Influence of pull factors on the travel motivation of foreign tourists towards Bodrum-Turkey destination

The pull factors play an important role in effectively marketing a tourist destination. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to determine the pull factors that affected the foreign tourists' choice of Bodrum as their holiday destination. The study used the questionnaire technique in order to collect the data from the foreign tourists visiting the Bodrum destination in 2019. The frequency analysis and statistical tests such as reliability analysis, factor analysis, t-test and variance analysis were applied to the data obtained through the survey. As a result of the factor analysis, the pull factors affecting the foreign tourists' preferences of Bodrum were found out as being price, accessibility, promotion and marketing, service quality, safety and security. Among these pull factors that affected the choice of holiday destination for foreign tourists, safety and security were identified as the most important factor. This result suggests that the pull factor of safety and security were effective in choosing Bodrum as a tourist destination.


Introduction
International tourism industry is one of the most rapidly growing industries in the world. When the current international environment and the disposable income all over the world and the increase in leisure times are taken into consideration, more international tourists are expected to arrive in many tourist countries. Tourism is one of the main components of the economic development strategy of many countries across the world. The attractiveness of tourism as a source of income, employment, tax collections and foreign exchange gain causes many countries to be in the competition of attracting international tourists to their own destinations. While countries try to increase their foreign visitor shares, it becomes important to understand why people travel and why they choose a certain destination over other tourist destinations. Therefore, the travel motivation has become a focal point for the travel satisfaction in tourism literature (Oh, Uysal and Weaver, 1995). Though the travel motivation is just a single variable explaining the tourist behavior, it is seen as one of the most important concepts due to the fact that it is a push and pull powers behind all tourist behaviors. The theory frequently used for the examination of the travel motivations of the tourists is called as the motivation theory covering the push and pull factors (You et al., 2000;Yousefi and Marzuki, 2012).
The frame of the push and pull factors is to provide a basic and intuitive approach to explain the motivations underlying the tourist behavior. According to this frame, while the push factors attribute to certain powers in life causing to deciding of going on a holiday, the pull factors are expressed as the factors leading an individual to choose a tourist destination. Push factors are related to the needs and demands of the tourists such as the wish for going on holiday out of their place of residence, resting and relaxing, adventure, prestige, health and social interaction. Pull factors are related to the characteristics of a destination and the factors that attract individuals to a destination. For instance, natural attractions, cultural and historical heritages, festivals and accommodation opportunities are seen as being the pull factor elements (Klenosky, 2002;Correia, Do Valle and Moço, 2007).
Many factors covering the economic, social, cultural and demographic characteristics are effective on the holiday choice and purchasing decisions of the tourists. Crompton (1979) defines the elements affecting the destination choices of tourists and the elements supporting the travel desires as the push factors (psychological and social motives) and the characteristics of a destination affecting a tourist destination to be visited are defined as being the pull factors (Crompton, 1979;Lundberg, 1990). Therefore; the pull factors have a great importance in the preference of a destination and regarding the competitiveness against other tourist destinations (Çetinsöz and Artuğer, 2014).

