What inspires birders to migrate South towards Africa? A quantitative measure of international avitourist motivation

Abstract

Despite the rapid growth of avitourism (birding) globally, the international market potential of avitourism is not fully utilised. This research endeavoured to develop a multidimensional measure of avitourist motivation and to investigate the relative importance of the different dimensions or factors of avitourist motivation. Based on an in-depth review of the literature, a measure of birder motivation was developed. The research instrument was evaluated by a group of birding experts. The instrument was further evaluated and refined based on primary data gathered from 439 visitors to the British Birdwatching Fair and the Dutch Vogelfestival. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to evaluate the dimensionality and fit of the instrument based on the proposed factorial structure. Finally, a second-order confirmatory factor analysis model for avitourist motivation revealed higher-order constructs, namely wellbeing, intellectual activity, social interaction and photography. The results suggest that the photography dimension could be excluded as a motivational factor, and that birders consider aspects of wellbeing (emotional, spiritual, physical and mental stimulation) as the most important factors that motivate birding.

Keywords: avitourism (birding tourism), bird fairs, travel motivations, second-orderconfirmatory factor analysis