Motivations for visiting heritage sites: The case of Eskisehir

Abstract

The role of motivation on behaviors of tourists and on their decision-making process has received much attention in the literature related to tourism. It has been suggested that the field of tourism would greatly benefit from a segmentation technique based on motivations because it could provide clues and insights that destination marketers could employ in developing and promoting the popularity of their destinations. Like any other destination, the destination brands famous for their cultural heritage generate sets of expectations or images of a place prior to being visited. Those responsible for the destinations famous for cultural heritage also have to empathize what motivate their customers. Protecting and sustaining a cultural heritage asset is necessary, not only as a part of social responsibility towards future generations but also to attract more visitors to such heritage assets as much as they can. Eskisehir is a city which is located on the banks of the Porsuk River, to the west of Ankara, the capital of Turkey. This paper is aimed to explore what motivate visitors for a visit to Eskisehir and to clarify what sources of information are important when in the process to make up their mind for a visit to Eskisehir. A self-administered questionnaire was used as the instrument to collect the data for this study