ng konar - 2015 - determinants of travel motivation a pls-sem approach towards maldivians traveling...

21st Asia Pacific Tourism Association Annual Conference

DEVELOPMENTS OF THE NEW TOURISM PARADIGM IN THE ASIA PACIFIC REGIONMay 14-17, 2015Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS

APTA 2015

APTA 2015, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 14th-17th May 2015 426

DETERMINANTS OF TRAVEL MOTIVATION: A PLS-SEM APPROACH TOWARDS MALDIVIANS TRAVELING OVERSEAS

David [email protected]

Rupam [email protected]

Taylors University

Over the past decades, tourism behavior has been studied extensively in terms of travel patterns, typologies and motivations that affect travel related decisions. In this study, push factors for motivation to travel outbound has been determined in the context of Maldivians residents living in the capital city, Male. Increasing number of Maldivians travelling to different destinations for many purposes, the main purpose of this research is to examine push factors that motivate Maldivians to travel overseas. However for travel motivation, these push factors must have positive impact in order for Maldivians to travel. A motivation model has been applied in this study with a quantitative design approach using non-proba-bility convenience sampling method to collect 268 valid questionnaires. The findings shows that escape as a factor has a strong significant prediction towards travel motivation whereas as a matter of prestige for Maldivians does not affect their outbound travel motivation. As the findings are beneficial to marketing and managerial decision makers in Asia and elsewhere by indicating important push factors that they can apply for attracting visitors with such motives.

Keywords: Travel motivation; Push Factors; partial least squares (PLS); Maldives

INTRODUCTION

Travel motives determine the reasons why a tourist would select to visit a certain place or engage in a certain activity. People might travel to relax, escape, build relationships, explore culture and even experience something new. McGuires psycho-logical motives define a classification system of in-ternal and external motives that are likely used in consumption situations (Kinley, Forney & Kim, 2012).Internal travel motivations include the need for autonomy and tension reduction, while external motivations include the need for stimulation, utili-tarian benefit, expression and affiliation (McGuire, 1976). The Maldives, a low lying nation of 1,190 islands is located south of India and Sri Lanka (Kundur, 2012). The concept of sun, sea and sand are the key reasons why tourists flock to the high-end resorts of this nation where the climate is hot and humid with the sun shining year round through wet and dry seasons. Today, the islands that have been developed into resorts have increased to 110 as of the end of 2013 (Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Republic of Maldives, 2014).

Figure 1 Accommodation Establishments and Bed Capacity, 2009-2013

DEVELOPMENTS OF THE NEW TOURISM PARADIGM IN THE ASIA PACIFIC REGION 427

Over the past decades, tourism behavior has been studied extensively in terms of travel patterns, typologies and motivations that affect travel related decisions. The resorts in Maldives are developed in such a way that the tourists and the locals are separated into 2 types of islands (Auvray, 2010). This means that the locals are contained on the in-habited islands while the tourists are allowed to spend time on islands that have been developed for luxurious resorts with steeply price. Tourists only interact with locals during the excursions where they visit the inhabited islands for a few hours. Due to this seclusion, Maldivians do not tend travel to re-sorts for leisure but instead seek options such as visiting other inhabited islands to stay with friends and family. In 2009, the government of Maldives announced plans to authorize the building and oper-ation of guesthouses in inhabited islands (Smith, 2009). Before 2009, this was illegal in inhabited islands with the exception of the capital city, Male. This change came about with the falling arrivals of tourists due to the recession of 2008-2009. Additionally, an important objective of this change was to make Maldives a more affordable destination for the markets searching for budget deals along with the real Maldivian experience. With the plans being finalized, locals started investing in infra-structure and in the case of some islands, trans-portation systems such as private ferries. However, even with these cheaper, more valuable deals that the locals can take advantage of in order to explore various islands of Maldives, outbound travel sta-tistics are still increasing. In this study, travel moti-vation factors that determine Maldivians towards outbound travel were examined with the residents living in the capital city Male, Maldives to under-stand what drives Maldivians to travel overseas. Cromptons Motivation for pleasure vacation is concerned with identifying the motives of pleasure vacationers which influence the selection of a desti-nation (Crompton, 1979). He identified nine mo-tives, out of which seven were classified as so-cio-psychological push factors and two formed the pull category. The researcher is focusing the study only on push factors that motivates Maldivians to travel abroad; this section will review the four push factors under Cromptons motives and other liter-ature that has studies these factors as well.

