Tourism Nostalgia And Its Influential Factors

Nostalgia is a complex mental state with the characteristics of time, emotion, trigger and so on. With the acceleration of modernization, all aspects of people's learning, work and daily life are increasingly different from the past, thus nostalgia often appears in the life of modern people:People miss the simple life, pursue bread and water and demand for green food; People remember the ancient style; Their clothing is prone to be back to the ancient, and homes are decorated green; They are looking backward for the outdated art—"black-and-white and old photos " in photography, the imitative songs, nostalgic golden and memorable songs on TV and radio in music field, the old house in the construction industry, the nostalgic collection in literary, and the remaking of classic films et al., are emerging in people's vision. In addition, there is another important way of nostalgia, that is travelling. People can not only enjoy leisure in the tense life, but feel the nostalgia, which has already become a never-be-ignored theme in tourism. Today, more and more ancient cities, towns and streets have become hot destinations for tourism and these legacy passed down by our old generations are increasingly favored. When these past places of interest become important tourism resources, it is of necessity to explore the reasons why people like tourism of this kind.The purpose of this study is to explore the nostalgic features in travelling, the approaches to measure tourism nostalgia and its influential factors. These are all the problems we need to solve from the perspective of psychology.The study was supported by four parts and six series. The first part overviewed the related concepts and previous researches, moreover, proposed the problems need to be addressed, namely, exploring the characteristics and influential factors of nostalgic travel. The second part was the compilation of tourism nostalgia questionnaire, including two studies. Study1researched the propagandized information on internet and personal travelling records by analyzing the contents to confirm the existence of nostalgia in travelling and its related features. On the basis of Study1and the combination of literature review and interviews, Study2developed a two-dimensional nostalgic questionnaire. The third part devoted to the study of influential factors, four studies included. Study3investigated the view spots to inspect the current situation of tourism nostalgia and the influences of demographic variables and related information by the use of self-compiled questionnaire. Study4probed into the effects of tourist motivation to tourism nostalgia by literature review, the questionnaire of tourism development motivation, and investigations for feature spots. Study5discussed the attentional features of personal nostalgia inclination to the pictures of scenic spots with nostalgic attributes. Study6researched the effects of personal nostalgic inclination to tourism nostalgia behavioral intention. The fourth part was the the discussion and conclusion of nostalgic characteristics in tourism and its influential factors.Through the aboved series of studies, the following conclusions are obtained:1.There are two types of nostalgic psychology:personal and historical. Personal nostalgia refers to personal yearning for self experience, which mainly bases on autobiographical memory with immediacy and authenticity. Its contents are the individual events in the past, self-related people and things, the scenes experienced individually and the past time in one's life. The triggers are chiefly the scenes of personal experiences and familiar items. Historical nostalgia refers to the pasts never undergone personally, even those in utera, which are indirect and imaginary. Its contents are the scenes of past people's lives, events in history or memories in specific historical era. The triggers are mainly historical scenes and ancient buildings.2.Compiled tourism nostalgia questionnaire includes two dimensions, namely, personal and historical nostalgia. It has good reliability and validity, and can be a good tool to measure tourism nostalgia.3. The types of scenic spots will affect tourism nostalgia. Visits in different scenic spots vary in their nostalgia:Visits for natural scenary are of high personal nostalgia, while those for red tourism are of high historical nostalgia.4. Travelling ways will affect tourism nostalgia. The tourism nostalgia of foliow-group visits is significantly higher than that of package visits. 5. Tourism nostalgia is significantly positive correlated to travel motivation. The three factors in travel motivations, that is reliving the past, personal development and mental and phyiscal pleasure, can better predict the strength of tourist and personal nostalgia, while the other three factors, like personal development, reliving the past and understanding of culture can better forecast the strength of historical nostalgia.6. The nostalgic proneness is significantly correlated to tourism nostalgia. Experimental research demonstrates that nostalgic inclination will affect tourism nostalgia in cognitive style, emotion and behavioral intention:Individuals with high nostalgic inclination will pay more attention to black-and-white and yellow pictures than those with low nostalgic inclination, what's more, the former are emotionally activated higher than the latter, and willing to visit scenic spots with high nostalgic attributes.This study researched the contents and structures of nostalgia in travelling, developed the standardized tools for evaluating tourism nostalgia, and discussed related factors which will probably influence tourism nostalgia. In this study, the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was adopted, what's more, Eye tracker was used to record the individual attention to the pictures of nostalgic attributes. Tourism nostalgia and motivation questionnaire can be used as research tools. The present situation and its influential factors obtained can provide a reference for the development of scenic spots, in which nostalgia dominates.The current study only reveals parts of nostalgia in tourism. There are a lot of problems to be solved in the later study. Future research can combine the nostalgic emotional characteristics to broaden the perspectives of researchs. In addition, expanding the scope of investigation, further exploring the influential factors and psychological mechanisms and brain mechanisms of cognitive neuroscience paradigm will surely deepen the research of nostalgia.