Literature review
Many studies covering the push and pull factors on the travel motivations of the tourists in international tourism are available in the tourism literature. For example, both push and pull factors have been researched by the studies of Oh et al. (1995);You, et al. (2000); Kim and Lee (2002); Mazzarol and Sautor (2002); Kim, Lee and Klenosky (2003); Yoon and Uysal (2005) ;Kao, et al. (2008);Yousefi and Marzuki (2012). On the other hand, the only push factors have been studied by the researchers as follows Fodness (1994); Cha, Mccleary, and Uysal (1995) and the only pull factors have been studied by Klenosky (2002) ;Correia, et al. (2007); Demir (2010); Evren and Kozak (2012); Çetinsöz and Artuğer (2014).
The push and pull factors were examined by You et al. (2000) on the tourists of two different countries (England and Japan) visiting the USA. This study made an intercultural comparison according to the push and pull factors, and concluded that the tourists coming from these two countries had different travel desires. Kim and Lee (2002), in their study in South Korea, determined the push factors as togetherness with family, appreciation of health, escape from daily life, adventure and making new friends. They also revealed the pull factors as tourist attarctions, information, comfort of the accommodation facilities and easy accessibility to national parks. Kao et al. (2008) conducted a survey on 547 Taiwanese tourists visiting Australia. They found out the push factors as traveling the world, having a comfortable travel, escape and meeting new friends and prestige. The pull factors were also revealed as being hours of sunshine and landscape, the value to be obtained from the destination, tourist place and convenience for family travel. Klenosky (2002) examined the relationship between push and pull factors between destinations in his research. In his study, he determined that each destination comes to the forefront with different attractions. For example, the beaches, hot climate and atmosphere of Florida were the main attractions. For California, the beaches and historical and cultural places were found to be attractive. On the other hand, the natural resources and ski resorts of Colorado were found to be attractive for tourists. The hot climate of Hawaii was found as being attractive and the beaches and atmosphere of Mexico were revealed as being the pull factors for the tourists. Cha, Mccleary and Uysal (1995) in their study found that the push factors affecting the motivation of the Japanese tourists traveling abroad for pleasure were called as comfort, adventure, quality of travel, family and sport. Moreover, Demir (2010) in his study investigated the effects of pull factors of foreign tourists visiting Dalyan on their holiday destination selection. In this research, the pull factors in the holiday choice were determined as being recreational attractions, historical and natural attractions, social and cultural values, accommodation and transportation opportunities. Çetingöz and Artuğer (2014) examined the pull factors in the destination selection of Antalya by the foreign tourists. In their study, they surveyed 408 foreign tourists regarding the pull factors in the choice of a holiday destination and they determined the pull factors as social activities, historical and cultural heritages, hygiene and security, natural beauties and price. Ünal (2020) conducted a research about the travel motivations of 280 Turkish tourists visiting the city of Skopje in North Macedonia. This study showed that Turkish tourists left the destination in a contented mood and they said that they would visit the destination again. In this study, the pull factors determining the travel motivations were revealed as being price and touristic opportunities, natural environment and culture, hospitality and infrastructure and hygiene and cleanliness. On the other hand, the push factors were found as being comfort and escape, obtaining new knowledge, adventure and excitement, and friendship. Çakar (2020)  was used in the study and the data were collected by interviewing 44 tourists face to face. The findings revealed that the tourists visiting Gallipoli peninsula had different travel motivations and experiences. But they also had some common aspects with these two groups. While the travel motivations formed a heterogeneous model including both the push and pull motivation factors, the experiences were separated into the psychological and sociocultural categories. In this study, the tourists were found that they visited the peninsula by both push and pull motivational factors. Correia and Pimpao (2008) examined the travel decision making processes of the Portuguese tourists visiting South Africa. The results showed that the behavioral intentions were beyond the sentimental and cognitive satisfaction, and this was explained by the perceptions and motivations of the tourists. Because tourists perceive tourism destinations as entertaining places, but they have too little information about the existent entertaining facilities and main touristic attractions. In their study, the push factors in the decisionmaking process of travel were determined as being recreational activities, information and adventure. On the other hand, the pull factors were determined as being the features of touristic facilities, landscape and attraction of the destination.
Moereover, Bayih and Singh (2020) determined the travel motivations (push and pull factors), the relations between satisfaction and behavioral intentions (intention of visiting again and the desire for recommendation) and the direct and indirect impacts of travel motivations of the tourists visiting Ethiopia. The data of the study were obtained from 386 domestic tourists in four destinations in Ethiopia. The structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyse the data. The results revealed that both push and pull travel motivations were the important determinants of general satisfaction of the tourists, and the pull travel motivations had the direct impacts on the intention of the tourists visiting the destination again and the desire of recommendation.
Sastrea and Phakdee-Auksornb (2017) in their study, aimed to determine the push and pull travel motivations of the English tourists visiting Phuket destination in Thailand. They further determined the relationship between the travel motivations and the future travel intentions. In their study, the push travel motivations of the English tourists were determined as being entertainment, resting and relaxing and escape from daily routine and environment. The pull travel motivations were also determined as natural landscapes, beaches and the hospitality and sincerity of the people.

Objectives of the research and its importance
Bodrum is an important tourist destination in Turkey. For this reason, determining the pull factors of the tourists visiting Bodrum is important for a successful marketing of the destination. Accessibility, quality of the entertainment services, quality of accommodation and food-beverage services, security and price have an important role in determining the choices of the tourists for a destination.
This study aimed to determine the pull factors affecting Bodrum as a one of the most important holiday destinations in Turkey by foreign tourists. The study also aimed to determine whether there was a difference between the demographic characteristics of foreign tourists and their pull factors for the preferred destination.

Sampling
The sample of this study consisted of the foreign tourists visiting Bodrum destination in 2019. In this study, the participants were selected with a convenience sampling technique which is a quantitative research technique that the participants are volunteered for the study. The convenience sampling method is the easiest way of reaching the individuals who would like to participate in the questionnaire. This method also helps to collect the questionnaire data with the most convenient cost in a short period of time. Therefore, the questionnaire survey was applied to randomly selected 369 tourists in three locations in the destination: Milas-Bodrum Airport, Bodrum and Turgutreis town centers. The researchers provided a brief information about the survey to the participants before the questionnaires were filled by the foreign tourists.

