Introduction
There are numerous reasons that may support the current upward trend being experienced by the travel industry. This is highly evident among young people who have a lot of free time at their disposal and those who are already employed full-time . With the combination made by a stable income and a significant amount of free time after work, more and more people from the younger generations are becoming enticed to spend their hours and money traveling to different locations.
The trend in travel and tourism is so strong that evidences of its growth are now evident even in rural communities—areas which have been associated with lower levels of economic development and therefore foot traffic from tourists . In this case, community-based approach when it comes to tourism development turns out to have a bigger influence in the change in the tourism and travel-related trends in a specified area. In a focus group discussion about the green-ing of the tourism micro-business in South East Cornwall, the authors concluded that sustainability and profitability still remain as major considerations for small, medium, and large-scale businesses that have stakes in the tourism and travel industry . These findings are important in that they serve as a guide that researchers can use to forecast the path or trajectory that the broader travel and tourism industry is taking . In this paper, the author focuses on a qualitative method of analyzing the perceptions of the youth population (i.e. travel biography) when it comes to traveling.
Methods
A qualitative descriptive research design will be utilized in this study. The research instrument that will be used to gather the necessary data will be a custom-made questionnaire that contains questions regarding the participant’s travel experiences and preferences (i.e. collectively referred to as biography). The purpose of this method is to be able to obtain relevant qualitative information about the respondent. This is based on the notion that the responses of the participants to the custom-made questionnaire would be able to provide the necessary information that the researcher (i.e. author of this paper) would have to analyze and interpret in order to come up with a conclusive answer to the research question .
The custom-made questionnaire will be delivered as a semi-structured interview. The questions in the semi-structured interview session will be based on the key findings obtained from the various readings about youth tourism and travel trends during the literature review process. Ideally, the interview sessions should last for around 30 minutes in order to give the participant an ample amount of time to digest the question and think about an honest answer. This way, some of the key limitations of qualitative researches such as difficulty in generalizing, replicating, and reaching general conclusions (because of methodological problems) can be addressed .
In order to make sure that the research instrument that will be used would be valid and reliable, the author of this paper used Desforges’ (2016) model when it comes to examining travel biographies among participants of a target population. Desforges discussed interesting theories that, according to him, may be used to explain why youths in today’s generation have fallen deeply in love with traveling. Some of the key concepts he discussed were the concept of collecting travel places as a motivation to travel, the fascination that people from the west (e.g. United Kingdom) to travel to third world places to take advantage of the lower travel costs and high cultural capital. Just like this qualitative study, Desforges also utilized an interview-based method of data production. In the case of this paper, a total of 10 open ended questions were asked to the respondents. They were given three minutes to answer each question, for a total of 30 minutes for the entire interview session. For the transcription part, only the initials of the chosen participant (i.e. randomized) was placed in order to honor his right to privacy and confidentiality, which was part of the agreement between the researcher and the participants prior to their voluntary participation in the study.
Analysis
Below is an unanswered version of the research instrument (i.e. questionnaire).
Describe your most meaningful travel experience so far and why do you think it is the most meaningful.
What are some of the highlight moments of that trip and why?
Describe broadly the types of people that you met during the trip.
When you think of the places that you already visited, what are specific parts of your perceptions and expectations that were changed?
Describe the most challenging part or aspect of the trip.
What are the things that you learned and or realized from the trip?
How were you able to come up with such realizations?
Why do you think you travel?
Do you think your travel reasons and motivations are the same with that of other people? Why and why not.
Given the chance, what aspect of your travelling biography and practice would you like to change for your future destinations?
Just like in Desforges’ study, a total of 6 participants (3 males and 3 females) were recruited for the study. In example transcript that was provided, their answers to all of the ten questions have already been summarized.