Background of the Study

Travel Motivation

According to OLeary & Deegan (2005), tour-ism motivation can be defined as the combination of needs and desires that affect the propensity to travel in the general sense. Several studies present what motivates travelers from different nationalities to visit foreign countries: reasons for Chinese trav-elers to visit New Zealand (Ryan & Mo, 2001), motivation of Chinese tourists visiting Singapore (Kau & Lim, 2005), why German and British travelers are visiting Mallorca and Turkey (Kozak, 2002), Japanese travelers' reasons for visiting the U.S. and Canada (Jang et al., 2002), reasons of foreign tourists to visit Jordan (Mohammad & Som, 2010). A large number of researches in the field of tourism motiva-tion are focused on two main categories: push factors and pull factors. The first category refers to internal stimuli that push people to travel, to seek experiences that meet their needs and desires like recreation, escape, social interaction, pleasure seek-ing, fun, etc. The second category includes external factors especially related to attributes and attractives-ness of the destination (Mohammad & Som, 2010). However, these motivations are interrelated and have a dynamic evolution depending on situational factors (Correia, 2004). A highly relevant aspect is that tour-ism motivation is a complex concept that significantly influence the decision making process of a tourist (McCabe, 2000).

Researchers attempting to define tourist moti-vation typically develop a list of the reasons for travel. While there are similarities among the lists and each list have its theoretical strengths and weaknesses, most lack a means of operationalization and empirical support. Travel motives determine the reasons why a tourist would select to visit a certain place or engage in a certain activity. People might travel to relax, escape, build relationships, explore culture and even experience something new. McGuires psychological motives define a classification system of internal and external motives that are likely used in consumption situations (Kinley, Forney , & Kim, 2012).Internal travel motivations include the need for autonomy and tension reduction, while external motivations in-clude the need for stimulation, utilitarian benefit, expression and affiliation(McGuire , 1976).


According to Crompton (1979), travel motiva-tion is a critical factor and a driving force behind tourist behavior but understanding tourists motiva-tions remains vague to tourism researchers (cited in Hsu & Huang, 2009). Pearce (2005) highlights that although there has been an awareness of the need to develop motivation theories; existing ap-proaches only partially meet the requirements of a good theory. According to Hee, L., Basak, G., Rob, L., & Rosanna, L. (2012), people travel to particular destinations because these destinations satisfy their desire for such things as escape, relaxa-tion, and spending time with family members and friends. Additionally, the inherent desire to travel is further stimulated and reinforced by destination attributes such as beaches, cultural attractions, shop-ping, and other attractions. Different motivational attributes result in different destination choices. In tourism research, travel career ladder (TCL) theory postulates changes in travelers motivation with their travel experience (Pearce &Lee, 2005). Based on Maslows hierarchy of needs theory of motiva-tion, Hee, L. et.al (2012) asserted that the TCL theo-ry posits that motivation to travel is developed from relaxation needs; safety and security needs; relation-ship needs; self-esteem and development needs; through to self-actualization and fulfillment needs according to travelers accumulated travel experiences. In contrast to the TCL theory, Pearce and Lee (2005) found empirically that novelty, es-cape and relaxation, relationships (with travel com-panions), and self-development are core travel moti-vation factors regardless of travel experience. In the last few years, some of the founding figures of this area of study have reflected on their earlier work and noted the evolution and greater sophistication in dealing with this topic (Crompton, 2005; Iso-Ahola, 2011; Pearce, 2011; Plog, 2011). In this study, the researchers have adopted Cromptons Motivation for pleasure vacation model (2005) to understand Maldivians travel market particularly the motivation factors.

