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Tourism and Identity-Related Motivations: Why Am I Here (And Not There) ?
Tourism and Identity-Related Motivations: Why Am I Here (And Not There) ?
431
1997; Lemesianou, 2003). As Heidegger (1987)
notes, identity, the question of being,
continues to elude us in a denitive sense. Yet,
tourism has often been suggested as a tool to
assist individuals in their identity-related quests
(Galani-Mouta, 2000, 2001; Apostolakis, 2003;
Cohen, 2010) as well as explaining variations
in travel motivations and behavior (Pizam and
Sussmann, 1995; Maoz, 2007). However,
much of the identity-focused tourism literature
discusses identity in terms of an individuals
cultural, ethnic or religious identity (e.g. Graburn,
1995; White and White, 2004; Henning, 2006).
Identity is the most basic assumption for
going through life and interacting with others
(Greeneld, 2008). Identity can be reected
in the perspective of ones mind or more
indirectly in the perspective of personality.
The mind can be considered as the rst person
identity (the I) i.e. how a person views him
or herself. Alternatively, personality is the
third-person perspective (the me), i.e. how
others see a person (you) as a direct result of
what you say and do. In other words, identity
is something that attests to how others think
about us, as well as how the Is think about
themselves (Falk, 2009). The distinction
between the multiple conceptions of self was
emphasized by William James as early as
1890. James argued that there are multiple
selves, which are often demonstrated in
different interpersonal roles or relationships.
James also argued that these multiple selves
may contradict or conict with each other
depending on situation or context. He referred
to such conicts as the conict of the different
Mes (James, 1890, in Harter, 1993:129). Despite
being over 100 years old, this multidimensional
denition of identity remains one of the most
comprehensive denitions of identity to date.
Jamess multidimensional model of the self is
supported by over three decades of identity
research. Yet, despite this historical precedent,
throughout the 1950s and 1960s, theorists were
reluctant to endorse Jamess framework
(Gargano et al., 2004). Indeed, there was
considerable resistance to this point of view.
Many traditionalists of the time adopted more
global, integrated representations of self, as
suggested by theorists such as Rogers (1951),
Erikson (1956), Allport (1961), Maslow (1961),
Coopersmith (1967) and Rosenberg (1979).
Int. J. Tourism Res. 15, 430442 (2013)
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432
The common view held by these theorists was
that the self concerned a persons overall
sense of worth as a person (Harter et al.,
1997). Psychologists such as Epstein (1973,
1981) argued against the multidimensional
model of the self, suggesting that to maintain
integrity and consistency, the self must
establish internal consistency what Epstein
termed the unity principle to avoid feelings
of psychological distress (Epstein, 1981).
The major criticism of this approach is that
unidimensional models of self do not account
for the judgments that people make about their
performance in different areas of their lives.
Current opinion seems to have reverted back
in favor of Jamess multidimensional model of
self. Theorists now contend that the most
valuable theories of the self are those that take
into account the many views of the self that
people put forward in differing circumstances.
These judgments of the self have been
discussed in the literature, under the heading
of self-categorization theory (Turner et al.,
1987; Hogg et al., 1995; Harter et al., 1997).
Accordingly, theorists now understand identity
as a combination of several domains of ones
life including social, familial, employment,
recreational and scholastic and seek to investigate how individuals develop and maintain
their identities within these different realms.
Researchers such as Shavelson et al. (1976)
and later Marsh (1987) and Kleine and Kleine
(2000) classied these different views of self
into a hierarchical structure, with higher-order
and lower-order facets.
According to Cohen (2010), identities are
temporary points of attachment. Identity is
therefore uid or dynamic, and something that
is frequently determined by the immediate
context. It is this multiplicity of identities that
Lifton (1993) once referred to as the protean
self, so called after the Greek god of the sea
Proteus who could appear in multiple forms.
Such a multifaceted view of identity does not
exclude the existence of key or core aspects to
an individuals being. Rather, Gee (2001)
suggests that individuals have a core identity
that is more consistent or stable than other
aspects of identity. Falk (2009:73) refers to these
core identity attributes as the big I identities.
It is evident that most of the recent identityrelated research has focused on these core
Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
433
Identity, communities of practice and
motivation
Identity-related motivation theories combine
aspects of both structure and agency theory.
