky, 2002). As suggested in image studies,attributes are many and differ from one destination to another (Gallarza, Saura, & Garcia,2002; Kozak, 2002). Consequently, pull factors have been a popular subject for research inthe tourism literature. Existing studies confirm factors such as ‘social opportunities andattractions’, ‘natural and cultural attractions’, ‘physical amenities and facilities’, and ‘night-life and ambiance’ as important for destination choice (Fakeye & Crompton, 1991; Hu &Ritchie, 1993; Kim et al., 2003). Destination choice therefore emanates from tourists’assessments of destination attributes and their perceived utility values (Kim et al., 2003).However, Klenosky (2002) suggests that pull factors such as ‘beaches’ or ‘friendly resi-dents’ may derive their importance or meaning from very different sources, therebysuggesting that the motives associated with pull factors may be different for each visitor.This issue will be discussed in more depth later.

Given the complexity of the motivation construct, it is not surprising that push and pullfactors have been researched either as separate (Dann, 1977; Fodness, 1994; Ryan &Glendon, 1998) or related constructs (Baloglu & Uysal, 1996; Crompton, 1979; Kimet al., 2003; Klenosky, 2002; Kozak, 2002). However, ‘analytically and often both logicallyand temporally, push factors precede pull factors’ (Dann, 1977, p. 186). Of the studies thatconsider this inter-relationship, none have utilised an approach in data analysis that involvesthematic analysis initially, and thereafter, content analysis using the neural network soft-ware, CatPac. This is where this study attempts to contribute to the broader literature by

122 G. Prayag and C. Ryan


showing how this method of data analysis improves the credibility of findings derived fromqualitative data but also ‘quantifies’ to some extent the findings, thereby providing analternative way of measuring the relationship between push and pull factors.

Destination images as pull factors

It is generally accepted that pull factors are measured via lists of destination attributes thatrepresent place perceptions. As a result, destination image measurement has been thedominant way of assessing pull attributes. Image research shows that image is a multipleas well as a gestalt construct, and both possess static and dynamic elements in their struc-ture (Gallarza et al., 2002; Ryan & Gu, 2007; Tasci & Gartner, 2007; Tasci, Gartner, &Cavusgil, 2007). This structure comprises three components, namely cognitive, affective,and conative (Gartner, 1993; Pike & Ryan, 2004; Tasci & Gartner, 2007). The cognitivecomponent refers to an individual’s own knowledge and belief about a destination, affec-tive appraisals refer to the individual’s feelings towards a destination, while the conativerefers to intended behaviour as a result of the previous components (Beerli & Martin,2004; Pike & Ryan, 2004). Therefore, evaluations of pull attributes by visitors inevitablycomprise internal assessment of these three components as well as holistic impressions ofplace.

Of importance for this study is the relativistic nature of the construct, which indicatesthat images are subjective, temporally and culturally specific (Morgan & Pritchard,1998). It is also a highly inter-subjective construct, which implies that images are culturaltexts that invite a multitude of readings and interpretations by visitors (Squire, 1998). Thisview of images as social constructions is an emerging area of research that specificallyemploys qualitative approaches (Espelt & Benito, 2005; Young, 1999). This researchstrand suggests the idea of the possible simultaneous and comparative existence of situa-tional destination images and visitor self-perceptions, that is, images of a place can beused to influence potential travellers by relating them to the motives and alternativeselves that travellers want to enact at the destination. This approach thereby supportsGallarza et al. (2002) conceptualisation of destination image of any one place beingmultiple and appealing to different types of tourists. Fulfilment of these motives and thealignment of these images with the visitor’s self concept may not only explain choiceand repeat visitation (Beerli, Meneses, & Gil, 2007) but also feelings of emotional attach-ment to a place. Quantitative studies (e.g. Chen & Tsai, 2007; Lin, Morais, Kerstetter, &Hou, 2007; Martin & del Bosque, 2008) have shown further that motives, images, andplace attachment are significant predictors of future behaviour.

This notion of place attachment remains comparatively under-explored in the tourismliterature (Gu & Ryan, 2008) while its application in the recreation and leisure fieldsshows that attachment levels may be influenced by certain motives and destination attrac-tiveness (Hartig, Mang, & Evans, 1991; Hou, Lin, & Morais, 2005). In essence, placeattachment refers to a ‘person–place bond that evolves from specifiable conditions ofplace and characteristics of people’ (Shumaker & Taylor, 1983, p. 221). It is the extentto which a tourist values or identifies with the destination (Moore & Scott, 2003). Placeattachment generally develops among repeat tourists as satisfactory experiences at eachvisit reinforce tourists’ feelings about a place that ultimately develops into loyalty(Alexandris, 2006; George & George, 2004). The social relationships developed withpeople of a place can also generate place attachment (George & George, 2004), althoughequally it can create loyalty to an activity as much as to a place. Hence, identifying thefactors that generate place attachment can improve our understanding of the importance

Current Issues in Tourism 123


of images and motives in any explanation of repeat visitation, thereby enhancing our under-standing of the relationship between push and pull factors.

Arguably past destination choice and image studies have been predisposed to a positi-vist paradigm (Decrop, 1999; Echtner & Ritchie, 1991; Jenkins, 1999) that fails to under-stand tourists’ emotional attachment to places. The few interpretive studies (Espelt &Benito, 2005; Iwashita, 2003; Young, 1999) that exist suggest that destination image isboth a subjective and social construction based on a ‘collective imagination’. This interpret-ation of destination images is based on the grounds that reality is not objective, single, anddivisible but socially constructed, multiple, holistic, and contextual (Ozanne & Hudson,1989). Consequently, destination image is produced and portrayed to create a ‘sense’ ofplace by influencing motivations and preferences of different social groupings aboutplaces to visit and to help structure the effect of such visits upon host populations andthe fashionability of different places and sites. Indeed, even ‘natural’ places are physicallyre-constituted to provide an experience consistent with a pre-conceived gaze as illustratedby Ryan, Hughes, and Chirgwin (2000) in their account of constructed eco-tourism at FoggDam in Australia’s Northern Territory. This idea of tourist destinations as a social construc-tion is not new (Saarinen, 2004), but understanding the cultural context of image creationand how these images are consumed through ‘cultural filters’ has been described as an areaof neglect (Tasci & Gartner, 2007; Young, 1999).

