Young Tourists and Sustainability. Profiles, Attitudes, and Implications for Destination Strategies

Federica Buffa

doi:10.3390/su71014042

Abstract

Global trends highlight the growing tourist interest in authentic and sustainable holiday experiences. Designing strategies that enable destinations to catch this tourist segment is, therefore, becoming more and more important for competitiveness. A long-term outlook calls into question the “next generation” of actual and potential tourists, i.e., young people: understanding their attitude towards sustainability is paramount to drive tourism development in a direction which is coherent to the forthcoming demand. Drawing from an ad hoc survey of 1156 members of the largest Italian association of student and youth tourism, this contribution (a) discusses youth attitudes towards sustainability, their travel motivations and behavior (b) identifies different profiles of young tourists with reference to sustainability. By using characteristics and dimensions linked with “harder ecotourists” we identify hard path young tourists (HPYT) and soft path young tourists (SPYT). The findings confirm young people’s interest in certain dimensions of sustainability and the influence this interest has on their decision-making processes, motivations, and behaviors. HPYT and SPYT are profiles which should be considered in destination strategies: the strong sensitivity of HPYT to sustainability suggests the possibility of creating offers that optimize the unique features of a territory.

Highlights

The influence of megatrends on the tourism sector highlights how important it is that destinations and enterprises understand these changes and the consequences that they can have on both tourist values and Sustainability 2015, 7 attitudes and on tourism forecasts [1]
The study analyzed a select population of young tourists and focuses on their personal, organizational, motivational, and behavioral characteristics
The first step of the analysis confirms some of the trends highlighted in the UNWTO report [26] and UNWTO and World Youth Student and Educational (WYSE) Travel

Summary

Introduction

The influence of megatrends on the tourism sector highlights how important it is that destinations and enterprises understand these changes and the consequences that they can have on both tourist values and Sustainability 2015, 7 attitudes and on tourism forecasts [1]. In accordance with the main principles of destination management (see the review in [14]) and with the current debate on the role of DMOs in the definition of tourist offers [15], it is clear that destinations should follow proactive strategies that create new tourist products adapted to current trends. It should, be possible to overcome the limitations of the “impersonal, non-interactive system of mass tourism” [1] Be possible to overcome the limitations of the “impersonal, non-interactive system of mass tourism” [1] (p. 67)

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Conclusion