They focus on the relationships between
several factors, including commitment, identity
salience and role performance (Burke and
Reitzes, 1981; Stryker, 1987; Charng et al.,
1988, Stryker and Burke, 2000). Stryker and
Burke (2000) suggest that the more important
a role is to an individual the more that individual will commit to it. The stronger this
commitment is, the more salient the role is to
a persons identity. Lastly, the more salient the
role is to that identity, the more a person will
engage in behaviors consistent with the role.
As an individual increasingly identies with a
specic role, others are more likely to view that
person in that role. This results in increased
role identity saliency and an increase in the
behaviors associated with that specic role. For
example, the more an individual self-identies
him/herself as an amateur photographer, the
more likely will others see him/her as a photographer, and thus, the photographer role becomes
more salient to the person. Increasing the
salience of the photographer role also increases
behaviors associated with maintaining that
particular identity.
Relative to this paper, compared with most
other tourists, when an individual possessing a
self-identity as a photographer travels s/he is
much more likely to be motivated to take photographs of his/her environment because doing so
is consistent with his/her identity as an amateur
photographer. Photographers must behave like
photographers. So, during the trip, s/he takes a
lot of photographs, and when s/he gets home,
s/he is motivated to share those photographs
with friends and relatives; the friends and relatives understand their role and praise the photographer for the beauty and quality of the
photos. The result of this feedback is that the
individual is more likely to think of him/herself
as a photographer and invest time and energy
in repeating the experience. The individual may
also decide to enhance his/her skills as a photographer by becoming involved with like-minded
individuals or specialist associations. According
to the above model, identity can be dened as
who one is or who one wishes to become (Kleine
Int. J. Tourism Res. 15, 430442 (2013)
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434
and Kleine, 2000). Shanahan (2009) stresses that
the desire to be seen to be or to become part of
a social grouping is an important motivation for
behavior. As such, she links identity theory
to Wengers (1998) theory of communities of
practice. Shanahan (2009) suggests that through
the process of interaction, individuals learn about
a particular community of practice and what is
expected of its members. The expectations are
then internalized, and the individual can choose
to act in a way that will gain them membership
into that particular community.
The theory of community of practice is helpful
to our understanding of identity-related tourism
motivation. Applying this theory to tourism
allows us to suggest that an individual who is
interested in hiking and sees him/herself as a
hiker (or would like to become a hiker) is likely
to choose a tourist destination that affords this
pursuit. Furthermore, this same individual may
join a hiking club or link up with other hikers
to rst, become a better hiker and second to
be perceived by his/her peers as a hiker. This
then becomes part of the individuals identity;
both in terms of his/her social world and in
terms of his/her own self-aspects. The fact that
an individual may perceive him/herself as a
hiker does not preclude the possibility of
belonging to other communities of practice nor
of having other salient aspects to their identity.
An important part of this idea is that the selfidentication of the individual as a hiker
contributes to the tourism choices s/he might
consider; only some tourism experiences afford
the opportunity for the individual to enact that
identity. Visiting a national park would be
a tourism choice that supported the hiker
identity-related motivation; an extended ocean
cruise might not be perceived as equally
supporting that identity-related tourism motivation. Importantly, the individual is capable of
justifying both of these types of tourist experiences without internal contradiction.
Identity-based motivation theories such as
those presented above adhere to the belief that
individuals maintain multiple identities indicative of the different roles, positions and responsibilities they encounter across their life. These
multiple identities are assumed to motivate
multiple behaviors dependent on the role or
identity the individual chooses to adopt. Individuals often devise multiple tourism goals to
Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
435
2002; Cohen, 2004). Such journeys have been
shown to play an important role in the
construction of the self (Desforges, 1998, 2000;
Galani-Mouta, 2001; White and White, 2004;
Maoz, 2007). However, as Woodside notes,
(2006) a large portion of an individuals
identity is unknown to the individual before,
during and after her or his experiences.
Tourism and identity-related motivations: an
alternative approach
Falk (2009) suggests that given the degree of
choice and control in deciding which particular
tourist activities to engage in (and when to
engage in them), leisure time activities are
particularly helpful in the task of identity
building. He maintains that we afrm who
we are through the active selection and participation in leisure activities (2009:44) and notes
that the search for identity, through the
medium of leisure, is a pivotal theme in the
twenty-rst century. Falks model of identityrelated motivation is underscored by the
multiple aspects of identity theories put
forward by the likes of Simon (2004) and Gee
(2001); individuals seek to build both their
personal and group identities and use their
leisure time as a means to accomplish this.
