Egypt Wedding Tourism destinations: A new Tourism Demand Motivator, The case of El Gouna

With the need to increase tourism demand by focusing on alternative forms of tourism, wedding 
based tourism has gained significant attention in recent years, providing new tourism opportunities 
in accordance with such demand. Tourism motivations are important factors in understanding 
tourist behavior in relation to destination‟s choice, especially for the wedding market. However, 
very little research has been conducted regarding the travel behavior of wedding tourism.The 
purpose of the study was to describe the various travel motivations of wedding tourism to oneof 
the more attractive tourism destinations in Egypt with its distinctive characteristics, which is El 
Gouna, in Hurghada, Red Sea. The study adopts a mixed method based on an exploratory 
quantitative and qualitative approaches for data collection.It embracesthe demand-side perspective 
in order to deepen the knowledge about the motivation that drives people to celebrate their 
wedding outside their hometown. Findings revealed that wedding tourists are primarily attracted 
by the destination‟s attributes such as the “sea, sun and sand” in the case of El Gouna considered a 
summer destination, which forms part of anattractive experience or adventure. And that marketing 
and promoting El Gouna as a wedding destination is still as its first stages. Thus,it was suggested 
that in order to encourage wedding tourism, increasing marketing and promotion efforts could 
help to be an effective tool.