A RESEARCH ON TRAVEL MOTIVATION OF BACKPACKERS VISITING ISTANBUL

Yıl 2013, Cilt: 13 Sayı: 25, 267 - 300, 01.06.2013

Serhat Harman A. Celil Çakıcı Ayten Akatay

Öz

Backpackers can be defined in different ways. For example, Murphy and Pearce
(1995) define backpacker as a person who wants to meet different people during his/her
trip, prefers budget accommodation and stay overnight for extended period than an
ordinary tourist, has independently organized flexible travel program and enjoys
participating voluntary tourism activities during the trip. On the other hand according to
Murphy (2001) backpackers are mostly young travelers, having extended trips/vacations
and sometimes working during their trips. In addition Sorensen (2003) describes
backpackers as travelers who take multi-destination trips, organize their trips on their
own, have flexible trip schedule and stay overnight for long periods.
Existing literature shows that Turkey is one of the most preferred travel destinations
by backpackers. In Richards and Wilson’s (2004) study, Turkey is listed as the sixth most
visited destination in young and student travel market. Despite Turkey’s being favorable
travel destination for backpackers; there has been no study about backpackers visiting
Turkey. That situation shows that there is a huge loss of knowledge in the tourism
businesses operating in backpacker market.
In order to understand the consumer behavior more deeply, the reasons which direct a
consumer to buy a particular product or service should be examined. Motivation is one of
the major forces underlying the consumer behavior. Thus it can be said that the more we
understand motivation; the more we understand consumer’s buying process.
Understanding the reasons directing a traveler to have a backpacker style travel
experience is very important with regard to predict the future of the backpacker market.
Defining the reasons directing a traveler to have a particular travel experience brings a
number of advantages both for tourism business operating in this market and public
authorities who are responsible for developing tourism policies for backpacker market.
Çakıcı (2000) points out that travelers with motivations look for different attributes from
tourism businesses and their expectancies differ greatly as well. Also, knowing travel
motivations helps tourism business owners and destination managers to identify which
destination attributes should be featured in destination promotion campaigns (Kozak
2002).
It is understood from the Ateljevic and Doorne’s (2004) literature review on
backpacker tourism, travel motivation of backpackers is one of the basic research topics
among scholars studying backpacker tourism. In our study we have identified ten
published work about travel motivation of backpackers. These works belong to Murphy
(1996), Mohsin and Ryan (2003), Newland (2004), Richards and Wilson (2004), Maoz
(2007), Pearce and Foster (2007) Niggel and Benson (2008), Paris and Teye (2008), Paris
and Teye (2010) and Godfrey (2011).
If the current literature is evaluated in general, it is possible to say that most of the
research was conducted on backpackers visiting Australia and New Zealand, survey
method was employed but observation and deep interview as well. In the survey type
studies in which motivation of backpackers was examined, the measurement instrument of
motivation varies between 10 and 26 item with Likert type scales.
Owing to not being an empirical research on backpackers visiting Istanbul or Turkey,
aim of this research was set to examine the profile and travel motivation of backpackers
visiting Istanbul. It is clear that findings of empirical studies on backpackers visiting Istanbul will provide some useful and important information for both tourism businesses
and public authorities. Also it is possible; findings of this research will contribute to
national tourism literature.
In this research data was collected through a coherent questionnaire with existing
literature. The questionnaire was comprised of two parts; in the first part there were
questions about demographic and tripographic characteristics of backpackers visiting
Istanbul. Second part of questionnaire contained a 28 items 5 point Likert type scale rated
from 1: Not at all important to 5: Very Important. 26 items in the scale were derived from
study of Paris and Teye (2010), and 2 items related with rites of passage, were derived
from Gofrey’s (2011) study.
Backpackers visited Istanbul during March and April 2012 comprised the population
of research. There were number of reasons why Istanbul was selected for data collection.
These reasons may be listed as; high number of hostels operating in the city (62 hostels),
extra promotional impact of city’s selection for culture capital of Europe for the year 2010
and easy access to the city from European countries. Depending on these it is possible to
say that a research on backpackers visiting Istanbul can tell us much about the profile and
motivation of backpackers visiting Turkey.
Due to the lack of empirical studies and unavailability of statistics about backpackers
visiting
Istanbul or Turkey, quota sampling -a non-probability sampling technique- was
preferred. Gender and age were set as quota variables. As mentioned before due to the
lack of information about backpackers visiting Turkey, quota rates of gender and age were
calculated with regard to the existing literature. As age variable; less than 30 years old
was set 70 percent quota, as gender; 55 percent female, 45 percent male rate was set as
quota. A pre-test was implemented on a group of respondents consist of 44 backpackers
between 1th-7th March 2012. Some revisions were done on the questionnaire according to
the pre-test results. Main implication of survey was held in April 2012. By the end of
April 2012, 887 useable questionnaires were obtained from backpackers visiting Istanbul.
Data was analyzed through descriptive statistics, factor analysis, independent sample t-test
and one way analysis of variance (ANOVA).
Findings of the research indicate that nearly 57 percent of respondents are female
while 43 percent male. Backpackers under the age of 30 comprise 70 percent of
respondents. According to marital status and education level distributions, 78 percent of
respondents are single and 77 percent of respondents have at least bachelor degree. Also
findings about income and employment status level respondents indicate that, 60 percent
of respondents have monthly income 2000 US dollars, nearly one third of respondents are
students and 10 percent of respondents are unemployed.
Factor analysis that applied to 26 item motivation (2 items were excluded due to the
low item total correlation coefficients) yielded seven factors and explained almost 60
percent of total variance.
According to the factor gained it is possible to say that travel motivation of
backpackers visiting to
Istanbul can be examined under seven headings as; improving knowledge about
world, experience seeking, socialization, rites of passage, and search for quietness,
backpacker identity and skill performing. It can be said that these motivations are
compatible with literature. It was also questioned whether the importance of motivation differ significantly
according to gender, nationality and self definition of respondents. Results of t-test and
ANOVA show the importance level of motivation differs significantly according to age,
gender, nationality and self definition of respondents. The study ends with a discussion of
obtained motivations and suggestions for future research