Cromptons Motivation for Pleasure Vacation

Cromptons Motivation for pleasure vaca-tion is concerned with identifying the motives of pleasure vacationers which influence the selection of a destination (Crompton, 1979). Travelers select a tourism destination by comparing perceived facili-

tators and perceived inhibitors. Travelers tend to have a more positive attitude toward a tourism desti-nation when the destination satisfies specific moti-vation for pleasure travel. Consequently, a plethora of studies has investigated how different types of travel motivations (i.e. pull and push motivations) affect travel destination selection (Crompton, 1979; Cha, McCleary, &Uysal, 1995; Yoon &Uysal, 2005; Keating &Kriz, 2008; Kim, 2008). Push motivation factors are related to the internal, emotional aspects of travel, such as the desire for rest and relaxation, escape from routine, adventure, excitement, and family unity (cited in Hee, L., et.al, 2012). However, according to Uysal & Hagan (1993), Push factors are origin-related and refer to the intangible, in-trinsic desires of the individual traveler, e.g. the de-sire for escape, rest and relaxation, adventure, health or prestige. In this study, the researchers focused only on push factors that motivates Maldivians to travel abroad; therefore, the following section re-viewed the four push factors under Cromptons mo-tives and other relevant literatures as well.

Escape

From an escape-seeking dichotomy per-spective (Yoon & Uysal, 2005), a tourist tries to escape mundane life by seeking satisfactory experiences. A study researching the motivation of Korean golf tourists state that escape needs may occur when people are aware of the difficulties ex-perienced when booking a game in their own coun-try or the lack of gold courses there (Kim , 2007). Therefore, difficulties that the individual face in the residential place can push them to escape that specif-ic place. Another study that investigated the push and pull motivations of visitors to private parks not-ed that the push factor escape and health received higher importance ratings by the oldest age group (above 30) and also the youngest age group (below 20), who generally work or study full time (Phau, Lee, & Quintal, 2013).This indicates that they work or study long hours and are looking to escape their daily pace of life.

In addition, H.C. Hsua, L.A. Cai, K.F. Wong (2007) initiates an original inquiry into the motiva-tions of senior tourism in China, a developing coun-try which witnesses the fastest rate of aging in the world and is at the same time emerging as a global


tourism superpower. They found that escaping daily routine is one of the main reasons to travel for vaca-tion out of the seven elements in their internal desire model. In this particular study, seven of the inter-viewees expressed that they travel because they want to escape their daily routine and to experience different things in another environment. Although most of them are very contended with their current living conditions, they still expressed a need for and, therefore, consciously sought, some form of stimulation to make them feel energetic and active after retirement. Traveling, therefore, is regarded as one of the stimulators. This is a reflection of the Chinese proverb thatThe old horse in the stable still yearns to run 1,000 miles. Based on previous studies the following hypothesis is formulated.

H1: Escape plays a significant role in outbound trav-el of Maldivians.

Relaxation

A study that represented an exploratory at-tempt to capture the underlying reasons for tourist decision to visit Barbados tested four statements un-der the factor relaxation and it was one of the factors ranked as the most important motivations for visiting Barbados (Jnsson & Devonish, 2008). According to P. Naidoo, P. Ramseook-Munhurrun, N.V. Seebaluck, S. Janvier (2014), the main push factor for baby boomers to go for adventure toruism was mainly fun and relaxation. These people need relieve from tension and stress, relax and refresh, and try something new and seek new sensation.