Based on the results of the interview sessions that were conducted for all the six participants, it can be concluded that the major reason why members of the current generation of youths travel is self-exploration. They basically oppose the trend that their predecessors set. For example, previous generation of travelers (e.g. Baby Boomers and Generation X people) have only started to travel when they were in their late 30s, some even did in a much later time than this . This key finding, in fact, goes in line with the findings of numerous previously published studies about travel biography and motivations behind travel behaviors. In a study published in the University of Bedfordshire Repository, for example, the researcher attempted to answer the question on why people travel on their own, focusing on the case of solitary travellers . The answer to which turned out to be the fact that travel has been subconsciously associated with the process of investing on one’s personal cultural capital and developing one’s personal values (e.g. sense of belonging.
It is important to note that the six participants pinpointed different destinations when they were asked to describe their most meaningful travel experience. This was only expected considering the huge number of possible travel destinations out there plus the fact that different people may have different preferences when it comes to travel. There is one common feature among all the locations that the participants named during the semi-structured interviews for question number one; and that is they were all travel destinations in developing countries, majority of which are in Asia. This means that the results and findings of this paper (at least in this aspect) converge with the findings of Desforges in a similar study that he conducted. Essentially, a travel biography-related trend that suggests that younger travellers prefer to travel in destinations in developing countries (primarily Asia) can now be identified .
Reflective Evaluation and Interpretation
Prior to the execution of the semi-structured interview, the author of this paper was expecting to receive mixed responses from the participants, especially for the second part of question number one—which arguably is the most important part because it directly answers the research question that aims to identify what young travelers look for in a travel destination (i.e. travel biography). Although their responses were technically different (which is completely normal and expected), they all lead to the same concept. This concept suggests that the main reason why they travel is because they want to be able to invest in their personal cultural development; they wanted to know more about themselves—which denotes the concepts of self-discovery and self-exploration. The author of this paper, having reviewed various studies about travel biographies across different age groups, was able to come up with the observation that younger and older generations of people (i.e. travellers) have different preferences and motivation when it comes to travelling. Younger people tend to be more focused on travel even at a younger age while most of their older counterparts were only able to enjoy the same benefit at a much later age. This can be evidenced by one of the respondents’ answer to question one where he said that “I travel because I love to, I cannot imagine a life where I am confined at home or at work doing the same things over and over again”. The interview that was conducted so far can be considered highly effective, as far as getting the data required to answer the research question is concerned. For future interviews, however, a stratification of the subjects (i.e. grouping) may prove to be beneficial because it would greatly improve the validity and reliability of the results and findings.
Another important observation can be found on the respondents’ answer to question four. All participants reported a change in perception and expectation not only on the place that they visited but also on themselves. Their collective responses can basically be interpreted as a validation of the theory that suggests that travelling, especially for young people, indeed holds a certain level of self-exploration and self-discovery relevance. One participant, for example, stated that his perception about himself changed from negative to positive after travelling to the place that he identified as his most meaningful travel destination. To specify, he was able to relax and “reset my senses” after the travel; he also mentioned that he would not hesitate to go back to the same place again should the need to relax and reset arise again in the future. This also verifies the notion that people have different reasons why they travel; although as stated earlier, this can be traced back to simply concepts (e.g. self-discovery and self-exploration).
Transcription
J.J. (sitting on a chair relaxed): “I think the most meaningful travel experience for me was when I visited Maldives. For a British like me, staying for a vacation in a tropical paradise like Maldives is a dream that just came true; one cannot see those beautiful beaches and crystal clear water in the western part of the globe, usually it is all snow and summer. The reason why I think it is the most meaningful one is because it allowed me to literally disconnect myself from the chaotic urban life in Britain. As a current generation youth, I have been subjected to high levels of stress, thanks to the extremely high expectations that people in our society have placed in our generation. So, I always find a time to relax and meditate as much as possible. When I went there, I can say that I was able to get and experience the things that I came for. For me, being able to get and experience the things that you came for in a place is what makes visiting that certain place meaningful, no matter where that place may be”.
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