Motivational Factors in War Tourism: The case of Khorramshahr war museum

In recent tourism studies, motivation is accepted as a crucial variable that explains tourism behavior and is used to understand decision-making and destination selecting. Studies show that many tourists travel to war-related areas, and war memorials are important attractions in these destinations. In Iran, war tourism and war-related sites (e.g. sites of the 8-year-old war) provided real good demands. The purpose of this study was to assess the motivations for travel to war-related tourism destinations. The war museum in Khorramshahr was selected as the case study. This research employed quantitative research methods with 270 valid questionnaires obtained for data analysis. Based on 18 criteria, the motivational factors were classified into four categories: publicity; interest in the acquisition of knowledge and recognition; facilities; and internal factors. Structural Equation Model (SEM) was used to analyze the data. The results showed that three of the categories, excluding the internal factors, influenced on creating the visitors’ motivation but the most important factor was about interest in acquiring knowledge and recognition (R2=0.645).