Beyond motivation: travel itch and the structural reproduction of desire in contemporary tourism
Articles > Article · 2026
Authors: Özgür SOYSAL, GİZEM ÇAPAR, TUĞBA PALA MORKOÇ, UMUT MORKOÇ
Current Issues in Tourism, Journal Indexed in SSCI, International, WoS, 2026, pp 1-14
DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2026.2681108
Summary
Tourism research has extensively examined travel motivation and experience, yet has paid less attention to why the desire to travel persistently re-emerges even without deprivation or dissatisfaction. Addressing this gap, this paper reconceptualizes travel itch as a phenomenon irreducible to individual motivation or cultural trends. Drawing on an integrated theoretical framework, the study frames travel itch through Lacanian psychoanalysis and Foucauldian social theory. Lacanian theory highlights the structural restlessness of desire sustaining the urge to travel, while Foucauldian analysis situates this desire within historically specific regimes of mobility, self-governance, and subject formation. In doing so, the paper offers an ontological critique of dominant motivational paradigms and reframes travel desire as a structurally persistent dynamic of contemporary subjectivity. It also paves the way for future empirical research, including the development of tools to capture travel desire in various tourist populations and contexts.