Kozak (2002) reported that there are sim-ilarities and differences in four motivational factors between British and German tourists who visit Turkey and Mallorca. British tourists demonstrated a greater propensity towards pleasure-seek-ing/fantasy motivational factors compared to German tourists who showed a higher preference for relaxation and physical motivational factors than their British counterparts. Hung and Petrick (2011) examined the role that motivation played on intention to cruise by developing a measurement scale for cruise motivations. The authors found re-laxation, enhancing kinship relationships or friend-ships, and convenience, were the major motivations for taking a cruise. It was also established that moti-

vation had a positive influence on cruising intention. Again, Huang and Tsai (2003) attempted to discover Taiwanese seniors travel motivations while delin-eating their travel behavior. Their study claimed that many Taiwanese seniors chose Get rest and relaxa-tion (35.6%) and Meet people and socialization (20.1%) as their travel motivation. Other studies by (Ghazi, Ali, Shahzad, Khan, & Hukamdad, 2010; Lam & Hsu, 2006; Chuo & Heywood, 2006), sup-ported the same phenomena, which helped to for-mulate the

H2: Relaxation plays a significant role in outbound travel of Maldivians.

PRESTIGE

A study analyzing the push and pull travel motivations of foreign tourists to Jordan stated that fulfilling prestige was the most important travel mo-tivational factor to Jordan (Mohammad & Som, 2010). An empirical study conducted by Kim and Lee (2000) reported that the significance of three domains (prestige/ status, family togetherness, nov-elty) out of a possible five, on the travel motivations of Anglo-American and Japanese tourists. Japanese tourists showed more interest on the prestige/status and the family togetherness motivation domains compared to Anglo-American tourists. Conversely, Anglo-American tourists placed more importance on the novelty seeking domain compared to Japanese respondents. The study concluded that the difference of travel motivation is likely to result from a gap between Anglo-American and Japanese cultures. That is, Japanese tourists tend to show more collectivistic characteristics in seeking travel motivation, while American tourists tend to show more individualistic characteristics. Hua and Yoo (2011) reported that the China outbound market was relatively under-researched and that during the peri-od 1999-2010 only eight articles reported on the motivations of Chinese outbound tourists. The most common motivational factors for Chinese tourists to travel overseas in these studies were knowledge, prestige, enhancing personal relationships, relaxa-tion, experiencing different cultures and lifestyles, and shopping. Lu (2011) further identified push fac-tors: prestige and families ties as main motivation for Chinese tourists to Canada. A good under-standing of these factors is essential for a country


with abundant travel resources and tourist attractions in developing the right tourism products and design-ing a successful marketing campaign. However, a study exploring the relationships between so-cio-demographic variables, travel motivations and subsequent choice of vacation for Danish travelers presented that prestige/impression was not deemed fairly important to Danish travelers (Jensen, 2011). The next hypotheses stated as,

H3: Prestige plays a significant role in outbound travel of Maldivians.

SOCIAL INTERACTION

According to Bogari et al. (2004) who studied push motivations of visitors to Saudi Arabia identi-fied nine push factors out of which one factor was social interaction (Phau, Lee , & Quintal, 2013). C.H.C. Hsu et al. (2007) found that social interaction is another main reason to travel for vacation out of the seven elements in their internal desire model. These seniors consider travel as an opportunity to meet and communicate with other people. They con-sider travel as an opportunity to meet and communi-cate with other people. The seniors can have many things to talk when they meet, so that they can forget about all the tiredness and worries in their lives. Kim, S. S., Lee, C., & Klenosky, D. (2003) in their study to find out the influence of push and pull factors at Korean National Parks reported that the park visitors were mostly seek for new environment to release stress from work and most importantly building networking through meeting new friends in the park who have similar interest. Interestingly, there was another interesting study examines the motivational factors and perceived value of Hong Kong volunteer tourists. The results of a focus group

and in-depth interviews reveal social interaction as one of the five main motives for travelers to partake in volunteer trips (A.S. Lo, & C.Y.S. Lee, 2011). Teye and Leclerc (2003) observed the motivations to cruise in relation to cruise tourists ethnicity. The findings indicated while white Caucasian and ethnic minority cruisers were generally motivated by a set of common factors, a number of important differences existed. A factor analysis ascertained that the most important motives for white Caucasians were the social dimensions i.e. social interaction, the cultural discovery, and family and kinship, while for ethnic minorities these were the opportunity for uninhibited pursuits, the cultural discovery, and the entertainment opportunities. Petrick, Li, and Park (2007) using Cromptons (1992) choice set model, studied cruise passengers decision making process. Their results indicated loyalty, social interaction as one of the main reasons influencing the decision to go on a cruise. The fourth hypotheses is stated as

