Sustainable tourism: Gen Z?

Abstract

Tourism is a system that has social, environmental and economic impacts on a global scale. These impacts, which seem as a chronic problem especially in the balance of environment and economy, need to be evaluated from different perspectives. The concept "sustainable tourism" is an approach for overcoming problems associated with undesirable impacts. Economic gain, resource conservation and inter-and intra-generational equality are the core factors of this approach. Therefore, it is important to reinterpret it in terms of way to today's generation. This generation called Generation Z (Gen Z), have quite different characteristics from previous generations. As natives of the digital world Gen Z'ers, born and growing in a period of economic crises, wars and environmental problems. This innovative generation has a strong communication network, uses technology extensively and easily accesses information. Therefore, it is a significant subject of investigation for the applicability of the concept of sustainable tourism. In this study, the diverging and adaptive aspects of sustainable tourism and Gen Z are examined and various inferences have been made in the context of today's world.

Young Travellers and Green Travel in the Post-COVID Era

“…As Jia [58] points out, the typical tourist who chooses green mobility is women under 30 and over 50, with higher education, with low car ownership and high income. The literature indicates also that factors such as the economic factor (interest in financial knowledge and savings [59], the tourist's financial situation [60,61], desire to enjoy the landscape, novelties, and environmental awareness [5,62,63] are important to Gen Z representatives and can influence the tourist destinations they choose. Therefore, in the context of the second research question of this paper, it can be suspected that economic, environmental, and cognitive landscape factors may influence Gen Z's propensity to green travel.…”

Generation Z, tourism and hospitality: the legacy of COVID-19

“…The most updated research underlines the value of some intrinsic features that could affect purchasing travel habits. These features are authenticity (Haddouche and Salomone, 2018), nostalgia or inclusiveness (Ruspini, 2019), as well as sustainability and digitalisation as mentioned above (Monaco, 2018; Goenadhi and Rahadi, 2020; Çalişkan, 2021; Mavragani and Dionysios, 2022; Buhalis and Karatay, 2022). Special attention is also paid to the relevance of food as an attractive element for the generation under investigation.…”

Young peoples’ environmentally sustainable tourism attitude and responsible behavioral intention

“…Carneiro et al (2022) demonstrate that older generations behave more environmentally friendly on holiday in comparison to younger generations. However, Caliskan (2021) show that Generation Z already has a prosustainable lifestyle. They should receive more support as they can contribute to the establishment of a more sustainable lifestyle in general and, in particular, help raise social awareness and understanding of sustainable tourism, which seems to be without alternative in terms of future tourism development.…”

“…Today's Generation Z was born and raised in the “digital age” caused by the technological revolution (Caliskan, 2021) and is therefore characterized by a tendency toward technologically mediated services (Chen et al , 2022). According to the stage development theory, human beings develop by being embedded in a particular environment (which includes both education and the individuals who make up that environment) (Holaday, 2002).…”

“…Nonetheless, D’Arco et al (2023) recognize only one very specific form of responsible tourism behavior (opting for sustainable transportation modes), in contrast to Salinero et al (2022), who follow the more general definition of sustainable tourism at all levels, highlighting proecological, proeconomic, prosocial and procultural sustainable behaviors. Studies have also emphasized very specific influences, and in line with Generation Z's digital focus (Caliskan, 2021; Chen et al , 2022), Seyfi et al (2022) found that Generation Z's political and ethical consumerism is driven by digital media engagement and reflected in their sustainable behavior.…”