Anahtar Kelimeler

Backpackers, Travel Motivations, İstanbul, Türkiye

İSTANBUL’A GELEN SIRTÇANTALI TURİSTLERİN SEYAHAT MOTİVASYONLARI ÜZERİNE BİR ARAŞTIRMA

Öz

Sırtçantalı turistler dünya turizm endüstrisi içinde önemli bir pazar dilimi haline gelmiştir. İstanbul’a gelen sırtçantalı turistlerin seyahat motivasyonlarını belirlemek üzere bir araştırma yapılmıştır. Alanyazına dayalı geliştirilen anket, İstanbul’a 2012 yılı Mart- Nisan aylarında gelen sırtçantalılara internet ortamında ve yüz yüze uygulanmıştır. Cinsiyet ve yaşa göre kota örneklemesinin yapıldığı anket uygulamasında, kullanılabilir 887 ankete ulaşılmıştır. İstanbul’a gelen sırtçantalıların yarıdan fazlasının kadın, büyük çoğunluğunun bekâr olduğu ve göreceli olarak en fazla sırtçantalı turistin Almanya, Avustralya, Fransa, Amerika ve Yeni Zelanda’dan geldiği tespit edilmiştir. Yapılan alan araştırması, İstanbul’a gelen sırtçantalı turistlerin seyahat motivasyonlarının, dünyayı tanıma, deneyim arayışı, sosyalleşme, yaşam geçiş dönemleri, sakinlik arayışı, sırtçantalı kimliği ve yetenek gösterme başlıklarında incelenebileceğini göstermektedir. Sırtçantalı turistlerin seyahat motivasyonlarının yaş, cinsiyet, milliyet ve kendilerini tanımlarına göre anlamlı farklılık gösterdiği anlaşılmaktadır. Çalışma, bu pazara yönelik faaliyet gösteren turizm işletmeleri ve kamu otoritelerine dönük öneriler ile son bulmaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Sırtçantalı turist, Seyahat Motivasyonu, İstanbul, Türkiye