Extensive research undertaken in art museums,
zoos, aquariums and science centers by Falk
(2006, 2008, 2009; Falk and Storksdieck, 2010)
suggests that the vast majority of tourists to
these settings arrive with one or more of just
ve broad identity-related visit motivations;
he described these categories as: Explorers
curiosity driven with a generic interest in the
site; Facilitators those who are socially motivated and focus on enabling the experience and
learning in others; Professionals/Hobbyists
those who feel a close tie to the site in relation
to their professional or hobbyist passion;
Experience Seekers those who see the site
as an important destination and satisfaction
derives from having been there and done that
and rechargers those who are primarily
seeking to have a contemplative, spiritual or
restorative experience.
In this paper, we go on to hypothesize that
two additional categories of identity-related
visit motivation likely come into play amongst
tourists to other types of museum-like settings,
Int. J. Tourism Res. 15, 430442 (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/jtr
436
e.g. national shrines/memorials and ethnic
museums, specically: Respectful Pilgrims
those possessing a sense of duty or obligation
to honor the memory of those represented by
the institution/memorial and Community
Seekers those with a strong sense of heritage
and/or personhood. These categories are not
xed or mutually exclusive. The same individual may be motivated by any of these factors
depending on the particular context of a tourist
activity or particular destination visited. An
individual may cultivate or preserve one of
the above identities via the symbolic use of
tourism. In this sense, not only do individuals
use tourism consumption for acquiring or
maintaining a particular aspect of identity, they
may also use it to facilitate identity change.
This can be achieved by temporarily (or
permanently) discarding or disengaging one
aspect of identity in favor of another, as
discussed by Kleine and Kleine, in the Identity
Project Life Cycle (2000, 279285). Even after
casting aside a particular self-aspect, a person
may choose to rebuild or rejuvenate a particular aspect of their identity. Tourism may be
one way in which this rejuvenation can be
achieved.
The complete list of tourist identity-related
motivations is likely much longer than these
seven categories but probably not innite
either. As Falk (2009) argues, the ultimate list
of possible identity-related motivations likely
to be enacted by tourists to specic destinations
is determined only in part by the tourists themselves; it is equally determined by the sociocultural norms of the society. The reason there is
such a short list of dominant identity-related
tourist motivations for tourism activities
worldwide is that worldwide, societies (both
occidental and oriental) have arrived at broad
consensus about what things particular tourist
settings best afford. For example, whether in
China or Columbia, Australia or Germany, it
is generally perceived that museums are good
places for people to go to learn about new
things, express curiosity, learn about ones
personal or national heritage, be a good parent,
etc. The list of acceptable museum affordances
is bounded; the public uses these settings to
satisfy the identity-related needs they possess
that t within these bounds. Similar processes
are at work for all tourism venues. Society
Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
437
Identity (re)
Development
Agency
(individual self)
*Self
Aspects
Identity Maintenance
Structure
(collective self)
Communities of
practice
Commitment;
Role salience;
Role
Aspects
Performance,
relevance
Self
TOURISM
(exploration)
Experiences
Identity Moderation/
(dis)Engagement
Self
Redefining
Aspects
Renewal
438
particular kind of person e.g. a photographer,
a hiker, an art lover or a parent. If an individual
decides that he/she would like to discover
what it is to become a photographer or a hiker,
then action (in this instance tourism) is initiated
to facilitate the discovery of this new self-aspect.
To explore a new or developing self-aspect, the
individual heads off to experience either a
specic destination or undertake a specic
activity. In this sense, tourism is not simply
motivated by the desire for pleasure but is the
medium through which individual and social
identities are negotiated. As a person begins to
internalize a new self-aspect, it becomes more
clearly dened. The person gains a denitive
understanding of what it means to be this kind
of person. As an example, the hobbyist bird
watcher or nature lover gains a deeper understanding of what is required to fulll this role
and undertakes specic steps to maintain this
aspect of the identity i.e. s/he may go hiking
or visit bird parks. Alternatively, a person who
sees his/herself as a spiritual person may choose
to visit a religious site or pilgrimage shrine.
Identity maintenance. Should a person wish to
maintain a particular role or particular aspect
of identity, this component becomes more
clearly dened. The individual develops a
deeper understanding of that identity aspect.
