Socio-demographic Variables and Push Travel Motivation: Tourists Visiting a Protected Area in South Africa

Abstract

This study aims to explore the key push travel motivation factors from Dann’s theory of push and pull motivation and analysed the influence of tourists’ socio-demographic variables on push travel motivation factors to visit protected areas (PAs). Data were collected via a structured questionnaire from 435 randomly selected tourists visiting Hluhluwe-iMfolozi park (HiP). Data analyses employed descriptive statistics to generate frequencies, mean scores and standard deviations using IBM's SPSS version 28 software. Mann-Whitney Wilcoxon test implemented in Stata software version 15 was employed. The findings revealed that the key tourists push factors are “relaxation and family togetherness”. The study further indicates that demographic variables such as “nationality, residency, employment status and age” have significant effects on tourists’ overall push factors (i.e., relaxation, social interaction, family togetherness, and prestige motivation). Based on the findings, the study made recommendations directed to the park management focusing on promoting and sustaining activities that address the key push motivation factors.