Data collection method
The data were collected through the questionnaire technique from the foreign tourists visiting Bodrum. The questionnaires were collected through face to face with the foreign tourists in order to make the collected data more reliable. The questionnaires were applied to 375 foreign tourists visiting Bodrum. However, 6 of these filled questionnaires were omitted as they were Copyright © 2021 by JTTR ISSN: 2548-7583 15 incomplete and erroneous. The remaining 369 questionnaires were included for the study' analysis. The questionnaire form used in this study consisted of two parts. In the first part; there was the scale consisting of 21 questions covering 5 factors (price, accessibility, promotion and marketing, service quality, and security and safety) regarding the pull travel motivations of the foreign tourists visiting Bodrum. The participants were requested to express their opinions on the scale sequenced from 1 Strongly Disagree to 5 Strongly Agree in accordance with 5-point Likert scale in order to find out the pull factors of the foreign tourists visiting Bodrum. The second part of the questionnaire form consisted of the demographic questions (gender, age, marital status, educational status, income status and country) about the participants.

Findings
The data gathered through the questionnaires from the foreign tourists visiting Bodrum destination were first transferred to SPSS 23.0 (Statistical Program for Social Sciences) program and then, the required analyses were conducted through this program. Bera in mind, the data should have normal distribution for the performance of parametric tests in studies (Durmuş, Yurtkoru and Çinko, 2018). The skewness and kurtosis values of the data should be within the range of ±1.5 as required by the parametric tests (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2013). The study showed that the skewness and kurtosis values of the data within the range of ±1.5. Thus, the data conformed to a normal distribution. Following this, the parametric tests were applied to the data obtained for the study.
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) and Barlett Tests were considered to be used in accordance with factor analysis in the study. Factor analysis was conducted on the data and the Cronbach's Alpha values, mean and standard deviation values of each factor have been calculated. Moreover, t-test for two-variable groups and one-way variance analysis (ANOVA) test for groups with more than two variables were applied to determine the effects of the pull factors with the demographic characteristics of the participants. Tukey-HSD (for homogeneous distributions) and Games-Howell (for inhomogeneous distributions) tests were conducted to examine the differences among the groups' variables existed. The frequency and percentage distributions of the foreign tourists participating in the ques-tionnaire were calculated in accordance with their demographic characteristics (see Table 1). The data showed that the female participants (58,3%) were more than the male participants (41,7%). The age groups of the participants were distributed as follows: the age groups of 18-25 and 26-35 were 23,3%. While the majority of the participants were married (50,4%), 23,6% of the participants were single. The income level of the majority of the participants was between 25001-50000 Euro with 61,5%. When the educational status of the participants was considered, the undergraduates were in majority with 37,4%. When the origin of the countries of the tourists visiting Bodrum destination was examined, the majority consisted of Ukrainians (29,8%), Europeans (32,5%) and Russians (23,3%).
The factor and reliability analyses were applied to the data in order to determine the pull factors for the Bodrum destination (see Table 2). The mean and standard deviation values were also shown in Table 2. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value was 0,816. Barlett Test result occurred as 4634,762 and p value was 0,000 (p<0,00). These values mentioned above were at sufficient level for factor analysis (Kalaycı, 2009). The factor analysis explained 71,11% of the total variance occurred. This ratio is sufficient for the field of social sciences (Çolak, 2017). All the factor loads for the statements were higher than 0,50. Furthermore, the Cronbach's Alpha values for each factor were above 0,70.
The arithmetic means of the statements were also shown in Table 2 below as follows security and safety (4,50), service quality (4,37), price (3,88), accessibility (3,84) and promotion and marketing (3,30). These findings showed that the factors of security and safety and service quality were more effective factors than others in the choice of the foreign tourists visiting the Bodrum destination.
The findings showed that Bodrum was a safe place and had a high destination service quality in the foreign tourists' preferences. Although promotion and marketing and accessibility were important in their preferences, they had lower means than the means of the other factors. Furthermore, the findings of the t-test showed whether there was a significant difference between the pull factors and the genders of the foreign tourists visiting Bodrum (see Table 3). According to the findings in Table 3; there was any significant difference between the pull factors and the genders.     One Way ANOVA test was applied whether there was a significant difference between the marital status, age, education levels, countries and incomes of the foreign tourists visiting Bodrum destination and the pull factors. Moreover; Tukey-HSD test was applied to see the difference among the groups. The findings of the ANOVA test did not show a significant difference between the marital status of the foreign tourists visiting Bodrum and the pull factors (see Table 4).
The ANOVA test was conducted whether there was a significant difference between the ages of the foreign tourists visiting Bodrum and the pull factors (see Table   5). As seen in Table 5; there was not any significant difference between the ages of the foreign tourists and the pull factors. The ANOVA test was conducted to see a significant difference between the educational status of the foreign tourists visiting Bodrum and the pull factors regarding (see Table 6).
As seen in Table 6, a significant difference (p=,040) was observed between the educational status of the participants and the factor of service quality. The factor of service quality affected the high school graduates (mean=4,55) more than the graduates or doctorate graduates (mean=4,30).        As seen in Table-7 above, p= ,208 for the variance homogeneity test conducted between the service quality factor and the variable of educational status was observed to be homogeneous. As a result of the conducted Tukey-HSD test; a significant difference was occurred between the high school graduates and the graduates or doctorate graduates.
The findings of the ANOVA test showed whether there was a significant difference between the income status of the foreign tourists visiting Bodrum and the pull factors (see Table 8). Table 8; a significant difference (p=0,008) was found between the income status of the participants and the factor of service quality.

