Notes on Why People Travel and Global Consciousness in Tourism
Origins and Motivations for Travel
Early question: why do people travel, and what makes them choose destinations?
Early method: counting visitors to identify top attractions. Key findings:
Sun, water, and warm climates are the top attractions.
Beautiful natural scenic areas and mountains close second.
Visiting friends is high on the list.
Other attraction aspects were important but less explanatory for why people travel.
Early researchers and names to know: Van Dorn, Tiedmann, Milstin, Cesario, and Ellis, O'Rourke.
Initial approach: attraction indexes considering park size, aesthetic qualities, and distance. Conclusions:
The distribution and quality of recreation resources relative to where the traveler lived strongly influence travel behavior.
This approach failed to measure levels of preference attached to individual experiences, nor how motivation directed trip direction, distance, frequency, and return rate.
Cross-disciplinary shift: Psychologists Johnson and Plog introduced a personality-based view of travelers.
Two main groups:
Locals-passives, or psychocentrics, prefer familiar destinations, relaxation at sun spots, and low activity.
Cosmopolitans, actives, or allocentrics: enjoy discovery and new experiences; seek new areas and different accommodations, not necessarily modern or chain-type facilities.
Crandall and Crandall’s contribution (leisure participation): motivations for vacation may be similar to why people participate in leisure activities.
Crompton’s shift in emphasis: the destination’s function as a medium to satisfy social/psychological needs, not just the attraction itself.
Motives are not place-specific; many travelers aren’t fully aware of their motives until interviews reveal them.
Marketing vs motive realization: researchers note that operators often assume the destination is the main ingredient, but evidence suggests motives and personal needs drive travel more than the place itself.
Psychology Today survey (January 1980): almost all readers; key reasons for taking vacations:
Rest and relaxation: 63 ext{ extbackslash%}
Escape routine: 52 ext{ extbackslash%}
Visit friends and relatives: 45 ext{ extbackslash%}
Recharge or get renewed: 45 ext{ extbackslash%}
Explore new places: 35 ext{ extbackslash%}
Steven Shapiro’s perspective: vacation pleasure may depend on the state of mind; vacations often serve as an escape or crisis flight from home/job, sometimes substituting for therapy.
Summary takeaway: the current understanding is that destination attributes matter, but real motives are embedded in personal needs, motives, and personality, which may not map directly to the destination.
Practical implication for industry: There is ongoing debate about shifting marketing from destination-oriented appeals to addressing underlying motives and personal needs.
Push and Pull Frameworks in Tourism
Pull factors (external attractions that draw people):
Areas of natural scenic beauty
Historic areas
Cultural events and activities
Educational events, attractions, and meetings
Entertainment and spectator sports
Sports participation (e.g., outdoor recreation, golf, tennis)
Social and intangible attractions (visiting with friends/relatives, genealogy)
Push factors (internal motivators arising from inside the traveler):
Need for escape
Self-discovery
Rest and relaxation
Prestige
Kinship
Novelty
Adventure
Challenge
Travel is increasing:
Over half of households travel more than miles from home each year for some type of travel, tourism, or recreation experience.
Despite higher costs (air travel, gasoline) and a sluggish economy, recreation travel has been less affected than other sectors.
Implication for practice:
As social stressors grow, intrinsic motivations for travel are likely to rise further.
Uncertainty remains whether industry marketing will shift from destination-focused appeals to addressing personal motives and awareness.
Key takeaway: travel motivation results from an interplay of push (internal) and pull (external) factors; both must be considered to understand why people travel and what sustains travel behavior.
Motives for Leisure and Travel: Theoretical Perspectives
Crandall’s need-related classifications highlight that motives can be tied to needs, but activities may satisfy multiple needs simultaneously.
Crompton’s perspective: the destination functions as a medium to satisfy social and psychological needs; many motives are not place-specific.
Marketing and research tension: operators often equate destination with appeal, yet research shows internal motives and personality shape travel decisions more deeply.
The marketing challenge: balance between promoting destinations and addressing the broader needs, motives, and emotional responses of travelers.
Psychological and Societal Context of Leisure Travel
Psychology Today survey (1980) summarized motives for vacations (see above): rest, escape, visiting relatives, renewal, and exploration as top drivers.
Mark Twain’s perspective on travel: "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness" (The Innocents Abroad, 1869).
