A descriptive study on determining the travel behaviours of Millennials

Abstract

Today, the upward trend in tourism is to be found in youth travel and the young travellers known as Millennials (otherwise known as Generation Y, GenNext, Digital Generation, Echo Boomers etc.) are seen as the main generation that constitutes the vast majority of travel movements in recent years. According to the Internationale Tourismus-Börse Berlin (ITB) World Travel Trends 2018/2019 Report, Millennials constitute 40 percent of the market being the supreme age group in terms of international tourism. Therefore, understanding the travel patterns of this generation and catering for their changing needs are of vital importance for the current and future planning of the tourism industry; in recent years, the focal point of the studies is on determining the behaviours and attitudes of the Millennials. When the literature is analyzed, it is seen that there are different generation theories. Researchers handle historical and social events that cause the beginning and the end of a generation. Thus, the years representing the Millennials are not precisely defined. This generation is considered to be those born between the years 1980 and 1999 when technological and social developments in Turkey are taken into account (Kuran, 2018). From this point of view, the study aims to determine the key travel behaviours of Turkish Millennials aged 21–40 living in Istanbul. The reason for choosing Istanbul as the study area is that it has connections to many different cities and countries by several types of transportation. The empirical part of the study has been conducted with a qualitative research method. For the purposes of the study, the semi-structured interview form created using the literature has been sent to 21 Istanbul residents via e-mail. Purposive and snowball sampling methods have been used to select the sample. This study is limited to investigating the travel behaviours of the Millennials in Istanbul, and the results cannot be generalized.