Motives, images, and nationality

It has been argued that images are the currency of cultures, reflecting and thereby reinforcingparticular shared meanings, beliefs, and value systems. Therefore, understanding the culturalconstruction of these images based on tourists’ characteristics may aid understanding howvisitors come to evaluate their holiday experiences. For example, constructs like race andgender shape the way that tourist settings may be created, experienced and interpretedover space and time by visitors (Kinnaird & Hall, 1994; Tasci & Gartner, 2007). In destinationimage research, nationality tends to be a common variable used in understanding differencesin place perceptions (Beerli & Martin, 2004; Ryan & Cave, 2005), and may be used as a proxyrepresenting the different cultures of different places in which visitors reside. It has beendescribed as a strong cultural filter that may determine any personal prioritisation ofimages affecting destination choice. Nationality seems to influence the structure of destina-tion image, in particular, affective and cognitive components, and hence pull attributes(Beerli & Martin, 2004; Calatone, di Benedetto, Hakam, & Bojanic, 1989; Chen & Kerstetter,1999; Gartner, 1993; Kozak, Bigne, Gonzalez, & Andreu, 2004).

As far as motivations are concerned, nationality seems to have a similar effect. Forexample, Kozak (2002) in his assessment of motivations influencing British and Germanvisitors’ choice of Mallorca and Turkey as holiday destinations found significant differ-ences of an attribution of importance to motives between these two cultural groups.Pearce (1991), Jang and Cai (2002) as well as Andreu, Kozak, Avci, and Cifter (2005)have found similar differences in travel motivations, but Beerli and Martin (2004) extendedthese by demonstrating that nationality particularly influences motives and affectiveimages. Others such as Tapachai and Waryszak (2000) have documented strong linkagesbetween motives and images. Therefore, it is suggested that motivations and images of adestination can be perceived differently by visitors of different nationalities.

In image research, Tapachai and Waryszak (2000) confirm that not only has there beenlittle use of open ended, unstructured, conversational, and textual material used in datacollection and analysis but also a knowledge gap remains in terms of understanding the



meanings of those images and how they relate to motivations. As a result, a qualitativestudy was designed to capture textual material derived from conversations with inter-national visitors to the island of Mauritius. More about the process of choosing thesample is provided later, but next, a description of the research site is provided.

The research site

Mauritius, located off the eastern coast of Africa, was chosen as the research site because itis a well-established tourist destination for European holidaymakers and a competitiveplayer in the sub-Saharan African region. It has emerged as one of the best performingtourist destinations over the last 10 years and in the year 2006, a reported 788,276 inter-national tourists visited the place (Ministry of Tourism, Leisure and External Communi-cation, 2007). The island attracts a significant number of repeat tourists (33% based onofficial statistics for 2006). France, UK, and neighbouring Reunion Island remain thetraditional and main generating markets for the mostly packaged holidays (which areresort based) on offer to these tourists. The place is sold primarily as a ‘sun, sand, andsea’ (3S) destination but there is growing emphasis by the local authorities to market theplace as a honeymoon and/or family-oriented destination. Likewise, non-traditionalmarkets such as India, Eastern Europe, China, and Russia are becoming importantsource markets. The island is positioned in the luxury segment through its emphasis onfour and five star-rated resort complexes. The strong historical and economic ties withcountries such as India, France, and South Africa provide substantial visitor numbers forbusiness and VFR purposes. The demographic profile of tourists indicates that they areolder, of a higher income group, are married and have children. Hence, this research siteprovided a sample of diverse tourists with potentially different motives for visitation.

Sample design and data collection

The qualitative study involved semi-structured interviews as the method of data collection.The use of such interviews relies on the ability of the tourist to articulate and recall thesalient dimensions of their encounters and experiences during their visit (McIntosh,1998). Meaning is attached to actions retrospectively and this process enables us to under-stand how knowledge is constantly being reframed, reconstructed and reinterpreted (Ryan,2002). At the root of it is an interest in understanding the experience of other people and themeanings they create from the experience (Jennings, 2001). The process requires an inter-active and co-operative relationship between the investigator and the object of investigation(Decrop, 2004). The role of the researcher is therefore to enable the holidaymaker to recon-struct his or her experiences. Data are collected from an insider as opposed to an outsider’sperspective (Jennings, 2001). These interviews were conducted at the international airportin Mauritius before the departure of visitors as the venue provided a sampling frame wherevisitors’ experiences were ‘complete’. This was important in order to capture the essence ofthe relationship between motivation factors and place perceptions. The interviews lasted onaverage 30 min and were limited to two broad questions (‘what made you choose Mauritiusfor holidays?’ and ‘how do you feel about the place?’), and derived from previous studies(Echtner & Ritchie, 1991; Prebensen, 2007; Ryan, 2000; Ryan & Cave, 2005; Young,1999). These interviews were tape recorded but written notes were also taken in short-hand form, and fleshed out as soon as possible after the interview. In most cases, thisprocess was undertaken on the same day as the interview was completed so that the datawere still fresh in the interviewer’s mind. Interviews were conducted in English and



French by the first researcher and with back translation of the notes completed subsequentlyby an independent academic proficient in both languages to verify the validity of the orig-inal translation.

The sample size was chosen based on the personal construct theory. This theoryrevolves around how the individual sees reality and constructs his or her social world(Andereck, Bricker, Kerstetter, & Nickerson, 2006). It assumes that tourist experiencesare essentially individualistic, but it is possible to capture the complexity and inter-linkagesof experiences by discerning consensual realities that embrace these dimensions (Ryan &Cave, 2005). Consequently, ‘in any series of interviews, a researcher will find repetitionof common ideas, and this is particularly true when the questioning comprises acommon structure’ (Ryan & Cave, 2005, p. 145). Questioning ceases when saturation ofrevealed themes emerges. Therefore, a convenience sample of 103 tourists (20 from UK,22 from South Africa, 20 from India, 20 from France, and 21 from Germany) was selectedgiven that such a sample would offer a broad range of nationalities. These nationalities werechosen because they represented the main generating markets for Mauritius and representeda combination of traditional and non-traditional markets for the destination, thereby allow-ing similarities and differences in motives and images to be discerned.

Data analysis

Of particular importance in qualitative data analysis is establishing credibility of interpret-ation, and this can be achieved by various forms of data and method triangulation (Jennings,2001). In this study, two stages of data analysis were undertaken and this process allowed thecredibility of findings to be enhanced and provides potentially an alternative measurementapproach for researching relationships between push and pull attributes of a destination.The initial transcripts in French were translated into English and verified for accuracy ofthe translation. The first stage of the data analysis involved conventional thematic analysis.

