DETERMINING TRAVEL MOTIVES AND LIFE DOMAIN EFFECT ON THE QUALITY OF LIFE OF VISITORS TO A MILITARY MUSEUM

Military museums serve as a way to preserve historical military artefacts, documents and material for future generations. One such museum is the South African Armour Museum located at the Tempe Military Base in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The museum serves as the principle preserver of armoured military vehicles for the South African National Defence Force. The data provided support for the structural equation model, which produced an acceptable overall goodness fit. The structural equation model indicates that travel motives, life domains and life domains overall have an influence on visitor's quality of life visiting a military museum. Travel motives and life domains which includes: social life, leisure and recreation life, self-life as well as life domains overall and quality of life attained acceptable reliabilities. The purpose of this research was to determine how travel motives and life domains influence the quality of life of visitors to a military museum. Permission was granted by the appropriate military structures to conduct the research study on museum visitors. A social media campaign was launched on relevant military sites asking members who have visited the museum during the previous 6 months to participate in the study. Participation was through a self-administrated online questionnaire which was completed anonymously. Data from 214 (N) completed questionnaires were captured and analysed using STATA. From the study's findings, managerial recommendations were made with the aim of maximising visitors quality of life. This research contributes to literature of tourism and quality of life.