When Middle East meets West: Understanding the motives and perceptions of young tourists from United Arab Emirates Girish Prayag a, * , Sameer Hosany b a Department of Management, Marketing & Entrepreneurship, College of Business and Law, University of Canterbury, New Zealand b School of Management, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, United Kingdom highlights  Limited research exists on the tourism outbound market from the Middle East.  Push/pull framework uncovers the motivations of young tourists from the UAE.  Perceptions of Paris as a luxury destination are also investigated.  Three segments are identified: enthusiasts, unconvinced, and convivials.  Results have implications for marketing Western Europe in the UAE and Middle East. article info Article history: Received 28 January 2013 Accepted 7 May 2013 Keywords: Push-pull framework Segmentation Luxury consumption Motivation Perceived image Arab tourists UAE Paris abstract Limited research exists on the tourism outbound market from the Middle East. To address the literature gap, this study investigates young UAE travel motivations and perceptions of Paris as a luxury tourist destination. Data were collected from residents living in Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi. Cluster analysis uncovers three distinct clusters; enthusiasts, unconvinced, and convivials. Multiple discriminant analysis confirms the validity of the three-cluster solution. The three groups differ by their perceptions of Paris and overall attitude towardtoward luxury consumption. Findings offer important implications for destination marketers in terms of advertising, segmentation and positioning strategies. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Motivations are the underlying forces that arouse and direct travel behavior (Iso-Ahola, 1982). Tourism research identifies several motivational domains such as socio-psychological, prestige, cultural, social, educational and utilitarian (Crompton, 1979; Dann, 1977; Fodness, 1994; Iso-Ahola, 1982). Prior studies mostly focus on core motivations of pleasure travelers from western countries (e.g., Crompton, 1979; Gnoth, 1997; Goossens, 2000; Ryan & Glendon, 1998). Research on travel motives of tourists from emerging mar- kets such as China (e.g., Kim & Prideaux, 2005; Yang, Reech, & Kreisel, 2011) and India (e.g., Prayag & Ryan, 2011) are recent. Findings indicate tourists from emerging markets are driven by similar motives as western travelers but variation exists in terms of the importance attached to each motive (Kim & Prideaux, 2005). Likewise, destination perceptions of western tourists toward western destinations are well researched (e.g., Beerli & Martin, 2004; Chi & Qu, 2008). In contrast, the literature on perceptions of tourists from emerging markets toward western destinations is fairly recent (Li & Stepchenkova, 2012; Ryan & Mo, 2002). Specif- ically, there is a lack of research on the outbound market from the Middle East, in particular, the travel motives and perceptions of Arab tourists toward western countries are poorly understood (Michael, Armstrong, Badran, & King, 2011; UNWTO, 2012b). For DMOs interested in developing emerging markets, it is crucial to estimate market size as well as understand tourists’ behavior and preferences (Li, Harrill, Uysal, Burnett, & Zhan, 2010). The Middle East is one of the smallest, yet fast growing, tourist regions in the world (UNWTO, 2012b). With world-class * Corresponding author. Tel./fax: þ64 0 9 3784485. E-mail addresses: girish.prayag@gmail.com, girish@webmail.co.za (G. Prayag), sameer.hosany@rhul.ac.uk (S. Hosany). Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Tourism Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tourman 0261-5177/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2013.05.003 Tourism Management 40 (2014) 35e45