H4: Social interaction plays a significant role in outbound travel of Maldivians.

The previous literature reveals a general pat-tern of tourists motivations across different regions and countries, including social interaction, relaxa-tion, prestige, escape mundane life and tourists-re-lated motives. These were pooled together to devel-op a motivation scale based on Cromptons motiva-tion model for this study. In this study, one of the main objectives was to empirically test whether pos-itive and negative affects significantly influence Maldivians travel motivations. Understanding these motivation factors (push factors) is crucial for mar-keting and managerial decision makers especially in the growing market in Asia.


Figure 2 Framework Developed for this Study

METHODOLOGY

The primary purpose of this study is to identi-fy the push factors for the Maldivian traveling over-seas, using a quantitative survey design to under-stand the significance of certain push factors in their decision. This study is made used of structured ques-tionnaires in order to collect data. A travel motiva-tion research framework analyses the results of the survey to test the hypotheses. Questionnaires were distributed online to the targeted respondents of the study mainly to the resident travelers of Male, Maldives through online social media websites us-ing self-selection non probability sampling. Since the respondents are residing in another country, on-line methods proved to be efficient to manage time and distance constraints that the researcher faced. The use of online quantitative research has become accepted and widely prevalent throughout North America. (Balden & Wittman, 2008). The researcher has adopted six of the push factors and multiple statements are provided for each factor to ensure reliability to yield similar readings. The statements under each factor measures the push motivations of Cromptons study which includes escape, explor-ing and evaluating self, relaxation, prestige, enhanc-ing relationships and facilitating social interaction.

Contextualizing these factors in Maldives through three expert reviews (Devellis, 2003) four of the seven factors from the Cromptons model are found to be most suitable for this study, which are escape, prestige, relaxation and social interaction. Some of these statements and factors have been adapted to suit the environment of the city of Male, which is comprehensively explained under the conceptual model included in the theoretical framework. A widely used Likert scale of 1-5 that ranges from Strongly disagree to Strongly agree has been used to scale responses. The sample sizes of the these papers were specifically taken into consid-eration over the other literature that were reviewed due to the fact that the above mentioned studies have the closest relationship with the topic. Additionally, the places where the research was con-ducted have population sizes that are similar to the city of Male. For the purpose of this study, 300 questionnaires were distributed based on the sample size criteria highlighted by Peng and Lai (2012) for SEM models, which is ten times the total number of indicators in the study, there was a response rate of 89.3% (n=268) were collected among that 44.4% were females and 55.6% were males and used for analysis using partial least squares based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). For this study, hy-


potheses were tested using SmartPLS version 2.0 to conduct the analysis (Ringle, Wende & Will, 2005). The PLS analysis for this study was found to be useful as one the factor using single item for measurement (Hair et al., 2013). The PLS algorithm technique also determined the significance levels of the loadings, weights, and path coefficients and the bootstrapping (5000 resample) for determine the significance level of the hypotheses as suggested by Anderson and Gerbing (1988).

FINDINGS AND RESULTS

First, the demographics were analyzed from a sample size of 268 majority, the Table 1 shows that 50.4% were between 22-25 years, 20.5% were 18-21 years and followed by 18.7% of 26-29 years among them 45.9% of the respondents have the trav-el frequency of once in year where other 31.3% have twice a year with a majority margin of 7-14 days (30.2%) of duration for the trip.