Thematic analysis

Thematic analysis is a method of identifying, analysing, and reporting patterns (themes)within a data set but there is less agreement on what it is and how to go about doing it(Boyatzis, 1998; Tuckett, 2005). As a result, the six-step procedure suggested by Braunand Clarke (2006) was used as it provided a simple and comprehensive way of undertakingthematic analysis. Hence, the first step involved the first author familiarising himself withthe data by reading and re-reading the data, and noting down initial ideas. From the outset, itwas clear that similarities and differences in both motives and place perceptions existed inthis rich data set. The second step involved coding interesting features of the data in a sys-tematic fashion across the entire data set, collating data relevant to each code. For example,different motives, such as the need for relaxation, need for escape and need for socialisationwere assigned codes 1, 2, and 3, respectively, throughout the data set. Visitors’ feelings suchas relaxed, happy and excited were coded in a similar manner. The third step involvedcollating all the different codes into potential themes. For example, similar motivatingfactors such as ‘escape’ and ‘stress-free’ were grouped with their relevant cognitiveimages that could be identified from the data set to form the initial themes. The fourthstep involved checking if the themes work in relation to the coded extracts and the entiredata set, generating a ‘thematic map’ of the analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). This thematicmap is described in more details in the findings section. The fifth step involved ongoinganalysis to refine the sub-themes of main themes, and the overall story that the data set



tells, generating clear definitions and names for each theme. The final step involved report-ing the analysis using a selection of vivid and compelling extracts from the transcripts tosupport the themes derived. Once this process was completed, the second author indepen-dently reviewed the coding, derived main and sub themes to verify interpretation. In mostcases, they both agreed on the main and sub-themes.

Content analysis – CatPac

The second stage of the analysis was aimed at ‘quantifying’ to some extent the data set inaccordance to the post-positivist approach adopted in this study. Therefore, an artificialneural network programme, CatPac, was used for the purpose of content analysis.‘CatPac permits identification of inter-relationships that determine classification of con-cepts being used by respondents and permit linkages and prioritisations to be drawn andnumeric values of association (distance or proximity) to be identified’ (Ryan & Cave,2005, p. 146). This software is suited to both large and small sample sizes, which makesit suitable for textual analysis for the entire sample and the sub-samples based on national-ity. The software has only recently been used in the tourism literature to measure percep-tions of place (Cave, Ryan, & Panakera, 2003; Govers, Go, & Kumar, 2007a, 2007b;Ryan & Cave, 2005; Stepchenkova & Morrison, 2006, 2008). Almost all these studiessuggest that its use not only provides a more detailed assessment of destination imageand facilitates statistical comparisons of images by sub-groups based on visitors’ personalcharacteristics, but also it is simple and efficient to use (Stepchenkova, Kirilenko, &Morrison, 2009). However, none of these studies have employed the software to understandrelationships between pull and push factors.

The use of CatPac requires a laborious ‘smoothing out’ procedure on the textual dataprior to analysis (Stepchenkova & Morrison, 2008) as with other computer-assistedcontent analysis (Stepchenkova et al., 2009). This involves reducing the redundancy ofwords, creating standards for the tense of verbs, standardised form of nouns, and creatingsimplified labels and key phrases (Ryan & Cave, 2005). The analysis is thereafter based ona sliding text window chosen by the researcher (default window size 7). The software cal-culates word proximities based on the number of times respondents use words in eachresponse to a question (Govers et al., 2007a). Three parameters are available for manipu-lation to get the most meaningful results: Unique Words, Window Size, and Slide Size.The Unique Word parameter sets the number of unique words that the researcher wantsin the analysis and it is also the number of words that will appear in the dendogram gener-ated by the software that is based on word locations in the text. The Window Size parameterindicates the number of words that CatPac would read at a time. The Slide Size parameterdictates how many words the window ‘groups’ as units of analysis while reading the text(Woelfel, 1998). A more detailed review of this process can be seen elsewhere (Goverset al., 2007a, 2007b; Ryan & Cave, 2005; Woelfel, 1998). In this study, both authors inde-pendently used CatPac on the data set for each of the question to arrive at a solution that wasmeaningful by manipulating the parameters in the software. The subsequent outputsgenerated such as frequency counts of words and dendogram were then compared foreach question, and a final solution was retained on the basis of similarities in output,which indicated consensual realities in visitors’ perceptions. While the frequency countshows the words most often used by interviewees, the dendogram, which is generated onthe basis of a clustering algorithm using the Ward’s method, shows strong and weakrelationships between a set of words. The comparing of the results derived from thematicanalysis, CatPac and the independent analysis of each author enhances the credibility of



interpretation through first, confirming relationships between themes identified in the firststage of data analysis and second, showing motives and images that are most often associ-ated with the destination.

Research findings

Sample profile

The demographic and tripographic characteristics of the sample were as follows. The inter-views polled respondents with a mean age of 40.3 years old. More males (56.3%) wereinterviewed than females (43.7%). The nationalities of respondents were as describedabove but the overwhelming majority of interviewees were of Caucasian ethnicity(70.3%) with the remainder being either of Asian (26.2%) or Black (2.9%) ethnicity.These international tourists stayed on average 11.1 days in Mauritius and 96 could speakEnglish fluently. The other languages spoken included French, German, Hindi, andAfrikaans. Of the sample, 30.1% were repeat tourists. As a first step in reporting thefindings, the main and sub themes derived from thematic analysis are presented.

Themes for push factors

The first question being aimed at uncovering motives and images that led to the choice ofMauritius as a holiday destination, showed a preponderance of cognitive images as the mainpush factors. The results revealed four dominant themes in the data: ‘3S’ Appeal of theplace, the ‘familiar’ place, ‘people’ of the place, and the ‘romantic’ place. Each of thesemajor themes had associated sub-themes related to traditional conceptualisations of motiv-ating factors in the literature, as described below.

