| Tourist behavior and preferences in choosing destinations change over time. From the day planning begins, a tourist starts developing expectations about attractiveness, shaping different motives and building an attachment towards a destination. Also, during and after a trip tourists typically communicate with friends about how well their level of satisfaction matches their expectations and motivations. This process happens before, during, and after the consumption of services. As we develop more knowledge about this process we can also support potential tourists with models that close the gap between expected attractiveness and experience.Typically, some activities or lack of activities (e.g., fear and feeling unsafe) constrain tourists from traveling to a certain destination. The existing marketing literature offers no significant discussion of how and under what conditions these obstacles can be overcome. This thesis suggests one avenue to learn more about the destination and identify the maturity of consumers before adopting certain policies. Specifically, this research proposes a testable destination-choice model of international adventure tourists to Tanzania. The proposed model suggests that potential tourists form their experiences in a path starting early or even at the stage of planning the travel, during their stay, and finally when building their attachment as well as future choices towards the destination. As much as satisfaction arises from concrete services such as food and transportation, constrained activities are expected to have a negative consequence on expected attractiveness and motivations. The study is important because international visitors are one of the important markets for the tourism industry in Tanzania, yet there have been limited models explaining tourists' destination choices that incorporate various behavioral constructs.Based on an extensive literature review, the proposed model includes several consumer behavior theoretical constructs, each of which has its own definition and direction. Furthermore, each construct is represented by a set of operationalized indicators. Each of the constructs is chosen to be testable. A depicted model places each construct in sequential order, reflecting tourists'experiences from expected attractiveness and motivations, to intrapersonal constraints and satisfaction, and finally into place dependence and place identity. The relationships among all these are an area of theoretical interest that has been investigated in this study. To achieve the objectives of the research, 10 hypotheses were developed. Hypotheses 1 and 2 were designed to test the differences between the attractiveness tourists expected and other constructs including tourist satisfaction and perceived constraints. Hypotheses 3 and 4 tested the effects of travel motivation on tourist satisfaction and perceived constraints. Hypothesis 5 tested the relationship between perceived constraint and tourist satisfaction. A further hypothesis 6 and 7 tested the relationship between perceived constraints and the two place attachment components. More hypotheses 8 and 9 tested the relationship between tourist satisfaction and the two place attachment components. The final hypothesis tested the relationship between place identity and place dependence. As this research is based on international adventure tourists, who are typically willing to take on calculated risks during their visits to Tanzania, many of these hypothesized gaps were expected to diminish as tourists became familiar with the destination and aware of the services offered there. After testing an overall model, a post hoc analysis was performed, in which each relationship tested in the focal model was tested in different subgroups. These subgroups clarified awareness and familiarity for maturity (i.e., tourists at a late stage of stay, repeat visitors and tourists with loyal intentions) and awareness (i.e., tourists with escape motives) towards services provided at the specific destination.A convenience sampling, which is a nonprobability sampling technique, was employed since precise data as to the size and location of this population was not available. This study employed a self-administered method in data collection in August and September 2010. Respondents were asked to take 20-30 minutes of their time to complete the questionnaire. A total of 700 questionnaires were administered to different international adventure tourists of which 504 responses were retained for further analysis. Initially, data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS 15.0). Later, to test for the full proposed model, an SEM approach was used.The findings of overall sample for structural relations can be described as follows: (1) expected attractiveness had a positive effect (.38) on satisfaction, while its effect on intrapersonal constraints was insignificant; (2) role escape motives had a positive effect (.11) on intrapersonal constraint, while its effect on satisfaction was insignificant. Also, cultural value confirming motives had a positive effect (.31) on satisfaction, while its effect on intrapersonal constraint was negative (-.19). Also, cultural value confirming motives had a strong indirect positive effect (.62) on place identity; (3) intrapersonal constraints had a negative effect (-.13) on satisfaction and a positive effect (.18) on place identity, while its effect on place dependence was insignificant; (4) satisfaction did not have an effect on either place dependence or place identity; and (6) place identity had a strong and positive effect (.57) on place dependence. Further, a post hoc analysis indicated that each subgroup had a different effect as it entered in the focal model. The subgroups included early and late stage of stay; first time and repeat visitors; low, moderate and high loyalty intentions; with and without escape purpose. Findings showed that the hypotheses had different strengths in different subgroups.Further, the findings indicated some intercorrelationships between constructs in the overall sample (N=504). The constructs included expected attractiveness, role escape motives, and cultural value confirming motives. The interrelationships showed that these constructs were related but still independent. Firstly, there was an intercorrelation between expected attractiveness and role escape motives with a significant value of .14. Secondly, there was an intercorrelation between role escape motives and cultural value confirming motives with significant value of .36. Finally, there was an intercorrelation between expected attractiveness and cultural value confirming motives with significant value of .43. Also, the intercorrelation for the subgroups had different effects between the constructs. The findings for the square multiple correlations (R2) of the overall sample related with the four endogenous variables, namely intrapersonal constraints, satisfaction, place dependence and place identity were .03, .36, .31 and .37, respectively. Therefore, the final structural model could explain 3% of the variance in intrapersonal constraints, 36% of the variance in satisfaction, 31% of the variance in place dependence and 37% of the variance in place identity. Each subgroup had different square multiple correlations (R2) for the four endogenous variables.Foremost, this research has contributed to theory, methodology, and practice. The main contribution is a plausible model for understanding destination choice behaviors of tourists from their early stage of planning the journey to how strongly they may finally attach to a destination. Specifically, it enhances the understanding of tourists' expected attractiveness in destination choice, a factor that can significantly influence tourists'behavior and their decision-making process. This thesis enhances the understanding of travel motivation, one of the important parts of the travel consumer behaviors in destination choice, since it is still regarded as a crucial indicator and force that answers why tourists behave in certain ways. In addition, it explains the role of perceived constraint in explaining destination choice. Furthermore, it provides an understanding of satisfaction, another important measure since satisfied visitors are more likely to revisit the destination. Additionally, in long-term perspective these satisfied visitors become loyal to the destination. Lastly, and most importantly, this study provides an understanding of how these travel behaviors cause travelers to form attachment towards a destination.
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