Table 1. Demographics

Frequency (n) Percentage (%)Gender

Female 119 44.4Male 149 55.6Total 268 100.0

AgeLess than 18 9 3.418-21 years 55 20.522-25 years 135 50.426-29 years 5 18.730 and above 19 7.1Total 268 100.0

Occupation Employed in the private sector 69 25.7Employed in the public sector 52 19.4Self-employed 23 8.6Student 113 42.2Unemployed 11 4.1Total 268 100.0

Monthly Income (Maldivian Rufiyaa)Less than MRF 5,000 63 23.5MRF 5,000 MRF 10,000 108 40.3MRF 10,000 MRF 15,000 46 17.2MRF 15,000 and above 51 19.0Total 268 100.0

Travel FrequencyOnce a year 123 45.9Twice a year 84 31.3Thrice a year 28 10.4Other 33 12.3Total 268 100.0

Trip Length 1-3 days 60 22.43-7 days 72 26.97-14 days 81 30.2More than 14 days 55 20.5Total 268 100.0


The first measurement of the motivation mod-el was tested for the convergent validity which was assessed through factor loading, composite reli-ability (CR) and average variances extracted (AVE) (Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson & Tatham, 2006). The Table 2 shows that all the loadings indicators indicates that the latent construct, exceeded the rec-ommended value of 0.6 (Chin, 1998). According

to Hair et al. (2006) the recommended value of con-struct indicators is 0.7, as the values of reliability constructs represented here in have exceeded recom-mendation level. The average variance extracted, which reveals the total amount of variance in the indicators responsible for by the latent construct, surpassed the mentioned value of 0.5 (Hair et al., 2006).

Table 2. Validity and reliability for constructs

Outer Loadings AVEa CRb

Relaxation 0.560 0.861C10A 0.757C10B 0.840C10C 0.763C10D 0.739C10E 0.613

Social Interaction 0.577 0.843C11A 0.773C11B 0.810C11C 0.743C11D 0.701

Prestige 0.623 0.892C12A 0.758C12B 0.830C12C 0.815C12D 0.817C12E 0.721

Escape 0.673 0.860C13A 0.759C13B 0.808C13C 0.888

Motivation to Travel 1.000 1.000C14A 1.000

aAVE = (summation of squared factor loadings) / (summation of squared factor loadings) (summation of error variances)

bComposite reliability = (square of the summation of the factor loadings) / [(square of the summation of the factor loadings) + (square of the summation of the error variances)]

In the next test we have assessed the discrim-inant validity that refers to the measurement of the variables which are not a reflection of other varia-bles, indicated by low correlations between the in-terest and the measures of other constructs (Ali & Omar, 2014). The output from the table 2 reveals that square root of the AVE (diagonal values) of

each construct is larger than its parallel correlation measurements, which indicates towards an accept-able discriminant validity (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). The second measurement for the model also showed acceptable convergent and discriminant validity.


Table 3. Discriminant validity

Construct Escape Social Interaction Prestige Relaxation Motivation to TravelEscape 0.820*

Social Interaction 0.667 0.760*Prestige 0.624 0.778 0.789*

Relaxation 0.731 0.744 0.734 0.748*Motivation to Travel 0.698 0.671 0.609 0.700 1.000**

Note*: The square root of AVE of every multi-item construct is shown on the main diagonal.Note**: Motivation to Travel is single-item construct

Furthermore, the Table 3 has compared the loadings and also indicated that an indicators load-ings on its own construct are higher than all of its

cross loadings with other constructs. The cross load-ings criterion are based on discriminant validity be-tween all the construct.

