Tourism attitudes and preferences among university students (Gen Y)

Background

In the financial year 2018-2019, tourism contributed $60.8 billion dollars to Australia’s GDP (Tourism Research Australia, 2020). Generation Y and students in particular tend to travel in their spare time in between work or study obligations and often venture significant distances to preferred destinations. Generation Y is likely to represent a significant emerging tourism market as they tend to be better educated than previous generations (Spiro, 2006) and will tend to have higher levels of disposable income for leisure and travel pursuits throughout their working lives. Understanding Generation Y’s attitudes and preferences for different types of tourism experiences, as well as their beliefs and feelings about environmental sustainability, will assist with developing tourism experiences that will appeal to these consumers, and also with tailoring marketing campaigns designed to communicate the benefits of these experiences to relevant target markets.

You must use a variety of scholarly references including several journal article only 3 references please also use intext referencing.

You will then need to formulate a clear market research question, research aim, and appropriate market research objective (with associated 2 hypotheses)

Here are 2 examples on how the research objective should look like please make it similar as possible to these examples thank you.

Example 1:

Research Objective

Previous research examined the relationship between gender and travel preferences, as well as environmental considerations while on holiday. Chiang and Jogarantnam (2006) found that females of Generation Y’s main travel motivations included; experiences, need for escape, socialisation, relaxation and self-esteem needs. The research also indicates that men travel for action and adventure, while women travel for cultural and educational experiences (Chiang & Jogarantnam, 2006). Carr (1999) completed Chiang and Jogarantnam (2006) stating that Generation Y females are more likely to explore their holiday destination and immerse themselves in culture and education. However, Carr (1999) argues that Generation Y males tend to prefer relaxation and sunbathing activities while on vacation.

Even though there are similar findings on females tourists, the findings on male tourists are somewhat conflicting. It is evident that more research is needed to determine Generation Y’s travel preferences in relation to the types of activities that might be preferred by males vs. females. Thus, the first objective of this research is to determine the relationship between gender and tourism preferences for male and female tourists of Generation Y.

Research Objective: To determine if there are differences between males and females in their preferences for specific types of tourism activities?

Hypotheses 1: Tourism activities that involve culture and education, i.e. learning about other cultures, are more important to females than males.

Hypotheses 2: Tourism activities that involve action and adventure, i.e. power boating or 4-wheel driving, are more important to males than females.

Another Example 2 :

Research Objective

Gülez, S (2002), highlights that environments that are damaged or polluted will become less attractive to tourists and tourists are becoming more environmentally sensitive to the countries where they visit. Perkins and Brown (2012) argue that Generation Y tourists are environmentally aware and are more inclined to support green accreditation tourism systems over systems that are not environmentally friendly. Nature conservation is of high importance for the tourism industry. It is important to determine how much Generation Y tourists would prefer or support tourism products/services/activities that conserve nature (Gülez, 2002).

However, it is not clear whether gender differences play a role in the selection of green tourism or tourism activities that protect or conserve nature. A lack of research regarding Generation Y, gender, and ecotourism has led us to formulate the second research objective, that is, to determine if there are differences between males and females of Generation Y and their preferences for ecotourism types of activities.

Research objective: To determine if males and females of Generation Y are different in their preferences for ecotourism.

Hypotheses 1: Female and male tourists of Generation Y will differ in their preferences for choosing tourism providers that adopt green accreditation.

 Hypotheses 2:  Female and male tourists of Generation Y will differ in their preferences for a wilderness and undisturbed nature holiday