Scuba divers' motivations and involvement: A research on turkey

Turkey is situated in temperate zone and encircled by seas on three sides. Accordingly, scuba diving became an important component of the countrys' tourism. From this point of view, the purpose of this study is to investigate scuba divers' motivations and involvement. In this context, 311 survey form were gathered through both web-based questionnaire and face to face interviews from scuba divers in Turkey. According to the research findings, motivations that head scuba divers towards scuba diving can be listed as; "escape", "learning", "stature", "socialization", "personal challange" and "adventure". Also, the findings of this research showed that scuba divers' involvement with this activity can be examined in four dimensions as; "attraction", "centrality", "identify" and "social bonding". To examine the impacts of motivations that head scuba divers towards the activity on scuba divers' involvement with scuba diving was utilized regression analysis from methods of multivariate data analysis. According to the results emerged, while attraction dimension is affected by escape and adventure, centrality dimension is affected by escape, learning and socialization. In addition, escape, learning and stature has impact on identify dimension. Last, learning, socialization and adventure has impact on social bonding dimension. Based on the research results, recommendations for future studies and tourism practitioners were suggested. Keywords: Adventure Tourism, Scuba Diving Tourism, Motivation, Involvement, Turkey