Cautionary note from Mark Twain about tourism: not all travel broadens horizons; there are potential negatives like cultural commodification and superficial experiences.
The dual role of travel:
Educational, ethical, and meaningful alternatives exist as niche responses to the mass tourism model.
Mass tourism can yield cultural homogenization and unintended impacts; alternative tourism seeks reflexivity and learning opportunities.
Travel as a learning experience:
Tourism is an act of learning about other places through direct experience; experiences imprint on memory and shape future interpretations.
Embodied, memory-based learning expands global consciousness and can be transformative for the traveler.
Real-world relevance: the balance between educational/ethical travel and mass tourism shapes policy, business models, and community impacts.
Global Consciousness in Tourism: Foundations and Scope
The basic question: how does travel contribute to global consciousness, and what forms does it take?
Foundational philosophical ideas cited:
Durkheim’s collective consciousness: shared values and beliefs shaping the interpretation of experiences.
Jung’s collective unconscious: archetypes and mythologies that influence interpretation beyond conscious awareness.
Tononi and related theories: consciousness as emergent from selection, synthesis, recall, sharing, and validation of vast sensory input.
Global workspace theory (Baars): consciousness as a mechanism that explains behavior in complex networks; sometimes called the “global brain.”
Travel’s role: offers a distinct embodied perspective that informs global consciousness beyond media and education.
Three forms of global consciousness (Table 1 conceptual framework):
BEING in the world: affective, personal identity, existential experiences, embodiment, and flow; questions of how to become one with the world.
ENGAGEMENT with the world: global empathy, global ethics, global citizenship; concerns about how to feel about, treat, and engage with others.
KNOWLEDGE of the world: place experience, place process, place awareness; knowledge grounded in geography, history, and experiential learning.
Table 1: alignment with learning theories:
Bloom’s taxonomy alignment: knowledge (remembering/understanding) → engagement (application/evaluation) → being (creative/innovative).
Falk et al. linked these concepts to episteme (theoretical knowledge), techne (experiential knowledge/skills), and phronesis (wise, ethical practice).
Important caveat: individuals may enter any state of consciousness at any time and can experience multiple states simultaneously; travel is not a prerequisite for any state.
Figure 1 (conceptual): an open model showing non-linear pathways among states of consciousness.
The practical point: travel enables shifts in consciousness through exposure, embodied experience, and reflexive engagement with places and people.
Three Modes of Global Consciousness: Knowledge, Engagement, Being
Summary of Table 1:
KNOWLEDGE of the world
Place experience: Travel and tourism (how a place feels)
Place process: Social and physical sciences (why and how a place works)
Place awareness: Ideographic geography (what and where a place is)
ENGAGEMENT with the world
Global empathy: Sense of compassion (how to feel about others)
Global ethics: Sense of fairness (how to treat others)
Global citizenship: Sense of responsibility (how to behave in another place)
BEING in the world
Love of self, other, place, and world; affectivity and emotions
Personal narrative and identity formation; existential experiences; embodiment and flow
Existential questions: How to become one with the world? How to experience a place?
Integrating these realms: knowledge fuels engagement and being; engagement deepens knowledge and shapes being, creating a holistic, evolving global consciousness.
Knowledge of the World: Place-Based Understanding and Marketing
Knowledge as the foundation: the tourism industry often emphasizes place knowledge through marketing (Lew, 1991).
Motivation rooted in knowledge of place phenomena: history, fame, sun/sand/sea, economy, ancestry, hobbies, etc.; unconscious archetypes like sex and seduction may be involved but interpreted as real phenomena by tourists.
Experiential knowledge gained during travel adds to conceptual knowledge and can significantly alter consciousness, regardless of whether the experience meets expectations.
The marketing implication: providing factual, sensory, and spatial information helps travelers form place-based knowledge, which is a gateway to deeper engagement and being in the world.
Sustainability and holistic perspectives (connection to global consciousness): place-based knowledge can align with ideas like the Gaia hypothesis and environmental ethics, informing responsible travel choices.
Engagement with the World: Ethics, Empathy, and Citizenship
Engagement involves affect, reflexivity, and moral consideration in relation to places and people.
Not all sites naturally foster ethical engagement; historically significant sites (e.g., Holocaust, slave trade, wars, disasters) offer opportunities for critical reflection and ethical learning.