As the individual becomes more aware of
their own skills sets or limitations, they may
also seek out other individuals with similar
interests or with more experience that they
can learn from. This may lead to new social
worlds or new communities of practice. This
skill-seeking behavior may also facilitate
tourist activity, resulting in repeat visitation
and/or undertaking increasingly challenging
activities to maintain a particular identity and
increase the salience of a particular self-aspect.
A photographer may seek new or more remote
areas to photograph; a parent may take his/her
child to experience new or more challenging
learning opportunities. It is also likely that
the social context in which the individual
pursues a particular identity aspect may place
constraints or limitations on an individual.
Other self-aspects of an individuals identity
may also constrain identity-seeking/maintaining
behavior. Specic identity-related tourism roles,
e.g. the role of parent or thrill-seeker, may
Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
439
his/her life; some of which are relatively stable
and others of which can be quite ephemeral.
These core (big I) and situationally dynamic
(little i) identities can and do inuence
an individuals decision to undertake a tourism activity whether this is a visit to a
museum or botanic gardens or a life-changing
pilgrimage journey to the temples of Tibet or
the beaches of Gallipoli. The model posits that
tourism experiences are used by individuals
as important mechanisms for enacting identity; all kinds of identity, both profound
and prosaic. This entire identity-enactment
system is situated within the larger sociocultural context of both the individual and
tourism venue.
A main assumption of this model is that ALL
tourist experiences are in some way motivated
by the individuals self-perceived identityrelated needs and their perceptions of destinations and experiences that afford satisfaction
of those needs. Some of the identity-related
needs enacted through tourism fall within the
I identities of national origin, race/ethnicity,
religion and gender, as has been well documented by numerous tourism researchers. But
most tourism experiences are motivated by i
identity-related needs. Even tourism experiences that seemingly are primarily designed
to satisfy hedonistic needs such as relaxation
and stimulation can be understood through
the lens of identity-related motivations. For
example, sitting under a palm tree on a tropical
beach can be viewed as fullling an identityrelated need. One possible explanation may
be that the person in question perceives
that they are a very busy and beleaguered
individual; one whos ability to function as a
productive member of society will be compromised if they do not get some rest and relaxation. Specically, the person perceives that
sitting under a palm tree on a tropical beach
is how successful people like him/her achieve
this goal. Others may be able to do this by
staying at home and watching television, but
from this individuals perspective, successful
people do this by going to a tropical beach
resort where their needs are attended to and
other people like them are doing the same
thing.
Ultimately, the real payoff in viewing
tourism through this lens is not that they allow
Int. J. Tourism Res. 15, 430442 (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/jtr
440
the researcher to create so many more just-so
stories but rather as discovered by Falk and
his colleagues (Falk et al., 2008; Falk, 2009; Falk
and Storksdieck, 2010) that tourists identityrelated visit motivations permit replicable
predictions about classes of resulting behaviors. It provides insight into why individuals choose to visit certain venues and not
others, what behaviors they enact while at
the tourist venue and most importantly,
enable a measure of qualitative prediction
about the nature and extent of perceived
benets that result from the tourism experience. In other words, understanding this
one key aspect of the tourist experience
tourists identity-related needs affords tourist
operators and researchers alike the ability to
describe and, to a degree, predict the outcomes
of the entire tourism experience.
The Identity-Related Tourism Motivation
model presented here represents a rst
attempt to capture within a single, comprehensive model the multidimensional complexity of identity as it applies to tourist
motivations. A key aspect is that the model
reects the cyclic nature of identity development, maintenance and reconstruction. It also
allows for the possibility that aspects of
identity may be set aside as priorities and
circumstances change. In fact, it suggests that
tourism can be one way through which those
aspects of identity that have been previously
cast aside can be rediscovered or re-imaged
in a way that accounts for changes in the
individuals needs, circumstance or context.
As with any new model, this model will
require empirical testing to determine whether
indeed individuals are consciously aware
of the different aspects of their identity, and
if so, whether they do in fact engage with
tourist experiences in the ways suggested
by the model. For example, do individuals
employ tourism as a means of developing
or enhancing, particular (or perhaps) multiple self-aspects? Do an individuals selfaspects change as a consequence of tourism
experiences? We believe this model presents
a useful framework for initiating identityrelated motivation research and for more
robustly exploring how these and other
identity-related issues impact tourism decisions and outcomes.
Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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