According to
The variance homogeneity test above showed p=,130 homogeneous between the service quality factor and the variable of income status. The Tukey-HSD test displayed a significant difference between those with an income of 75001-100000 Euros (4,15) and those with more than 100001 Euros (4,67). According to these findings; it could be said that those with high income level placed more importance onto the service quality in the destination.
The findings of the ANOVA test showed whether there was a significant difference between the countries of the foreign tourists visiting Bodrum and the pull factors (see Table 10).
According to Table 10, a significant difference was occurred between the countries of the participants and the service quality and accessibility of the pull factors.
The homogeneity test of variances showed p= ,076 between the service quality factor and the variable of countries, which was reflected as being homogeneous. On the other hand, the homogeneity test of variances showed p=,000 between the factor of accessibility and the variable of countries, which was seen as not being homogeneous (see Table 11). As a result of the conducted Tukey-HSD test; the Ukrainians (4,54) and Russians (4,52) had higher perceptions regarding the factor of service quality. This could be interpreted as the Ukrainians and Russians placed more importance onto the service quality of the pull factors regarding the chosen destination. When the difference between accessibility and countries was considered, a significant difference occurred between the Ukrainians and Russians. According to this finding, the Ukrainians (4,06) placed more importance to the factor of accessibility than the Russians (3,59).