Theme one – the ‘3S’ appeal of the place

Many tourists mentioned ‘sun’, ‘sand’, and ‘sea’ (3S) as being an important motivatorin their choice of Mauritius as a holiday destination. In particular, sunny weather, warmtemperatures, quality of the beaches, and water-based activities seem to be major pullfactors across the sample. The destination’s quiet and tranquil atmosphere also contributedto destination choice, which reinforces the ‘exotic’ appeal of the island. However, under-lying these pull factors was a major push factor, the destination ‘as a place of escape’ forEuropean tourists in particular, as shown by the following quotes:

. . .the destination offers a warmer climate than Europe and [I] wanted to escape the winterthere. (German tourist)

. . .we like sunny destinations, we wanted guaranteed sunshine in the tropics, some warmth forour Easter holidays. (British tourist)

We wanted a break from the busy city, we live in Mumbai, we wanted to come somewherequiet. (Indian tourist)

. . .I just wanted to go somewhere exotic, and it was. (British tourist)

Theme two – the familiar place

The data also revealed that the island seems to attract many repeat tourists, who return forvarious reasons such as ‘visiting family and friends’, ‘quality of hotels’, ‘friendliness of



people’, and ‘re-enactment of previous enjoyable experiences’. While these reflect acombination of push and pull factors influencing choice, it was evident that thosechoosing Mauritius for ‘visiting friends and relatives’ (VFR) were motivated by theneed for social interaction and kinship. This motive also seems prominent due to histori-cal and cultural ties of the island with countries such as France, UK, and India. Friendsand relatives tend to offer accommodation, advice on places to visit and restaurants, andgive advice on personal safety at the destination. The VFR motive seems more prominentamong French tourists in the sample. The following quotes illustrate this theme in thedata.

. . .to spend time with relatives here and our daughter wanted to come here as well. (Frenchtourist)

We have direct flights to here, so it’s an easy place to get to, also my brother is married to aMauritian, so we came to see how the place was. (French tourist)

. . .we are here on holidays with the family/relatives who invited us to stay a few weeks inMauritius. (French tourist)

Also, motives for visiting Mauritius seem to be based on language and culturalsimilarities with other countries such as France and India, which enable fulfilment ofneed for social interaction. Therefore, it seems that some tourists are not lookingnecessarily for ‘novelty’ of the experience but also a degree of ‘familiarity’ thatenables an experience to be enjoyed. The sample being older in age could explainthis occurrence, but also underlying this ‘familiarity’ aspect with the destination is astrong sense of place. Repeat visitors seem to attach importance and derive pleasurefrom the destination experience, which therefore indicates some level of place attach-ment. For these repeat tourists in particular, previous trips related to motives such as‘attending local festivals’, ‘business trips’, and ‘incentive travel’ seem to have influencedtheir current holiday trip. These findings also indicate the well established economic tiesof the island with France, India and South Africa. The following quotes provide supportfor this theme:

. . .we have been coming here for the last 5 years, we know very well the Mauritians. . .we haveno problem communicating and relating to them. We come because we know the destination.(French tourist)

. . .we came here to see the Tamil New Year celebrations, we heard about it from friends andrelatives in SA, so we wanted to come see it for ourselves. (South African tourist)

I am here on an incentive travel package for the organisation I work for. I came here 15 yearsago, it was nice to see how the place and people have evolved. . .it is like reconnecting to theplace. (French tourist)

Related to this theme is that current tourists’ decision to visit Mauritius seem to berelated to previous tourists acting as ‘ambassadors’ for the country. For example, firsttime tourists mentioned that they chose Mauritius because of recommendations fromothers. This is illustrated in the following quotes:

. . .recommendations from friends. It’s our first time here, we have never been to this destinationbefore. We have been to Caribbean islands before but never to Indian Ocean islands. . ..(Britishtourist)



. . .we have heard about it so much and we saw a lot of it in movies, we always wanted to comehere, so me and my husband came. (Indian tourist)

Theme three – people of the place

The data also suggest that friendliness and hospitality of people act as significant pullfactors for both first time and repeat tourists, which is indicative of the need for esteemfrom others. Two sub-themes can be identified for this motive. The first was ‘interactionswith hotel employees’. Tourists across nationalities mentioned that the ‘smile’, ‘willingnessto help’, and ‘warmth of welcome’ of hotel employees and/or of the general population,accentuated by ‘ease of communication with’ and ‘understanding by locals’, led to thechoice of the island. Also, the advice and accommodation provided by family andfriends tend to reinforce these perceptions of ‘friendliness’. The following quotes illustratethis sub-theme:

. . .the kindness of Mauritians, conviviality, everything related to generosity of people, simpli-city of the people. . .it’s really the people before everything else. (French tourist)

. . ..the hospitality of people, the welcome, the safety that the place offers. (German tourist)

. . ..the people are friendly and efficient. . ..staff at the hotel. . .polite and courteous all the time.(British tourist)

The second sub-theme was related to ‘the family-oriented’ product of the destination. Thedestination specifically attracts families with children as it is perceived as ‘a safe haven’ with‘plenty of activities for children to do’. There are also opportunities for parents to spend timealone given that hotels are equipped with kids’ clubs operated by professional staff who takecare of the children as shown in the quote below. These add to the appeal of the destinationand a perception that the local people are friendly and ready to help.

. . .the hotel with the kids club, we went to Seychelles last year, so this year we tried Mauritius.me and my wife like Indian Ocean islands, . . .spend some time alone. . .kids taken care of.(British tourist)

Theme four – the romantic place

Mauritius is sold and positioned as a destination for weddings and honeymoons. This facet ofthe destination as a ‘romantic place’ was evident in the data. The island offers good travelpackages and the ‘3S’ make it an ideal location for honeymooners and/or the organisationof weddings. Its ‘exoticness’ and ‘exclusive appeal’ tend to be favoured by Indian andSouth African tourists as they seem to be the main honeymooners in Mauritius. Thisaspect of the destination seems to fulfil the need for kinship. This theme is illustrated inthe following quotes:

It’s the paradise island like what they sell in South Africa. . .we came here on our honeymoon,it’s the ideal honeymoon spot so they say. (South African tourist)

. . .we came here on our honeymoon trip, we wanted to come because we have seen so much ofMauritius in Bollywood movies, it’s a favourite location for film shoots, our parents have beenhere before too, so came to see for ourselves. (Indian tourist)

. . .honeymoon trip,. . . the reputation of the island as a quality destination. We wanted some-where exotic, where not many people go to. (Indian tourist)



Content analysis of destination choice factors

The credibility of these themes was further enhanced by entering the original transcriptfor the first question into CatPac, to identify relationships between words based onproximity. The smoothing process described earlier was carried out and this process oftextual familiarisation aids in the interpretation of the final results. These manipulationsare necessary given that, like any software package, the programme does not produceanswers but rather produces frameworks set by responses as evaluated by the researcher.Manipulation of the parameters is therefore justified given that language itself is flexibleand is a verbal organisation of symbols to convey meanings. However, like similarpackages the software helps impose a discipline on the researcher, which in this casewas reinforced by the authors conducting separate analyses and then comparing the results.

