Text-induced travels: a self-determination perspective

Studies have shown that literature stimulates tourist motivations and have often assumed literary reading-tourism as special interests. The general literary education in primary and secondary schools and its influencing mechanism on students' literary travel motivation has been ignored. By analyzing data gathered from 195 Chinese students through the lens of self-determination theory, we developed a conceptual framework to understand how students' literary interests arise from their personal interactions with texts, how these interests naturally develop into travel motivations, and how such development is influenced by exam-oriented schooling and disenchanting reality. The study advances theoretical understanding of how the reading experience in its original context motivates tourism and highlights the power of texts in today's multimedia age.