The Rise of Millennial Travelers

The new generation which is called millennials are the generation took birth in between the years 1982–2004. Millennials travellers are approaching, and they are completely different from the previous ones. In the last decade, it has been observed that millennials travelled in a different way than their previous counterparts; also their importance and numbers are continuously growing. According to (Rainbolt, 2015), the young travellers have been accounted for a minimum of 20 per cent of global arrivals since the last century and their arrivals is probably will approach 25 per cent soon.  Besides, tour operators and the millennials can never be an easy match because of the reason that millennials do not require tour operators, since they are observed to be composing their own trips, that too on the spot through Internet as well as many tourism info websites (Adventure Student Travel, 2018).

Thus, in order to organize for as well as welcome the new generation travellers referred as millennials here, government and the entire hospitality industry must understand them thoroughly by studying their present and previous cohorts (joahspearman, 2015). Keeping above in mind, this study is having the main objective of identifying Millennials role in the tourism industry in the last decade as well as future. Two more objectives of this essay are including ways to attract millennials towards hospitality business and importance of sustainability for travel and tourism (Chen & Chen, 2010).

During the last decade, millennials have been travelled more than the previous counterparts. In this context, according to the survey conducted from HVS Global Hospitality Services during the last decade, millennials travelled on an average 4.2 times in a year compared to 2.9 times in a year of their elder generations (Veiga et al., 2017). Moreover, 58 per cent of them preferred travelling with their friends, that percentage is 20 per cent greater than their respective older generation groups. Additionally, it has been observed that standard holiday’s activities such as cycling and walking are not founded in their interests at all as these were the activities done by their parents (Adventure Student Travel, 2018). On the other hand, millennials like fast pace and continuously varied activities like rock climbing, hiking, floating, kayaking, surfing and MTB-biking (Van Truong & Shimizu, 2017).

In this way, millennials represented a superior challenge for the global tourism industry due to their distinct characteristics, which can further cause real disruption in the terms of tourism industry structure and its working if their demands are not fulfilled properly (Hudson, 2012). Additionally, evidences have been found about millennials; due to the senior segment observe themselves as fresher than their sequential age, hence they embrace similar behaviours to those of millennials people (Faulkner, 2001). Therefore, the relevance of millennials’ preferences has been increased since the last decade (Eichhorn & Buhalis, 2011).

Millennial Travel Preferences and Behaviors

Moreover, secondary research conducted over travelling by millennials during the last decade demonstrating that they want adventures and personalized travel, which satisfy their intents and wishes (Nickson, 2013). While the parents’ generation had desired a comforting vacation near some beach, millennials incline to prefer to trip the nearby villages and towns, or trying local cuisines as well as chatting with friends. Moreover, if the parents would complaint regarding traveling for business, at the same time millennials are 62 per cent expected to turn those business trips into the longer vacations, no matter what is the destination. Hence, it is the opportunism which circles millennials apart from the others (Nieves & Segarra Cipres, 2015).

Millennials take the tours and travels always in an important context as travel can be taken as an expansion of the mind as well as an enhancer of the perspective of the world. For millennials, tourism and travelling provide life-long learning by giving new experiences, and gives an overall sense of drive, purpose, personal stability and freedom in the society (Murphy et al., 2008). In this context, a beautiful quote written by Mr Oliver Wendell Holmes “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions” can explain the tourism point of view of the millennials (Cooper & Hall, 2009).

Thus for the above reasons, this new generation has been arisen as the challenge to the travel and tourism industry (Qiu et al., 2018). In this context, the different companies of the tourism industry include government, travel agencies, tour and travel department immediately require acquiring a good understanding of the demands and profile of the millennials segment in order to optimize the gap amid offers and expectations (Service Skills Australia, 2011).

The innovative use of ICT for shaping the tourist experiences is playing an important role in distinguishing millennials from the other tourists. As we can see that millennials as well as post-millennials are using new technologies, chiefly the webs, for organizing their holidays hence their demands are distinct and challenging for the entire tourism industry. Millennials have been revolutionized the tourism sector during the last decade on account for their different tourist destination choices as well as tourist experiences and behaviours (riorini, 2017).

The distinct behaviour of the millennials towards tourism sector has proved beneficial for society sharing. As we are aware of the fact that we all live in a sharing society, when some aspects of our lives are displayed on social networking sites and enable followers to follow through status, post, photos, stories and videos, it makes our life active and cheerful. Hence the implications of the sharing behaviour of millennials with respect to tourism have been proven beneficial for the whole society (Woo Gon Kim & Hyun, 2008). Contrary, this young generation people are full of new energy and sometimes due to their casual and aggressive nature they do misuse of the technology and waste their time on sharing fake news, posts as well as pictures in the name of travelling the world. Thus, sharing tourism content over social media is the one aspect of transforming the global tourism by the millennials which can be taken as an advantage or disadvantage based on the nature of utilization of it (Adventure Student Travel, 2018).

