Comparative Study of Selecting Tourist Destinations Abroad: A Case Study of Antalya and Dubai Cities

Planning for the development of tourism requires development and attention to needs, characteristics and demands of the market as the factors demanding tourism. In this regard, paying attention to tourists’ views, opinions, and motivations for travelling to a destination is of great importance as a necessity of marketing and tourism development planningas well as the basis for designing infrastructures related to tourism. Thus, many countries in a very close and intense competition are looking for increasing their benefits and revenues from this international activity. Several reasons are effective in the development and differentiation of tourist destinations or leaving former famous destinations by tourists and make one city more successful than others. This study aimed at identifying factors effective in selecting tourist destinations of Antalya and Dubai cities. The research method is descriptive-analytic. The statistical population was all the people who were traveling to tourist destination cities of Antalya and Dubai in the spring of 2014. The results show that there is no significant difference between Iranians’ motivation to travel to tourist destinations of Antalya and Dubai and the most important motivation and purpose of the passengers travelling to both destination of Antalya and Dubai were relaxation and recreation (using beautiful beaches and water recreation). In addition, the prominent role of costs and variety of attractions can be highlighted in selecting tourist destinations.