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Involvement, Motivations and Setting Preferences of Participants in the Adventure Tourism Activity of SCUBA Diving

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Involvement, Motivations and Setting Preferences of Participants in the Adventure Tourism Activity of SCUBA Diving Involvement, Motivations and Setting Preferences of Participants in the Adventure Tourism Activity of SCUBA Diving Michael Karl Tschapka Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Tourism (Research) of the University of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory August 2006 © Michael Karl Tschapka 2006 Involvement, Motivations and Setting Preferences of Participants in the Adventure Tourism Activity of SCUBA Diving. ABSTRACT Adventure tourism is a growing market sector worldwide including Australia. A range of research exists that examined participation in adventure tourism activities by consideration of various aspects such as socio-demographics, motivations, activity/setting preferences and involvement in the activity to understand the adventure tourist. While studies have been conducted that included several of these aspects, a holistic investigation of involvement, motivations and setting preferences together has not been conducted previously regarding adventure tourism in Australia in general and SCUBA diving in particular. Furthermore, in Australia, only limited information is available about those who participate in the adventure activity of SCUBA diving. The aim of this research is to investigate differences and similarities of involvement, motivations and setting preferences of SCUBA diving club members in Eastern Australia. In this study 294 SCUBA diving club members in New South Wales and Queensland were surveyed by utilisation of a web-based questionnaire in order to identify their involvement in SCUBA diving, socio-demographic characteristics, participation motives and setting preferences. Descriptive analysis was used to investigate the socio-demographic characteristics of divers, their motivations and setting preferences. Principal component analysis was applied on involvement variables as well as motivations to investigate the underlying constructs. Agglomerative and hierarchical cluster analyses were used to derive clusters of divers that differed in their involvement in SCUBA diving. Exact Pearson chi-square tests were conducted to test whether there were significant differences concerning socio- demographics between clusters. In addition, analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted to determine differences and similarities of motivational components and setting preferences between clusters. ii This study found that SCUBA diving club members are a heterogeneous group regarding their involvement in SCUBA diving. Five clusters of divers emerged that differed in their involvement in SCUBA diving. While differences in socio-demographics across the different involvement clusters were revealed, they proved to be less valuable for interpretation purposes. Regarding divers’ setting preferences, similar structures were observed across all clusters regardless of differences in involvement. Motivations showed a complex structure across the clusters in regard to divers’ involvement in SCUBA diving. Based on the studies findings, recommendations for future research were suggested. These emphasised the need for a holistic examination of motivations and setting preferences of adventure tourists based on the concept of involvement, which would be important for theory development and segmentation of tourists. The same holistic approach would also be valuable for examining other types of tourists such as events tourists and heritage tourists to better understand tourist behaviour. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To my father, Werner Tschapka, who died and to my mother, Helga Tschapka I would like to thank several people and organisations for their support and assistance in the preparation of this thesis. Firstly, I would especially like to thank my mother, who always had strong confidence in me and supported me financially during the research process. Without her support, I would not have been in the position to complete this research project. I also would especially like to thank my girlfriend, Tine, for her encouragement, support and understanding. I would not have made it without her and her incredible support. I would like to thank my primary supervisor, Dr Brent Ritchie, and my secondary supervisor, Dr Tracey Dickson, for their input and support. Furthermore, a big thank you to Dr David Pederson, statistical consultant at the University of Canberra. David provided valuable assistance and statistical advice on the analysis of this thesis’ results. Thanks also goes to Pam Faulks for proof reading this thesis. I must thank participating SCUBA diving clubs, their contact persons and especially their members in Western Australia, New South Wales and Queensland for their interest and their time to answer the questionnaires and thus for their assistance with the collection of the primary research data. vi Table of Contents p # Abstract..................................................................................................................................ii Certificate of Authorship of Thesis ......................................................................................iv Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... v Table of Contents ................................................................................................................vii List of Tables......................................................................................................................... x List of Figures......................................................................................................................xii Appendices .........................................................................................................................xiii Abbreviations .....................................................................................................................xiv CHAPTER ONE - Introduction......................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Clarification of Adventure Tourism ............................................................................. 2 1.3 SCUBA Diving Market and SCUBA Diving Research ............................................... 6 1.4 Statement of the Problem ............................................................................................. 8 1.5 Aim and Objectives ...................................................................................................... 9 1.6 Scope of the Study and Contribution.......................................................................... 10 1.7 Structure of Thesis...................................................................................................... 11 CHAPTER TWO - Literature Review ............................................................................ 13 2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 13 2.2 Categorisation Approaches of Adventure Tourism.................................................... 13 2.3 Involvement................................................................................................................ 17 2.3.1 Enduring Involvement ......................................................................................... 17 2.3.2 Experience ........................................................................................................... 31 2.4. Tourist Motivation and Adventure Tourism............................................................... 33 2.5 Setting Preferences..................................................................................................... 45 2.5.1 Environmental Orientation.................................................................................. 45 2.5.2 Social Orientation................................................................................................ 50 2.5.3 Preferred Physical Risk ....................................................................................... 52 2.5.4 Equipment............................................................................................................ 56 2.6 Chapter Summary....................................................................................................... 58 CHAPTER THREE - Methodology and Methods ......................................................... 60 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 60 3.2 Research Paradigm and Approach.............................................................................. 60 3.3 Research Strategy....................................................................................................... 62 3.4 Data Collection........................................................................................................... 62 3.5 Research Population................................................................................................... 63 3.6 Implementation of Data Collection ............................................................................ 67 vii 3.6.1 Pilot Study........................................................................................................... 69 3.6.2 Main Study.......................................................................................................... 70 3.7 Questionnaire
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