The derived results from the above manipulation of text and parameters showed five majorclusters of concepts or related words in the dendogram. The first showed a strong relationshipbetween words such as ‘wanted’, ‘place’, ‘holidays’, ‘family’, ‘people’, ‘weather’, ‘Mauri-tius’, ‘friends’, and ‘beach’. These words suggest that international tourists’ choice wasrelated to motives of ‘3S’, ‘people’ of the place, and ‘visiting family and friends’. These find-ings show similarities with some of the themes and sub-themes derived earlier. Cluster twocomprised two words, ‘nice’ and ‘hotel’, which indicated that the quality and variety ofhotels influenced destination choice. Cluster three consisted of four related words, ‘choose’,‘trip’, ‘coming’, and ‘years’. A close examination of these words and revisiting the originaltranscripts revealed the idea of repeat visitation, that is, international tourists ‘chose’ their‘trip’ out of habit because they had been ‘coming’ there for ‘years’. Interestingly, these touristsseem to come back either for the physical attributes of the place as well as the social relation-ships they have formed with local people, indicating some level of place attachment.

Cluster four was made of four words, ‘always’, ‘heard’, ‘lot’, and ‘honeymoon’, whichindicated that Mauritius was chosen as a ‘honeymoon’ destination because tourists had‘always’ ‘heard’ a ‘lot’ about the destination. This is also indicative of the influence ofword of mouth on tourists’ decision process. Cluster five showed a weaker relationshipamong two words, ‘destination’ and ‘island’ which confirm Mauritius being chosen forits physical attributes. These findings confirm and reinforce the earlier derived themes ofMauritius chosen as a holiday destination for four major reasons: (1) its ‘3S’ product, (2)repeat visitation, (3) friendly people, (4) honeymoon. The inter-relationship betweenthese variables can be illustrated in a thematic map (Figure 1). For example, ‘3S’ appealof the place combined with romantic appeal of the place can generate repeat visitation.The same applies to other motives. However, place attachment as expected, seems todevelop among repeat tourists due to fulfilment of various motives.

Cognitive images of Mauritius

Further analysis using CatPac revealed that motives and images have a symbiotic relation-ship, that is, asking respondents about motives automatically conjures images as well,which is indicative of the relationship between push and pull factors as suggested inboth qualitative and quantitative studies (Kim et al., 2003; Klenosky, 2002). The datarevealed 10 dominant cognitive images of Mauritius as shown in Figure 2. Each of thesecognitive images has a number of specific sub-dimensions to them. For example, if inter-viewees mentioned beaches, they were asked what they liked specifically about themand their responses were ‘white’, ‘sandy’, ‘clean’, and ‘not crowded’. A few intervieweesmentioned they ‘liked everything’, that is, the entire destination experience as shown inFigure 2, indicative of holistic impressions of the place. These cognitive images are



broadly similar to multi-attribute models suggested in the literature (Beerli & Martin, 2004;Echtner & Ritchie, 1991; Gallarza et al., 2002) albeit with differences with respect to place-specific dimensions.

Negative images of Mauritius

While most tourists reported positive perceptions, some reported negative ones and thesecan be grouped in five broad categories using content analysis from CatPac namely: infra-structure, hotel facilities, cleanliness and hygiene of public places, weather, and people asshown in the Figure 3. Infrastructure seems to be the most problematic aspect of the destina-tion, with perceptions of ‘poor quality’ and ‘narrow roads’, ‘traffic jam’ especially in thecity, and poor ‘road signage’ for access to places of interest. The airport is perceived as‘crowded’ given that tourists have to queue up for approximately 20–30 min to check in.While for many airports this may not seem excessive, it is suggested that here it featuresin tourist reports because it is contrary to much of their other experiences in Mauritius. Interms of hotel facilities, some tourists perceived them as being ‘expensive’ and‘crowded’. A perceived lack of ‘cleanliness’ and ‘hygiene’ is another factor that led tonegative experiences, specifically with regard to cleanliness in local markets and hygieneof bathroom facilities on public beaches. The erratic fluctuations of the weather (rain andstrong winds), which is an uncontrollable factor, was another source of discontentment.With regards to interactions with people, some tourists disliked the ‘pushy’ attitude of‘beach hawkers’, which they thought was rude, and the fact that they charged higherprices to tourists compared with locals. Both beach hawkers and taxi owners were perceivedas being dishonest in their dealings and negotiations with international tourists. These find-ings indicate the co-existence of both positive and negative perceptions of place assuggested by others (Prebensen, 2007; Ryan & Cave, 2005).

Affective images of Mauritius

The findings derived from question two led to the identification of affective images ofMauritius. Thematic analysis revealed a variety of emotions that can be grouped in three

Figure 1. Thematic map of inter-relationships among themes for push factors.



broad themes namely: Mauritius as ‘a place of retreat’, ‘a rejuvenating place’, and ‘a placeto revisit’.

A place of retreat

The crux of this theme was the destination being able to generate feelings of ‘escape’,‘stress-free’ lifestyle, ‘relaxation’, and ‘comfort’. In essence, the place providing a pleasur-able experience to visitors. This theme is illustrated in the quotes below.

It is a nice, very nice, place. It’s relaxing compared to busy London. It’s tranquil, no fastpace, people are laid back, they seem [the locals] to enjoy this kind of lifestyle. (Britishvisitor)

It’s a beautiful place, with the view of Le Morne, mountains, sea, we came here to relax. It’s anideal setting, away from everything else, I mean the hectic life in Mumbai. It is a quiet timeaway from work responsibilities, spending time with wife and children, but it is not a cheapdestination, not everyone can afford to come here. (Indian visitor)

Figure 2. Positive images of Mauritius.



Underlying this theme is the fact that many of these visitors relate the feelings associ-ated with the destination with their escape motive, as illustrated above, thereby indicating arelationship between push factors and pull attributes. Quantitative studies such as Martinand del Bosque (2008) have shown a positive relationship between motives and affectiveimages.

A rejuvenating place

This theme is associated with Mauritius generating feelings of ‘peacefulness’, ‘beauty’, and‘well being’, as shown in the quotes below. The essence of this theme is that Mauritius isable to rejuvenate visitors and make them feel better about themselves. Underlying thistheme is the need to feel valued as a person and as a family.