NGOs and alternative travel providers contribute to ethical discourse and experiential reflexivity within tourism.
The role of education and reflexivity: experiential learning opportunities can deepen global empathy and ethical behavior.
The broader sustainability frame: engagement supports responsible travel, social justice, and care for place and people.
Being in the World: Embodiment, Identity, and Transcendent Experiences
Being in the world entails a deeper, often transformative experience: embodiment, personal identity formation, and existential engagement.
Travel experiences may generate communitas and a sense of belonging beyond the typical outsider/insider dichotomy (as discussed by Relph and others).
Forms of experience linked to being in the world include: existential insights, novelty, and moments of transcendence; some travelers pursue forms of adventure tourism or spiritual/alternative travel to evoke these states.
The idea of a Theory of Everything (TOE) in travel: a comprehensive, holistic experience that blends personal growth with a sense of unity with the world.
While not all travelers achieve these states, travel marketing often promises such transformative experiences, even though they cannot be guaranteed.
Implications for research and practice: recognizing that being in the world is highly personalized and context-dependent helps explain varying traveler outcomes and fulfills deeper customer desires.
Critiques, Ethics, and the Paradox of Tourism
The global consciousness framework invites critique of the traditional tourism narrative:
There can be overemphasis on commodification and homogenization of places.
Cross-cultural misunderstandings and cultural appropriation can accompany travel.
Responses to critique:
Some professionals advocate niche, educational, ethical, and meaningful travel alternatives to counter mass tourism downsides.
Reflection and reflexivity are encouraged to minimize harm and maximize learning for both tourists and host communities.
The knowledge/power dynamic of tourism: tourism shapes and is shaped by media, education, and institutional structures; awareness of these dynamics encourages more responsible travel.
Global Sense of Place and the Future of Tourism
Time-space compression (Harvey, 1990): technology and globalization are shrinking distances, increasing economic and cultural interconnections, sometimes provoking anti-globalization responses.
Population growth adds pressure on resources and the social/environmental context of travel and tourism.
Massey (1997) and the concept of a global sense of place: recognizing the global as an integral part of the local; developing immersive experiences and emotional engagement as essential for deep learning.
Tourism’s paradox: it can shrink the planet through mobility while also offering embodied expansion of knowledge, awareness, and consciousness.
Not everyone travels, and not every traveler achieves a deep global consciousness; however, travel provides a pathway for those who do engage to develop more knowledgeable, engaged, and reflective worldviews.
Final takeaway: travel is a vehicle for expanding global consciousness, but its benefits depend on how it is experienced, framed, and integrated with ethical, educational, and personal growth goals.
Conclusion: Why We Travel and What It Means for Consciousness
We live in an increasingly interconnected world with rapid mobility and complex global challenges.
Travel catalyzes shifts in consciousness across knowledge, engagement, and being, contributing to personal growth and broader global awareness.
The essential insight: travel is not just about the destination; it is a process of inner and outer transformation that can foster empathy, ethics, and a more nuanced understanding of our planet.
This is why we travel: to expand knowledge, deepen engagement with the world, and pursue being-in-the-world through embodied, transformative experiences.
Key References and Concepts to Remember
Early researchers: Van Dorn, Tiedmann, Milstin, Cesario, Ellis, O'Rourke.
Psychologists: Johnson and Plog (personality-based traveler types).
Crandall; Crompton (motives and destination as a medium).
Psychological data: Psychology Today (1980) study with respondents and motives: 63 ext{ extbackslash%} rest/relaxation, 52 ext{ extbackslash%} escape routine, 45 ext{ extbackslash%} visit friends, 45ext{ extbackslash recharge, 35 ext{ extbackslash%} explore.
Notable quotes:
Mark Twain: "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness… broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetation in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime."
John Leherer: "We travel because distance and difference are the secret tonic of creativity."
Theoretical foundations: Durkheim, Jung, Tononi, Baars, Bloom, Falk, LePêcheur et al. (as cited in Table 1 and surrounding text).
Time-space concepts: Harvey (time-space compression); Massey (global sense of place).
Conceptual model: three approaches to global consciousness (Knowledge, Engagement, Being) with corresponding experiences and learning theory alignments (Bloom’s taxonomy; episteme, techne, phronesis).