Abstract
Youth travel is an important segment of the tourism market. The motives of travel as we knew them until 2020 were more or less constant, but the pandemic situation had a huge impact on the interest in travel. For this reason, it is important to test the reaction of young people to current pandemics in the tourism market and their current attitudes and views on travel. This chapter deals with changes in consumer behavior on the example of Slovak youth, based on the implemented qualitative research on a sample of more than 300 Slovak youths who participate in tourism activities. The aim was to identify changes in consumer behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic, their motivations, and barriers to travel. The results of the empirical part bring clear conclusions that the pandemic significantly affected the interest, purchase, and overall behavior of youth in the context of travel.
TopBackground
Fundamentals of Youth Defining
All tourism activities performed by youth travelers are then considered as what creates youth tourism. From being only a small group consisting of young aristocrats of the last century (Horak and Weber, 2000), youth travelers in the last decades represent a very important tourism segment as tourists travelling internationally.
By mentioning the term youth tourism we understand the form of travel of young people aged 15-25 years. Due to their age, this group no longer belongs to children, but not everyone is yet included in a certain socio-economic group (Hesková, 2011). Eloquent definition also characterizes youth tourism as youth travel, which includes all independent trips of persons aged 16 to 25 (29) for a period of less than one year. The segment is motivated by a desire to get to know another culture, build life experiences and / or take advantage of formal and informal opportunities to acquire knowledge outside their usual environment (UNWTO – WYSE TC, 2016).
Šambronská (2020) points to inconsistencies in the definition of youth in terms of age, referring to the following sources: The UN and UNESCO define youth as the age group from 15 to 24 years. In various UN materials, e.g. in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (resolution VZ 44/25) a child is defined as a person up to 18 years of age, which distinguishes an adolescent as a person from 15 to 17 years from a young citizen as a person from 18 years (Bednárik et al., 2009). In the Slovak Republic, the term “youth” is not defined in the legal system. In the legislation, it is possible to find related terms in the context of the age limit of life, close to the age of youth. The Civil Code states that the decisive age is 18, when a person reaches the age of majority. The Criminal Code recognizes the concept of juvenile (from 15 to 18 years) and a person who is not criminally responsible, which in this sense is a child (under 15 years) (Matušíková, 2019). The term juvenile (in the context of employment) means employee under 18 years of age and is used by the Labor Code. Social security Codes use the term dependent child (under 25). The Act on the Social Protection of Children uses the terms child (under 18) and young adult (18 to 25) (Iuventa, 2020).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Tourism: Stay and/or travel of persons outside the permanent and ordinary residence, associated with a certain motive and activities, in the framework of leisure time. Earning activity is excluded. Temporary residence can be within the home state as well as abroad, and does not exceed one year.
Youth Tourism: A type of tourism that respects the interests and demands of the young population.
Youth: A group of the world's population in a defined period of life, usually between 15 and 26 years of age. Within the perception of young people by individual organizations or countries and their institutions, the age may differ by 2-3 years.
Generation Z: A group of people from the world's population who were born between 1996 and 2010 (or 2012). The uniqueness and originality of the Z generation is only in use with modern technologies, at the same time they are more tolerant and more open in a new direction than previous generations.
Pandemic Impact: Spreading the same disease in the community, beyond normal expectations, while crossing the borders of several states to continents. The pandemic is associated with the declaration of a state of emergency by the director of the World Health Organization, in order to protect the lives and health of the inhabitants of the continent to the planet. The impact of a pandemic is in various areas. The impact can be both in a certain territory and within an economic (and other) sector, in the worst case it is a global impact.
Travel Preferences: Tourists selecting from among a set of choices as influenced by different motivations.
Generation Group: Group of the world's population. Persons born at specified annual intervals. They show comparable, it can be said approximately the same, character traits, demands, way of life, etc.