Conclusion
The information about the travel motivations of the people and its relationship with the destination choice plays a critical role in estimating the future travel trends. One of the most important factors for tourists to choose a destination is attractions owned by a destination. Many elements such as historical and cultural heritages, natural beauties, recreational activities and security conditions are effective in the holiday choice of tourists. Thus, the pull factors were determined for this study as being price, promotion and marketing, accessibility, service quality, security and safety for the preference of Bodrum destination by foreign tourists. In the literature, the pull factors being the determinants of the travel motivations of tourists have been widely studied (Oh et al., 1995;You, et al., 2000;Kim and Lee, 2002;Klenosky, 2002;Mazzarol and Sautor, 2002;Kim, Lee and Klenosky, 2003;Yoon and Uysal 2005;Correia, et al., 2007;Kao, et al., 2008;Demir, 2010;Yousefi and Marzuki, 2012;Evren and Kozak, 2012;Çetinsöz and Artuğer, 2014;Bayih and Singh, 2020;Ünal, 2020). This study found out that the most important factors affecting the foreign tourists to choose Bodrum destination were security and safety, and service quality.
What customers mean by security and safety is that the facilities of the airport they fly to, the organization of the agency tour guides, the new transfer vehicles, the security in general signal the security and safety issues. To be more specific, the physical structures of the hotels, existence of security personnel and customer property safety are among those important issues. For example, lifeguard should always be around the pool and beach and the problems among the customers for any reason should be intervened to be solved in order to create customer satisfaction.
Service quality was observed as being one of the important pull factors in the study. The detailed attention to the service quality ensures an organization to be different from its rivals and provides a permanent advantage against its rivals in the competition. What is meant by service quality covers the airport ground services, meeting with the travel agency and performance of the transfers in comfortable vehicles. As for service quality in hotels, meeting customers friendly from the gate of security and taking customers to reception desk until customers settle into their bedrooms. More specifically, delivering the food and beverage services timely, providing clean and comfortable bedrooms, performing the restaurant and bar services in the specified quality (food and beverage standards and general hygiene) support the service quality perception. For example, having enough usage space at dock, pool and beach areas, recreational services, availability of personnel speaking foreign languages, definitely giving positive responses to customer complaints affect the service quality in hotels. Sightseeing, shopping, historical heritage visits and the quality of bar and restaurant services rendered outside hotels also affect customer satisfaction leading to a total quality feeling provided.
Having explained the factors of security and safety and service quality as the pull factors for the Bodrum destination, these findings showed that Bodrum as a destination is a safe place and the high service quality is provided to the foreign tourists. To compare these findings with other studies in the literature, Davras and Uslu (2019) studied the pull factors of the Fethiye destination selected by the English tourists. They found out that the transportation, activity opportunities and natural attractions were the pull factors. Similarly, Jang and Cai (2002)  the English tourists visiting the USA and the factors of cleanliness and security, accessibility, entertainment and seeking information were the ones important for the English tourists. Upon this it could be said that the pull factors regarding the determination of the travel motivations of the tourists show differences depending on the destinations and tourists.
This study did not show any significant differences occurred between the genders, marital status and ages of the foreign tourists visiting Bodrum destination and their perceptions regarding the chosen destination. However, Çetinsöz and Artuğer (2014) studied on the foreign tourists visiting Antalya regarding the pull factors. Their findings were similar with this study in terms of gender and marital status. But, a difference was noted with the groups in higher ages affected by the hygiene and security elements.
This study found the differences occurred on the education, income and country origin variables of the demographic characteristics of the foreign tourists in choosing Bodrum as a destination. A difference was occurred between the educational status and incomes of the foreign tourists with the factor of service quality. According to these findings; those with the low education level and with high income placed more importance onto the factor of the service quality in the destination. The high school graduates were the lowest level of the education option in the questionnaire. This group may have only minded the money they spent and may not have minded other details while choosing their holidays. The relationship between the holiday and the received service rather consisted of drinking and having fun with one another.
The following interpretations could be made in terms of the income level. Those with high income probably prefer spending their holidays in better quality hotels in their lives. The services of the operations rendering services with high prices are more different than the other economic facilities offered. Thus, tourists would make the similar price/service comparison in the chosen destinations. Bering in mind, there would be a service quality expectation at every price level. For example, Evren and Kozak (2012) revealed that those with high income level placed more importance onto natural, historical and cultural values, and accommodation, transportation factors. On the other hand, those with high education level placed more importance onto natural, historical and cultural values and entertainment, education and shopping factors.
As for the country origin of the foreign tourists, the Ukrainians placed more importance onto accessibility and service quality of the pull factors than the tourists from the other countries. This could be interpreted that the Ukrainian tourists coming to Bodrum would give more importance to the issue of accessibility and the destination service quality than the other elements.
As a result, in order to be able to effectively to market tourist destinations, it is important to understand what motivates a tourist to travel and which destination characteristics are important for choosing a destination out of their place of residence. Therefore; this study contributed to the marketing plan of a destination to be designed to attract more foreign tourists.
Finally, this study suggests that there is a need of a cooperation between the municipalities, ministries, professional organizations, non-governmental organisations (NGO) and citizens who are involved in the management of the Bodrum destination in order to maintain and increase the service quality of Bodrum destination and to ensure that the destination remains a safe place.

Suggestions for future studies and tourism sector
The destination of Bodrum is well known for allinclusive service product for the market. Only a few hotels provide bed&breakfast or room only service to the tourists. So this study was conducted with the all inclusive hotel tourists. The researchers believe that this study may contribute to the tourism businesses, a destination management, researchers and other participants in tourism to attract and redesign their product for tourism industry. Therefore, some suggestions are offered for researchers and tourism sector professionals: a-Other destinations such as Antalya, central Anatolia, İstanbul etc. should be analyzed and cooperated. So, a national data should be gathered to provide an important information to promote tourism and Turkey.
b-All hotel service products such as all-inclusive hotels, bed&breakfast, rom only etc. should be researched by academicians. So, what types of products could be offered to tourists. Copyright © 2021 by JTTR ISSN: 2548-7583 23 c-Tourism marketers and managers should find and read the academic research papers and try to implement possible suggestions during their management The cooperation of academy, tourism sector and government is more important than ever and they should listen to each other more carefully (Ritchie & Jiang, 2019). Moreover, tourists' purchasing and consumption behaivour is changing day by day. Thus, the new researches related with pull and push factors should be studied to update the pull and push factors' information related to tourism.

Disclosure statement
"No potential competing interest was reported by the authors."

Ethics committee approval
The data were collected through the questionnaire in 2019. All responsibility belongs to the researchers. All parties were involved in the research of their own free will.