An Empirical Study on Domestic Tourists' Motivations to Visit the Chengdu Research Base for Giant Panda Breeding after the May, 12th, 2008, Wenchuan Earthquake

After 20 years efforts, the Giant Panda Breeding (CRBGPB) has gradually turned to be both a key scientific center for endangered wildlife and a world renowned eco-tourism destination. The purpose of this study is to identify the motivations of domestic tourists by adopting the push and pull factors as a conceptual framework and to examine if there were any significant differences between travel motivations across social demographic factors. Based on the deep interview and questionnaire survey, the results had been analyzed by SPSS11.5. The findings of this study would shed some light on the healthy and sustainable development of eco-tourism of the study area after the quake. It is believed that the domestic tourists are looking mostly for destination with giant panda and nice, friendly, and convenient environment for holiday and some significant differences occurred for both push and pull motivation factors across certain demographic variables, such as income, age, gender and education level. Ultimately the study explained why people travel and what kind of domestic tourist was willing to travel to the CRBGPB.