Abstract It has long been the core issue for planning, management, and marketing of tourism destination, to understand and forecast tourists’ travel motivations and demands. This issue has not been fully solved due to the multidimensional and dynamic nature of travel motivation. According to travel career pattern (TCP) theory, tourists’ travel motivation and demand characteristics will change, depending on their life cycle and the accumulation of travel experience. Furthermore, the curve of tourists’ psychographic variables will lead to the rise and fall of tourist destinations. For that reason, it can be hard to tell the tourists’ complicated needs statically with most of existing travel motivation theory. The aim of this study is to extend the research findings of existing motivation related studies and contribute to the solution of that issue by applying the dynamic point of view of travel career pattern (TCP) theory on the relationship of travel motivations, tourists’ age and past experience, and to enhance the sustainability of tourism destination development by integrating tourism products and services with tourists’ needs using the curve of tourists’ psychographic variables and destination rise and fall. It took about three months for data collecting. In total, 640 valid samples were collected from West Lake, Xixi Wetland, and three international youth hostels in Hangzhou. The data was analyzed by exploratory factor analysis, cluster analysis, discrimination analysis, independent sample t test, cross-tabulation, and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). The results show that the structure of fourteen underlined motivation factors is basically the same between Chinese tourists and the western counterparts, including nature, novelty, self-actualization, self-development or host-site involvement, relationship strengthening, self-development or personal development, escape/relaxation, stimulation, relationship /sense of security, isolation, autonomy, recognition, nostalgia, and romance. High and low experienced levels were classified based on the subjects’ age and travel experience. Significant differences were found between these two levels on novelty, escape/relaxation, and recognition. Thus, based on the initial findings of Chinese tourists’ travel career pattern, the cross-cultural adaptability of TCP theory was empirically supported, detailed motivational differences were also found between Eastern and Western travelers. After this, further analysis of the influence of tourists’ age and travel experience on travel motivation respectively revealed four more specific travel career patterns. A revised TCP decision model was then proposed in combination with tourists’ psychographic model, which could enable tourism destination managers to understand their target tourists’ demands efficiently based on their age and travel experience. And travel products and services that are suitable for the sustainability of tourism destination development can be secured accordingly.
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