Millennial travel: tourism micro-trends of European Generation Y

Abstract

Purpose Millennials travel more than any other generation and they account now for some 40 percent of Europe’s outbound travel. As Millennials travel peaks, the purpose of this paper is to shed light on European Millennials, their characteristics and travel behaviors, and how their travel trends are shaping the present – and future – of the tourism industry. Design/methodology/approach The current study is based on content analysis of up-to-date academic publications and tourism industry reports. Findings The common characteristics and travel behaviors of Millennials drive four key tourism micro-trends: creative tourism, off-the-beaten-track tourism, alternative accommodation and fully digital tourism. Based on the growing importance of Millennials in global travel, these micro-trends are re-shaping supply and demand and transform the tourism and hospitality industries. Originality/value The study provides a novel understanding of Millennial travel, their characteristics and travel behaviors. The micro-trends identified are affecting destinations, hotels, attractions and other tourism businesses, as they re-define what tourists want and how they want it. Furthermore, these change drivers are expected to increase as Millennial travel continues to grow.

Unpacking the influence of flight booking websites to e-loyalty: empirical evidence from South East Asian Millennials

“…They are the most active element in tourism industry (Kim & Park, 2020). It is very beneficial for companies in the travel and tourism industry to understand Millennials because they travel more than any other previous generation (Ketter, 2020). Given the importance of millenials and their familiarity with technology, an online questionnaire is considered an appropriate method of data collection.…”

Camping Tourism: A Review of Recent International Scholarship

“…No longer is camping the stereotype of 'poor man's tourism''; glamping which is a specific kind of camping neutralizes its drawbacks through the provision of a high level of comfort (Sakacova, 2013;Petrusa & Vlahov, 2019;Liberato et al, 2020). For Ketter (2020) the rise of glamping is one response to the demands of (especially European) Millennial travellers and their reshaping of the hospitality sector. For Bigné & Decrop (2019) glamping illustrates one of the (many) paradoxes of postmodern tourists in terms of living 'more authentic experiences' which are closer to nature but in comfortable conditions.…”

Understanding Asian Millennial Behavior In Using Social Media When Traveling

“…Internet and mobile technology revolution affect the millennial generation, so they have differences of characteristics than the previous generation [6]. The mobile technology and the alternative methods of communication using social media also changed millennial tourism consumer behavior.…”

“…The number of names has been used to describe the millennial include generation Y [3], me generation [4], N-gen, or echo boomers [5]. Millennials are a group of consumers who grew up during the millennium, a time of rapid changes, with relatively peaceful and prosperous time [3], [6].…”

“…They become one of the essential customer segments which grows faster than other segments [8]. Some research focused on the millennial generation in Western [2], [6] but little about Asians. The shortage of characteristic Asian millennial travelers becomes a gap of this paper.…”