| N.º 21/22 | 2014 51 Motivations, involvement and place-attachment in surf tourism CARLA SILVA * [ csilva@estv.ipv.pt ] CLÁUDIA SEABRA ** [ cseabra@estv.ipv.pt ] JOSÉ LUÍS ABRANTES *** [ jlabrantes@estv.ipv.pt ] CLÁUDIA FAIAS **** [ claudiafaias@uac.pt ] Keywords | Motivations, Involvement, Surf tourism. Objectives | Tourism and sports are social phenomena, allowing people to meet and interact. Therefore, they can be an instrument of social and cultural change (Rifai, 2010), receiving great attention from the academic world. Over the last forty years, surf tourism has become a significant part of both, tourism and sports, and particularly part of the adventure tourism industry (Fluker, 2003). “Surf tourism involves people travelling to either domestic locations for a period of time not exceeding six months, or international locations for a period of time not exceeding twelve months, who stay at least one night, and where the active participation in the sport of surfing, where the surfer relies on the power of the wave for forward momentum, is the primary motivation for destination selection” (Fluker, 2003, p. 7). Surf tourism is a new tourism product that improves tourism development in many destinations (Buckley, 2002), being Portugal one of those. In fact, there are many Portuguese surf spots in conditions to become worldwide top destinations for surf, making Portugal as a brand for surf. This study is a working project on motivations, involvement and place-attachment to surf tourism. The main goal is to analyse the motivations and involvement with surf tourism practice and also the place-attachment that surfers can build with the surf spots. Methodology | From the literature review, it is accepted that motivation is multi-dimensional. Tourists seek to satisfy a number of distinct needs simultaneously (Baloglu & Uysal, 1996). The motivation variables considered for the survey instrument construction were chosen based on pre-established scales related to tourism motivation and surf tourism constructs. A five-point Likert-type scale will be used as the response format for the motivation variables (ranging from 1 – ’not important at all‘ – to 5 – ’extremely important‘). The conceptual model considers push and pull motivations in eight dimensions: (1) surfing appeal, (2) access and infrastructures, (3) knowledge and learning, (4) social, (5) leisure, (6) prestige, (7) sport and (8) adventure. * PhD in Tourism from the University of Aveiro. Adjunct Professor at the School of Technology and Management of the Polytechnic Institute of Viseu. ** PhD in Tourism from the University of Aveiro. Adjunct Professor at the School of Technology and Management of the Polytechnic Institute of Viseu. *** PhD in Economics and Business Sciences from the University of Salamanca (Spain). Coordinator Professor at the School of Technology and Management of the Polytechnic Institute of Viseu. **** MSc in Strategic Management and Tourism Development from the University of Azores. Invited Lecturer at the University of Azores and General Director of Operations of the hotel group Ciprotur.