I feel that Mauritius is peaceful, quiet, not crowded. It’s a leisurely lifestyle in a beautiful sur-rounding, the clear blue sky, the good weather makes you feel good about yourself. (Indianvisitor)

It is a very good feeling, we felt welcomed for each visit, a feeling of plenitude, when you travelaround in the villages, the people acknowledge your presence, they smile at you, they makehead signs to you, and you don’t see that in other countries. This is why we come here eachyear, for the people. (French visitor)

It’s beautiful, a real paradise, it’s even a lovers paradise, you have time to look after yourcouple, I mean spend time with my husband. You don’t often have time to do somethingspecial as a couple when you work. We have been able to do just that here but we havebeen busy during our stay with activities and sightseeing. (South African visitor)

A place to revisit

A common theme evident in the data was that positive feelings for the place were closelyassociated with positive revisit intentions. Asking participants about one, led to responsesfor the other as shown in the quotes below:

Figure 3. Negative images of Mauritius.



We would like to come back again sometimes, it’s an easy, laid back place, very relaxed atmos-phere. (German visitor)

It is a beautiful island, will definitely come back. It’s a warm feeling that we had throughout ourstay. (South African visitor)

I m definitely coming back, we all loved it, save some more money and I will be back to seemore and do more. It is so relaxing, makes me feel happy. (French visitor)

It seems that as visitors’ needs are fulfilled, affective images contribute to positiverevisit intentions. Despite establishing a positive relationship between cognitive, affectiveand future behaviour, quantitative studies (Chen & Tsai, 2007; Lin et al., 2007) have notalways linked this relationship to the push factors driving destination choice.

Repeating the triangulation approach and the smoothing process described earlier,CatPac was used to confirm some of these findings. The dendogram generated forquestion two, indicated eight different clusters of words. For example, cluster one indicateda strong relationship among six words, ‘good’, ‘place’, ‘pleasant’, ‘great’, ‘nice’, and‘experience’. Looking at the original transcripts, these words suggested that the destinationevokes feelings of being a good and/or pleasant place and offering a great and/or niceexperience. Cluster two showed a strong relationship between three words ‘like’, ‘come’,and ‘back’, indicating the conative component of destination image and supporting thetheme of Mauritius as ‘a place to revisit’. Cluster three indicated a relationship betweentwo words, ‘hotel’ and ‘beautiful’ indicating the aesthetic appeal of the hotels in Mauritius,cluster four comprised of the words ‘beach’ and ‘sea’ indicative of the ‘3S’ appeal of theisland. Cluster five indicated a relationship among words such as ‘people’ and ‘relaxed’,indicating the destination as a place for relaxation and cluster six indicated a relationshipbetween words such as ‘think’, ‘different’, ‘lovely’, and ‘definitely’, indicating that visitorsthought the island was different and definitely lovely. Cluster seven indicated a relationshipamong words such as ‘happy’, ‘holiday’, and ‘destination’, indicating the place was able toevoke feelings of happiness among tourists. Cluster eight showed a relationship betweenfive words namely, ‘specific’, ‘feel’, ‘really’, ‘nothing’, and ‘island’, which is indicativeof the fact that some interviewees could not recall any specific feelings about the island.

While showing some similarities in the results derived from thematic analysis andCatPac, some differences emerged. For example, there are some specific cognitiveimages associated with the destination from the results of CatPac, indicating thatcognitive and affective images are linked in the visitor’s mind. Also, some participantsare unable to recall affective images associated with the destination, which either indicatesthe destination experience was not differentiated enough or the interview environment wasnot conducive to recall of such experiences. It seems to the researchers that the relationshipbetween motives and images cannot be adequately captured through the use of CatPac onlyeven while it complements the results of thematic analysis.

The influence of nationality

While thematic analysis did not reveal substantial differences in motives and images bynationality, content analysis using CatPac revealed otherwise. Due to the complex natureof the results generated by CatPac, only a synthesis of these is provided below. Forexample, the findings indicated the French market was motivated by six factors in theirchoice of Mauritius as a holiday destination. Namely: (i) French tourists ‘chose’ or‘come’ because they ‘learn’ about the ‘people’ and the ‘place’ from others, indicating



fulfilment of need for learning and word-of-mouth as important drivers of destinationchoice; (ii) Immediate or ‘direct’ ‘family’ reasons indicating a motive for VFR, therebysuggesting the need for social interaction; (iii) Tourists ‘like Mauritians’ and ‘know’about this ‘holiday destination’, indicating familiarity with the place as an importantchoice factor; (iv) Their choice also results from ‘incentive travel’ ‘packages’ offered byFrench companies to their employees, indicating business travel; (v) The ‘sun’ and‘beach’ indicating the ‘3S’ appeal of the place, which is based on fulfilment of a needfor escape and relaxation; (vi) Finally the statement, ‘everything really’ indicates holisticimpressions as being of importance in choice decisions.

For the German market, CatPac revealed the existence of five factors, these being: (i)Previous visits which led to them ‘always’ ‘wanted’ to ‘come’ ‘back’, and the ‘volcanic’‘eruption’ in the neighbouring ‘Reunion Island’ provided them with such an opportunity,indicating previous positive experiences and special events as influencing destinationchoice; (ii) ‘Reputation’ of the ‘place’ and its ‘hospitality’; (iii) The destination offers‘Mauritian’ ‘friends’, that is, they made friends with the local population on previousvisits, which provided an incentive for them to come back, thereby indicating the needfor social interaction and kinship; (iv) They had visited the destination ‘years ago’ and‘liked’ it, so their current visit was to renew that experience, indicating satisfaction withprevious visit as an influencer of destination choice; (v) The ‘holiday’ was taken becausethe visitor was getting ‘married’, indicating the importance of special events.

As for the British market, content analysis revealed again five major push factors, (i)‘Mauritius’ offers ‘good’ ‘scenery’ and ‘weather’ and because visitors have ‘family’ and‘friends’, thereby indicating the influence of cognitive images and push factors such asneed for social interaction; (ii) The fact that it is an ‘Indian’ ‘ocean’ ‘island’, which is differ-ent from other places they had visited. This indicates location and novelty of the experienceas influential factors in destination choice; (iii) It is a ‘nice’ ‘place’, thereby indicatingemotive perceptions of place; (iv) Visitors who ‘always’ ‘come’ for the ‘people’, againreferring to VFR, and the importance of repeat visitation to the island; and finally (v)because they ‘wanted’ or ‘liked’ something ‘different’ for ‘Easter holidays’, thereby indi-cating a special event and the need for novelty.

