**3. Long-haul tourists**

arrivals in 2015 increased by 4.6% (1180 million worldwide), an increase of 52 million over the previous year. It was the sixth consecutive year of above-average growth in international tourism following the 2009 global crisis [32]. Asia, for example, recorded close to 6% growth in international tourist arrivals. Tourist arrivals have seen growth from 25 million in 1950 to 1.087 billion in 2013 and expected to reach over 1.8 billion in the year of 2030 [32]. According to UNTWO [32], study of motivation of tourists to visit another country, rising economies have become more critical through the fact that their market share increased from 30% in 1980 to 47% in 2013 and is expected to reach 57% by 2013. Nevertheless, based on previous researches on travel motivations [19, 25, 36] in Malaysia, the study elaborated on travel motivations of overall international tourists rather than focused on long-haul

International tourist arrival markets, particularly in the Asian and Southeast Asian regions, are more focused on short-haul tourists than long-haul tourists. The tourism markets in Thailand, for example, received short-haul tourists rather than long-haul tourists. Based on the statistics issued in 2009 [8], Thailand received 21,345,482 short-haul tourists compared to 8,160,880 long-haul tourists (statistics based on the arrival of 25 major markets to Thailand). Likewise, Singapore received short-haul tourists as much as 9,645,346 compared to 3,711,783 long-haul tourists (statistics based on the arrival of 15 major markets to Singapore) [28]. Malaysia also faced the same issue with the arrival of 23,393,445 shorthaul tourists compared to 1,987,545 long-haul tourists (statistics based on the arrival of 15 major markets to Malaysia) [30]. The Penang Institute or SERI [26] said the major tourist markets to Penang in 2014 were from short-haul markets from Indonesia (41.1%) and Singapore (20.4%), compared to long-haul countries, for example, Japan (4.5%), the United States (3.1%), Australia (2.8%) and others. Meanwhile, for tourist entries in 2015 (January– October), only 19.92% (155,263) were long-haul arrivals in Penang compared to 80.08% (779,245) of short-haul tourists [13]. The study was conducted to identify the motivations that affected the long-haul travel by international tourists to Penang and will indirectly fill

Long-haul or long-distance travel can be described as having a long period of time to travel. The concept of long-haul travel based on Dateline project comprises a minimum of 100 km journey [7]. According to Boerjan [3], long-haul travel by airplane involves more than 5 h or travel distance of more than 3000 miles to destination. Letho et al. [16] defined long-haul travel as 'travel more than four nights or more by plane outside of the international area'. In the past, trips involving multiple destinations, long-haul in nature and airplane use were rarely done [20]. Now, travel is already considered habitual, and for some individuals, travel constitutes part of their lifestyle. Introduction to new technologies has enabled people to travel further and comfortably [14–15] (e.g. new airports, direct flights and others) and with further advanced technological developments, travels to a destination are now more conve-

tourists.

the gap of long-haul travel studies for the state.

58 Mobilities, Tourism and Travel Behavior - Contexts and Boundaries

**2. What is long-haul travel?**

nient than ever [16].

Long-haul and short-haul tourists are different based on holidays, trips, budgets, accommodation and others. Most long-haul tourists travel independently [2] and, according to Tidelwall and Faulkner [29] and Hwang and Fasenmaier [12], engage in multi destination trips and sought to satisfy multiple trip purposes. Pre-holiday phase is very important for the long-haul tourists, who usually spend more time gathering information about the trip [3]. According to McKercher and du Cros [18], long-haul tourists were most likely willing to enter a culturally different atmosphere and tend to travel further. Long-haul tourists view their trips as opportunities for learning and personal development as well as seeing it in the context of a rare, often once-in-a-lifetime occurrence [33–34]. Bao and McKercher [2] stated that there were similarities between long-haul tourists and backpackers, such as ability to travel independently, limited budget, simple accommodation and travel pattern. However, based on Crouch [6], long-haul tourists were less sensitive to price and willing to spend more on travel [3], because they consider quality and product features [17].