The Impact of Millennials on Tourism

As the millennials have been evolved the entire tourism sector during the last decade, which brought many new technologies like ICT, web-browsing, cloud-computing and internet virtual tours, as a result we have upgraded our society in an innovative way which is preserving our time, interests and life in all ways (Murphy et al., 2008). On the other hand, while millennials are changing the world by changing the tourism sector through varied demands, the values of our spiritual and holy places are diminishing day-by-day. The above is happening because of the reason that millennials typically demand new places for the adventure as well as exploring the world which ultimately reduces the worth of old-fashioned, traditional and historical places of the tourism sector.   

Millennials have changed tourism in the last decade significantly in many ways, out of which some major ways will be discussed in this essay. The growth of internet being a dominant medium has been prompted many significant transformations which have affected the tourist experiences and will definitely develop the future of this sector (joahspearman, 2015), in terms of supply and demand. As the new industry is been borrowing through computer terminology hence it is  referred as an emerging tourism “tourism 2.0,” which is a new form of tourism categorised by major changes in few of its main features (Rainbolt, 2015). Moreover, a survey conducted on Italian Generations Y and Z confirmed that the increased usage of the internet is changing the global mass tourism model. Moreover, tourists have become more knowledgeable than the previous ones and are now more capable of identifying the dearth of genuineness of definite tourist attractions (joahspearman, 2015). Additionally, the tourists are now more independent and conscious while seeing at the tourist experience as an expedient tool for building their identities.

The facts and figures after this research indicating that the millennials have evolved social needs which are required to be satisfied through the holidays. Figures are showing that holidays are no longer an escape from our daily routine, or a leisure time, but now-a-days they are taken as the source of adventure (Cooper & Hall, 2009). Even though the leisure concept during holidays will continue to exist still the new additions are transforming the tourism concept in a positive way. Now, the holidays, vacations and tours are progressively seen as a tool of construction as well as discovery of the identity of a person (Faulkner, 2001).

Strategies for Attracting Millennials to the Hospitality Business

With keeping above things in mind, the writer would like to suggest some strategies those can be utilized for attracting millennials by the hospitality business, and they are as follows:

• Conducting destination audits
• Creating new marketing plans
• Creating tourism master plans
• Developing and executing brands
• Conducting and implying feasibility studies
• Applying market intelligence theories and frameworks
• Implementing influencer marketing
• Seeking policy advices and government support
• Digital campaigns over web analytics, 3D & video animation and conversion rate optimisation (joahspearman, 2015).

Sustainability is very much important in the context of tourism and hence governments must take sustainability into consideration and implement policies as well as strategies for preserving the tourism industry of the place. Sustainable tourism is a concept of travelling to a place being a tourist and meanwhile trying to create a positive effect on the society, environment as well as economy of the country (Cooper & Hall, 2009). The tourism sector of any destination can contain primary transportation to the common place, accommodations, local transportation, entertainment, nourishment, recreation and shopping hence these above are the areas which must be taken into consideration by the government of any tourist destination for sustaining tourism there (Service Skills Australia, 2011).

Therefore, in order to get tourists’ attention following strategies can be implemented for promoting the tourist destination from the perspective of introducing sustainability into tourism:

• Government can motivate hospitality industry of the place for providing value-added discounts and offers to the tourists.
• They must provide readily available public transportation for the local site-seeing.
• They must have a directed vision for planning as well as execution of the policies.
• They must encourage hospitality industry for providing accommodation discounts and offers (Faulkner, 2001).
• They must promote attractions of the major sites through tours and travel agencies.
• Government must involve hotels, transportation, and retail and business services industry into the tourism contribution of the place.
• They must ensure availability of hygienic beverages, clothing, recreation, food and household goods for the tourists at the destination.
• They must involve into strategic marketing of the destination with the help of new generation people in the government bodies (Chen & Chen, 2010)

In this way, the discussion on importance of sustainability in the tourism concluding that capability of adjusting the marketplace forces, responding to the consumer’s demands and embracing new innovative technologies can definitely ensure sustainability in the future of tourism industry globally. However, there are some places worldwide where tourism still causes a distress of immigrants, migrants among the individuals having different religious beliefs (Chen & Chen, 2010). Thus, the fear in public about anything which is related to tourism and its constraints can destroy the liberty of tourists which may become the greatest challenge for global tourism sector in future (Nickson, 2013).

Conclusion 

In conclusion, the research conducted in this essay is demonstrating that millennials have changed the tourism industry in the last decade considerably because of their changed personalities, characteristics, traits, education, interests and objectives. There are two sides of this argument mentioned above, which include positive and negative sides. Positive side of this transformation is that tourism sector has achieved new heights and travellers both at national as well as international level. As the millennials desire exploring new tourist sites for the adventure purposes hence new destinations has been revealed for the old generation as well as future generations. Millennials use ICT and other technologies to customize and plan their vacation trips, which provide a new path of technological innovation for our society. On the other hand, there are some hindrances as well as challenges for the entire tourism industry due to distinct demands of younger generation. These challenges include unemployment among tour-guides and travel agencies and unfulfilled demands of the millennials due to lack of understanding in between tourism industry and young generation members. Finally, the discussion is demonstrating the ways through which hospitality industry can attract tourists from the millennials and fulfil their demands easily. Moreover, an importance of sustainability concept in tourism sector has been introduced as well as suggestions for the governments of respective tourist destinations has been given in order to ensure sustainable future in every area of the globe.  

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