Author Bios (50 Words for each Author)

Dr. Ye Zhang is an Assistant Professor in College of Business, Florida Atlantic University. Her research interest is in tourist choice prediction and intervention, positive psychology as applied in tourism such as travel importance among people with life challenges, and sustainable tourism evaluation.

Dr. Jie Gao is an Assistant Professor in Feliciano School of Business, Montclair State University. Her research interest lies in individuals’ emotions in travel and event-based contexts, and the degree to which their emotions influence consumer decision-making.

Dr. Peter Ricci is the Director of Hospitality and Tourism Management program in Florida Atlantic University, and a Clinical Associate Professor. His research interest lies in guest service and employee performance.

Dr. Anil Bilgihan is an Assistant Professor in College of Business, Florida Atlantic University, with research interest Social Media Marketing in Tourism and Hospitality, Website Marketing, Multivariate Statistics, Branding, Customer Experience, Online Social Interaction.

Abstract (150 Words)

Employing Self-determination Theory to explore travel motivational patterns among People with Mobility Challenges, this study extends the travel motivation conceptualization with a distinction of driving forces underlying travel motivations. The revealed variations in travel-facilitating effects and motivation-cultivating mechanisms across a spectrum of differentially driven motivations support the distinction. The cross-context reliability of the distinction was also checked through a challenge-level experimental manipulation. Specifically, the inner-driven self-determined motivations better facilitate PwMC’s travel pursuits when travel challenges are significant, whereas social-driven controlled motivations dominate travel facilitation at low-challenge levels. The support of autonomy, competence, and relatedness is found to facilitate both self-determined and controlled travel motivations, but setting self-determined pursuits apart from controlled pursuits at high-challenge levels. Moreover, this study introduces promising statistical approaches for competitively accurate and efficient comparison of correlated effects, useful for future applications in the tourism field.

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Inner- versus Social-driven Travel Motivations among People with Mobility Challenges: Extending the Travel Motivation Interpretation with a New Horizon

Employing Self-determination Theory to explore travel motivational patterns among People with Mobility Challenges, this study extends the travel motivation conceptualization with a distinction of driving forces underlying travel motivations. The revealed variations in travel-facilitating effects and motivation-cultivating mechanisms across a spectrum of differentially driven motivations support the distinction. The cross-context reliability of the distinction was also checked through a challenge-level experimental manipulation. Specifically, the inner-driven self-determined motivations better facilitate PwMC’s travel pursuits when travel challenges are significant, whereas social-driven controlled motivations dominate travel facilitation at low-challenge levels. The support of autonomy, competence, and relatedness is found to facilitate both self-determined and controlled travel motivations, but setting self-determined pursuits apart from controlled pursuits at high-challenge levels. Moreover, this study introduces promising statistical approaches for competitively accurate and efficient comparison of correlated effects, useful for future applications in the tourism field.