Likewise, South African visitors seem to choose Mauritius for six reasons. These are: (i)Visitors either come for their ‘honeymoon’ or ‘conference’ in the first place and thereafterthey ‘wanted’ to ‘come back again’ with ‘family’, thereby indicating previous positiveexperiences as drivers of current choice; (ii) They come because of business (companytravel) and combine it with holidays; (iii) Mauritius is chosen because it is a ‘destination’close to ‘South Africa’, indicating proximity as an important consideration in the choiceprocess; (iv) ‘Business’ travel before and they ‘heard’ about the destination from travel‘agents’, reflecting the influence of previous visits and travel intermediaries; (v) Visitorschose the destination because it is ‘advertised’ and because they have ‘friends’ in Mauritius,indicating the need for social interaction; (vi) Visitors can also choose Mauritius becausetheir partner or ‘wife’ wanted the ‘trip’, indicating the influence of significant others onthe decision process.

The Indian market also seems to be motivated by six factors in their choice of Mauritius.(i) Indians ‘like Mauritius’ as a ‘honeymoon’ destination and ‘wanted’ to be ‘surprised’ bythe ‘hotel’, indicating that special events can be of importance in the choice process; (ii)These visitors seem to have ‘family’ or ‘children’ from ‘India’ that work in Mauritius,justifying their choice; (iii) Some of these visitors are on their ‘first’ trip because theyhave ‘friends’ or made friends in Mauritius and will come ‘back’, indicating need forsocial interaction and kinship as well as positive revisit intentions; (iv) Some visitors



‘come’ because they have ‘heard’ of Mauritius ‘somewhere’ but they cannot rememberwhere, indicating top-of-mind awareness of the place; (v) Others come because the destina-tion offers an ‘exotic culture’; (vi) The last reason seems to be that some of these visitors areon a ‘trip’ with ‘parents’.

A comparison of the results of content analysis for each market based on nationalityrevealed that: (i) Sun, sand, and sea, which is associated with the need for relaxation andescape are not necessarily the main motivators for choice. This motive seems to be moreimportant for French tourists than others; (ii) The need for social interaction and kinshipas evidenced by the purpose of visit being VFR seems to be of importance across all nation-alities; (iii) Familiarity, as indicated by previous visits is particularly an important motivatorfor German, South African, French, and British tourists; (iv) Honeymoon or wedding tripsand other special events are important push factors for Germans, South Africans andIndians; (v) Previous business trips or incentive travel tours or proximity of the destinationseem to be a significant motivator for South African and French tourists only; (vi) Pullfactors are important motivators across all nationalities but not necessarily the same attributesare considered important; (vii) Relationships between specific motives, pull factors andfuture behavioural intentions can be identified for German and Indian visitors. Therefore,nationality seems to be a determining variable for destination choice through push factors.

As for cognitive images, content analysis by CatPac showed similar perceptions irre-spective of nationality. For example, the sample of German tourists showed the existenceof five clusters of words. Cluster one showed a relationship among eight words namely:‘beach’, ‘sea’, ‘people’, ‘nice’, ‘like’, ‘food’, ‘hotel’, and ‘climate’, which suggested thatGermans found the beach, sea, and people to be nice, while liking the food, hotel andclimate. Cluster two was made of five words namely: ‘flight’, ‘good’, ‘package’, ‘destina-tion’, and ‘Germany’, indicating that Mauritius offered a good holiday package, includingflights for these visitors, while cluster three indicated that Germans liked the ‘water’ ‘sports’‘activities’, and cluster four showed that they liked the ‘sun’ and ‘warm’ ‘weather’. Clusterfive indicated that Germans perceive the ‘place’ to be ‘friendly’ and ‘busy’. Similar associ-ations of words were found for other nationalities with a preponderance of images of ‘whitesand’, ‘warm sea’, ‘sunny weather’, ‘nice hotel’, ‘friendly people’ and ‘good food’.However, the strength of the relationships as indicated by the words linking to eachother in the dendograms showed some differences across nationalities. For example,Indians seemed to place more importance on hotel amenities, facilities and service.Germans were more concerned about the types of travel packages offered and flightsthan any other tourists. British tourists placed more emphasis on available tourist tripswithin the island and service while French tourists assigned more importance to ‘3S’than any other nationality. These results enable common cognitive images to be identifiedas well as nationality-based differences in image perceptions that sometimes may not beevident from thematic analysis only.

In terms of affective images, a comparison of the different dendograms generated foreach nationality showed that all five nationalities displayed strong intentions to revisit.Except for Indians, all other nationalities mentioned local people as being an importantfacet of their feelings for the destination. Germans placed more importance on the safetyof the destination compared with the other four nationalities. South African and British tour-ists placed more importance on feeling relaxed on their holidays as compared with others.South African and French tourists seemed to favour destinations that convey feelings ofbeing different from their home country, indicating a relationship between the affectivecomponent and the need for novelty. Some of the French tourists mentioned they feltnothing in particular about the destination experience perhaps because it was not very



different from their own country. Likewise, only some Indian tourists felt that the destina-tion was crowded and were more critical of local cuisine compared with other nationalities.In essence, the results of CatPac showed relationships between words that depicted affec-tive, cognitive and conative components of image. However, it was ineffective at showingrelationships between push and the affective component of pull factors, where thematicanalysis proved more useful.

Discussion, implications, and conclusion

Although the relationship between motives and images has been explored using quantitat-ive approaches including modelling, this study aimed at examining this relationship ingreater depth using a post-positivist approach that enabled the triangulation of data analysedfrom a dual perspective of thematic and content analysis. The findings have some theoreti-cal and managerial implications. In terms of theoretical implications, the findings reveal thata qualitative approach uncovers complex relationships between motives and images that arebest captured using a combination of thematic and content analysis. As suggested by others(Govers et al., 2007a, 2007b; Stepchenkova et al., 2009; Stepchenkova & Morrison, 2006,2008), CatPac is suited for destination image research but when combined with thematicanalysis, it enriches data analysis by showing specifically which push factors are embeddedin image themes, and enhances the credibility of thematic analysis by confirming themes ordimensions and relationships and inter-relationships among variables such as push factors,images, place attachment, and future behaviour. CatPac is particularly suited for the identi-fication of positive and negative images of a destination and differences by tourists charac-teristics such as nationality.

