Comparing motivational patterns of e-mountain bike and common mountain bike tourists

ABSTRACT

E-biking is a trend in tourism and everyday life, especially in the alpine context. It provides a broader field of activities and constitutes a mobility feature for subsequent activities. The trend raises the question whether tourists utilize e-mountain bikes for other reasons or have other motivational backgrounds than common mountain bikers, especially in a vacation setting. Thus, the main objective of the research letter was to explore tourists’ motives for participating in (e-) mountain bike activities. Therefore, the sport motivation scale (SMS-II) was applied with particular regard to possible differences between the mentioned groups. The results showed that e-mountain bike tourists (EMTs) and common mountain bike tourists (CMTs) do not differ in their motivational patters, but have different sociodemographic backgrounds; this might indicate different vacation patterns and thus allow interesting implications for the tourism industry and destination management organizations. Hence, we strive to encourage more researchers to analyse (e-)mountain bike activities in a touristic context.

KEYWORDS:

• E-mountain bike
• motivation
• alpine tourism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Tyrolean Science Fund of the Federal State of Tyrol, Austria (UNI-0404-2224).