Beyond escape: psychological restoration, nostalgia, and meaning-making in domestic rural tourism destination in Indonesia

Understanding domestic tourists’ motivations for rural tourism requires moving beyond conventional Push-Pull Theory, which often treats motivations as static, decontextualized variables. Such approaches may overlook how tourist motivations are shaped by personal memory, identity, social relationships, and cultural contexts. Addressing this limitation, this study investigates how domestic tourists in Indonesia construct and experience their motivations for visiting rural tourism destinations and how internal and destination-based factors interact. Drawing on in-depth semi-structured interviews with 35 domestic tourists and thematic analysis, the findings identify three interrelated experiential processes: psychological restoration through emotional regulation, nostalgia through the reconstruction of personal and cultural memories, and experiential learning through embodied engagement with rural social life. These findings suggest that rural tourism motivations extend beyond escape and leisure, emerging through tourists’ interactions with destination environments, local communities, and personal histories. Accordingly, push and pull factors are better understood as relationally interpreted processes than as independent motivational antecedents. By conceptualizing rural tourism motivation as a relational and restorative practice embedded in Indonesia’s socio-cultural context, this study advances an interpretive understanding of domestic tourist motivation and offers insights for sustainable rural tourism development.