An Investigation into Tourist's Motivating Factors for Selecting a Destination: A Comparison between Inbound and Outbound Destinations (The Case of the City of Tehran)

Tourism industry، nowadays، is considered to be a demand-oriented profession. One of the methods of recognizing the demand is investigating tourists’ motivations for choosing a particular destination upon which the amount and type of supply can be decided. On the other hand، in the geography of spatial behavior، people’s understanding and choice of their surrounding environment is attended to and studied، in other words، it is claimed that an individual’s behavior and perception is derived from his motivations which are divided into “pull-and-push” motivations. A person’s “pull” motivations are originated in the features of the spatial system of a tourist destination. In the current article، via investigating the choosing process of an activity-based destination as an attracting factor، attempts have been made to define، compare، and contrast the spatial model of choosing two outbound destinations، namely Schengen area and Malaysia and an inbound one، i. e. Kish Island، the tourists residing in Tehran. The research method is descriptive via surveys and by means of proper instruments، library deeds and documents، and questionnaires، the required data were collected. To this end، subsequent to choosing appropriate models of “pull and push” factors from among the current models of tourists’ motivation، three types of questionnaires، for each field، were distributed to 416 target tourists. Utilizing the SPSS، the collected data were analyzed by means of Chi Square Tests and LSD (Fisher Least Significant Difference). The results showed that tourists’ imaginations of the facilities and amenities in destinations and the comfort in utilizing them and also the types of activities، not just attractions، are effective in choosing the intended destination.