The results establish that Mauritius has predominantly a sun, sand and sea image thatfeeds on motives for relaxation and pleasure. Other motivators influencing tourists’choice seem to be the need for social interaction and kinship and the need for familiarityspecifically associated with repeaters. These motivators correspond to those depicted instudies of Crompton (1979), Mill and Morrison (1985), Pearce (1991), Iso-Ahola (1982),Ryan (2002), and Kozak (2002). However, unlike previous studies the findings of thisstudy extend the understanding of these motives by linking them with specific imagethemes, thereby confirming that motives of destination choice are often embedded inimage attractiveness of a place. This is akin to Tapachai and Waryszak’s (2000) beneficialimages that are linked to specific consumption values of tourists.

Content analysis using CatPac is better at capturing cognitive and holistic images of aplace as well as unique features and auras that support the work of Echtner and Ritchie(1991, 1993) and Jenkins (1999). Thematic analysis also allows holistic images to be dis-cerned effectively but CatPac is better at revealing image themes and how they are linkedwith each other, thus enhancing the credibility of these holistic images (Stepchenkova &Morrison, 2006). The qualitative methodology also reveals relationships similar to thosederived from quantitative studies with reference to the existence of a hierarchical relation-ship between cognitive, affective, and conative components of image. That is, the cognitivecomponent seems to be an antecedent of the affective and the latter is a more powerful ante-cedent to the conative component as suggested by Gallarza et al. (2002), Pike and Ryan(2004), and Ryan and Cave (2005). Also, as expected, respondents find it easier to recallcognitive images and the attributes discerned are similar to previous lists of items foundin the literature (e.g. Baloglu & McCleary, 1999; Echtner & Ritchie, 1993; Gallarzaet al., 2002) albeit place-specific attributes such as those related to sun, sand and seadestinations specifically emerge.



The findings confirm that destination image evolves with tourists’ level of familiaritywith the destination (Gallarza et al., 2002; Ryan & Cave, 2005) and that familiarity witha place generates positive images as suggested by others (e.g. Baloglu, 2001; Beerli &Martin, 2004; Prentice, 2004). This allows for a more complex image of a place to be devel-oped (Ryan & Cave, 2005) among repeat tourists. These complex images, when related totourists’ push factors, seem to indicate a latent dimension of place attachment. As argued byothers (George & George, 2004; Hou et al., 2005; Trauer & Ryan, 2005) repeat tourists tendto develop attachment to specific activities, areas, people, and destinations, as is the case inthis study. Hence, the approach used to analyse the data in this study seems to bring forthlinkages between a destination’s salient attributes (pull factors), holistic images, pushfactors, and place attachment for repeaters.

It also seems that nationality has a significant influence on the way visitors interpret thedestination environment with respect to cognitive and affective components, and also pushfactors. These differences in perceptions lend support to the work of Hirscham andHolbrook (1982), Calatone et al. (1989), Chen and Kerstetter (1999), Kozak et al. (2004)and Ryan and Cave (2005) in establishing nationality as a significant proxy for measuringcultural differences. Indeed, nationality seems to have a stronger influence on affectiveimages as suggested by Gartner (1993) and Beerli and Martin (2004). Hence, attaining auniversal structure in destination image perception may be difficult given that each destina-tion has a unique social and natural environment (Gallarza et al., 2002; Pearce, 1991) andeach tourist has their own perceptual filters such as age and nationality through which land-scapes of places and emotions are understood. In addition, tourists of different nationalitiesseem to attach differing levels of importance to push factors as suggested by others (Andreuet al., 2005; Jang & Cai, 2002; Kozak, 2002; Martin & del Bosque, 2008). Also, it seemsthat nationality may determine the extent of cultural similarity between a destination and thetourist’s home country, thereby influencing destination choice for those seeking familiarexperiences. For those seeking novelty of experiences, like German and South Africantourists, the destination itself can be the object of difference or experience, but certainlythese perceptions are linked to tourists’ own nationality. Hence, nationality can be usedas an effective market segmentation variable and for understanding tourists’ push factorsand preferences in terms of destination attributes.

The findings also offer some insights into visitors’ experiences of place. The cognitiveand affective responses identified suggest that the tourist is not merely a passive participantin the experience but can be an active seeker of knowledge about and understanding of thedestination and relationships within that place. This is evidenced by the different motivesinfluencing choice, the activities undertaken at the destination and culturally specificnotions of what is extraordinary and therefore worth visiting. This confirms Urry’s(2002) proposition that the tourist gaze is structured. The images of Mauritius amongthese tourists seem to represent certain ways of seeing reality and conform to traditionalunderstanding of images. The tourist gaze seems to be mainly directed towards positiveaspects of the destination while negative aspects seem to be silenced or the visitorengages in a process of cognitive dissonance where positive experiences outweigh negativeones. Hence, an island such as Mauritius becomes a locus of selected meanings constructedthrough a collection of signs, that is, images (Hollinshead, 1999). These images also reflectand reinforce certain relationship in societies, for example, the motives of social interactionthat informs the VFR market. Also, the destination experience may not always be simplyvisual but one that engages all the senses as suggested by Ryan (2002) given that placeattachment is formed for potential and actual repeat visitors. Therefore, inherent in the find-ings is a level of complexity of the tourist experience that can be identified using the



methodology employed with respect to relationships and inter-relationships betweenmotives, images, attachment, and personal characteristics of visitors.

In conclusion, this research has provided two significant contributions to the broadertourism literature: first, it establishes relationships between push factors, pull factors, andholistic images of place by using an alternative approach of triangulation of method ofdata analysis; second, it confirms the usefulness of nationality as a proxy for the measure-ment of cultural differences among tourists. There are, however, limitations relating to thisresearch. First, the obtained sample may not be representative of all tourists to Mauritius,given that only five nationalities were considered in the sampling process. However, thisdid not influence the richness of the reported experiences or the relationships identified.These could potentially be tested using a quantitative methodology. Second, some partici-pants may have been unable or unwilling to articulate motives they really seek from holidayexperiences due to their inability to reflect intensely on their experiences. However, in mostcases visitors were able to recall the motives influencing their choice of the destination.Third, even though a post-positivist approach was adopted, it still remains true that thebroad questions were determined by the researcher, who thus acts as the agenda setter.Thus, the mode of questioning selected does not establish the degrees of importance tothe respondent as to the nature of their motives and perceptions of place. Future researchcan also focus on establishing these relationships for competing island destinations in theIndian Ocean or comparative studies with other island destinations such as the Balearic,Pacific, and Caribbean islands.

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