Investigating the Relationship between Ecotourism Motivations and Site Revisit at Soleyman-Tangeh Region in Sari, Mazandaran Province

Motivation is considered as the main driving force in tourists’ behavior and an important basis for their decision making. This study sought to examine the ecotourists’ motivations for their travels and the impact of motivations (intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation) on their intention to revisit the destination according to the self-determined psychological theory. To this end, a questionnaire was administered on 163 visitors of the Soleiman-Tangeh region during the first week of August 2015 who were selected via convenience sampling. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistical methods, mean and one-sample t-test. To examine the relationship between variables, Pearson correlation coefficient and stepwise multiple regression analysis were utilized.The findings of the study showed that from among the three forms of ecotourists’ motivation, i.e., intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, amotivation, it was merely the intrinsic motivation that had a significant and positive relationship with the possibility of revisiting the Soleiman-Tangeh region, indicating that an increase in the ecotourists’ intrinsic motivation would increase the chances of revisiting the Soleiman-Tangeh region in the future.