Development and validation of activity specific tourism motivation scale for Indian consumers

The exploratory and novelty-seeking nature of tourists has led to an exponential growth of participative forms of tourism. This research introduces the concept of activity specific tourism (AST), which includes high-involvement tourism forms like adventure tourism, sports tourism, cultural tourism, agritourism, among others, and finds the important need identifiers of tourists' motivation to engage in AST. The study used a stepwise protocol to develop an instrument which is capable of measuring the motivation behind pursuing AST. This instrument was validated and tested for adventure tourism, cultural tourism and agritourism centres. Followed by the reliability and validity testing of the instrument, the findings of the study suggests that developed instrument effectively measure the motivational needs of tourists behind pursuing AST with seven interpretable, inclusive and distinct dimensions. This scale is expected to help in designing effective tourism products, identifying target tourist groups and design efficient promotional strategies.