Table 4. Cross loadings

Constructs Escape Motivation to Travel Prestige Relaxation Social InteractionC10A 0.519 0.601 0.643 0.757 0.671C10B 0.662 0.700 0.511 0.840 0.645C10C 0.552 0.519 0.636 0.763 0.514C10D 0.536 0.467 0.561 0.739 0.528C10E 0.438 0.458 0.402 0.613 0.459C11A 0.485 0.475 0.741 0.602 0.773C11B 0.548 0.522 0.720 0.613 0.810C11C 0.343 0.447 0.598 0.547 0.743C11D 0.597 0.674 0.347 0.547 0.701C12A 0.525 0.443 0.758 0.553 0.529C12B 0.507 0.523 0.830 0.631 0.764C12C 0.456 0.440 0.815 0.579 0.599C12D 0.442 0.515 0.817 0.622 0.588C12E 0.531 0.430 0.721 0.466 0.540C13A 0.759 0.531 0.582 0.546 0.575C13B 0.808 0.546 0.406 0.588 0.500C13C 0.888 0.727 0.542 0.670 0.582C14A 0.699 1.000 0.608 0.706 0.677

a Bold values are loadings for items which are above the recommended value of 0.6.

STRUCTURAL MODEL

To test the hypotheses and structural model we used SmartPLS 2.0 (Ringle et al., 2005). A 500 iterations of bootstrapping procedure was performed to examine the statistical significance of the value of sub-constructs and the path coefficients (Chin, Peterson & Brown, 2008). The PLS does not gen-erate overall goodness of fit marks, the primary way to evaluate the explanatory power of the model is

through the R2 value (Wasko & Faraj, 2005). The Goodness of Fit (GoF) index measures the model fit by using geometric mean of the average commu-nality and the average R2 (for endogenous con-structs). The cut-off values for assessing the results was introduced by Hoffmann and Birnbrich (2012) for the GoF analysis; GoFsmall = 0.1; GoFmedium = 0.25; GoFlarge = 0.36. The results according to the Table5 for GoF index valued as 0.696, which indicates as a very good model fit.


Table 5. Goodness of Fit Index

AVE R2

Relaxation 0.748Prestige 0.789Escape 0.820

Social Interaction 0.760Motivation to Travel 1.000 0.587

Average Scores 0.824 0.587AVE*R2 0.484

(GOF = (AVE x R2)) 0.696

The Table 6 shows the tested hypotheses test-ing in the structural model. The correct R2s refers to the explanation power of the predictor variables on the dependent construct. The escape, prestige, relaxation and social interaction all together explains 58.7% of Maldivians motivation towards travel (R2 = 0.587). In concerns to validity of the model, Chin et al. (2008) categorized endogenous latent variables as important, moderate or weak based on the R2

value of 0.67, 0.33, or 0.19 respectively. Studied variables in this study; escape, prestige, relaxation and social interaction towards motivation to travel (R2 = 0.587) can be described as moderate. In addi-tion, all four hypotheses (H1, H2, H3, and H4) have shown a strong positive significant value indicating that escape, prestige, relaxation and social inter-action are good predictors for motivation to travel variable.

Table 6. Structural estimates (hypotheses testing)

Hypotheses Standard Beta Standard Error T-Statistics H1 Escape -> Motivation to Travel 0.340 0.013 26.564**H2 Prestige -> Motivation to Travel 0.037 0.016 02.216*H3 Relaxation -> Motivation to Travel 0.256 0.020 12.706**H4 Social Interaction -> Motivation to Travel 0.219 0.018 10.799**

Note: Critical t-values. **2.58 (P


travel to mostly can focus on the factors that are significant in influencing Maldivians to travel overseas. These factors can enable them to de-termine tourist typologies and package and market products accordingly, making it easier to reach the target market.

Limitation of this research offer opportunities for future investigation. The study focuses on influ-encing travel motivation factors for Maldivians. In order to increase the effectivity of the model, a fur-ther study with a qualitative approach is more rec-ommended to understand other factors, as this study is based on adopted framework model tested in the context of Maldives. Although few of the variables were intentionally deleted from the analyses, as rec-ommend new variables can be derived from more extensive qualitative approach.

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ng konar - 2015 - determinants of travel motivation a pls-sem approach towards maldivians traveling...

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