A half-century of research purporting to explain tourists' motivations for engaging in pleasure vacations was critiqued. Two major changes in context that have influenced tourism motivation studies, and which define the parameters of this review are identified. This is followed by a description of the Theory of Disequilibrium, which has emerged as the unifying theory for explaining tourists' motivation, and the physiological and psychological roots of motive constructs. Research findings relating to the efficacy of the most frequently cited frameworks in tourism texts for explaining this process were critiqued. The review confirmed that most studies tended to embrace either the “push” and “pull” factors which are the inputs to Expectancy-Value Theory, or a more instinctive Thematic-Combination Heuristic approach, or some combination of the two. These were critiqued. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research.

半个世纪以来旨在解释游客享受愉快假期的动机的研究受到了批评。确定了影响旅游动机研究并定义本次审查参数的背景的两个主要变化。接下来是对不平衡理论的描述，该理论已成为解释游客动机以及动机构造的生理和心理根源的统一理论。与旅游文本中解释这一过程最常引用的框架的有效性相关的研究结果受到了批评。审查证实，大多数研究倾向于采用“推”和“拉”因素（作为期望值理论的输入），或者更本能的主题组合启发式方法，或者两者的某种组合。这些都受到了批评。本文最后对未来的研究提出了建议。