Youth Travel Matters

Youth Travel Matters: Understanding the Global Phenomenon of Youth Travel offers a global overview of the youth and student travel industry, by revealing the latest trends in youth travel destinations, products and innovations.The report, developed by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the World Youth Student & Educational Travel Confederation (WYSE Travel Confederation), a UNWTO Affiliate member, shows that the unique motivations of young travellers make this market extremely important to the key objectives of the global tourism agenda and that the personal social and economic value of youth, student and educational travel is increasingly being recognised by educational institutions, employers, official tourism organisations and governments worldwide.This report explains the uniqueness of this segment, its wish to explore and engage with cultures. It focuses on the special mix of their travel ambitions with study, work, volunteer placements and adventure. It also explains why they tend to stay much longer and therefore spend more than the average tourist, interacting more closely with the communities that they visit and making a direct contribution to local businesses.

In Backpack Ambassadors, Richard Ivan Jobs tells the story of backpacking in Europe in its heyday, the decades after World War II, revealing that these footloose young people were doing more than just exploring for themselves. Rather, with each step, each border crossing, each friendship, they were quietly helping knit the continent together.

This book offers a bird’s-eye view of the current trends, opportunities, and challenges related to Asian youth travellers, and it also presents a holistic framework for future research to build upon. Managerial and policy implications are provided for the tourism and hospitality industry and government agencies to better accommodate the needs of Asian youth travellers – a unique and diverse market that is yet to be fully unveiled to the world. The book investigates the key characteristics that define contemporary Asian youth travellers, adopting a broad definition of Asia. While it includes relatively mature markets, it also features emerging markets in Southeast Asia, South Asia, and West Asia. The book looks at different forms of tourism undertaken by Asian travellers, encompassing educational tourism, adventure tourism, working holiday, self-driving tourism, dark tourism, volunteer tourism, and cultural tourism. A wide range of topics are discussed, from history to current trends, from motivations to constraints, from the influence of culture and religion on travel behaviour to the search of social freedom through travel, and from destination choice to destination avoidance. The findings and interpretations are drawn from diverse and novel research methods, such as netnography, visual anthropology, historiography, interview, focus group, survey, and document analysis.

Generation Y is a phenomenon identified by social scientists and social commentators, and is frequently discussed in the media. This book looks at Generation Y in a tourism context. It investigates trends and behaviour and tourism marketing aimed specifically at them.

This book presents the latest knowledge on the still under-researched field of academic tourism, which over the past decade has gained in importance at local and national economic levels as a result of increasing international mobility of students and academic staff in higher education. A wide range of themes are explored from various perspectives, with the focus on Europe. Particular attention is paid to academic tourism demand, expenditure, and economic impact; the relationships between academic tourism and local and regional development, sustainable development, and environmental sustainability; and the importance of academic tourism for the internationalization of higher education and international cooperation and development. Further topics to be considered include the significance of academic tourism for the dynamics of tourism destinations and insights from experimental tourism research. In addition to theoretical chapters and state of the art reviews, readers will find insightful empirical and case studies. The book will be of interest to academics, researchers, students, and practitioners, including policy makers.

This volume includes papers from the 8th International Conference on Sustainable Tourism. Today tourism is becoming accessible to a growing number of people and is an important component of development, not only in economic terms but also for knowledge and human welfare. This collection of research aims to find ways to protect the natural and cultural landscape through the development of new solutions which minimise the adverse effects of tourism. The phenomenon has many more advantages than disadvantages. New forms of economic development and increasing wealth of human societies depend on tourism. Our knowledge of the world now includes a strong component due to tourism. Human welfare has physiological and psychological elements, which tourism promotes, both because of the enjoyment of knowing new territories and increasing contacts with near or far away societies and cultures. The tourism industry has nevertheless given rise to some serious problems, including social costs and ecological impacts. Many ancient local cultures have practically lost their identity. Their societies have oriented their economy only to this industry. Both the natural and cultural – rural or urban – landscapes have also paid a high price for certain forms of tourism. These problems will persist if economic benefit is the only target, leading to economic gains that eventually become ruinous. It is also a grave error to disregard the fact that visitors nowadays are increasingly demanding in cultural and environmental terms. The ‘Global Change’ is a set of natural environmental changes that are strongly affected by technological and social developments. Natural changes are inherent in the Earth’s ecosystem (the ‘ecosphere’). Also, technological and social changes are inherent to mankind (the ‘noosphere’), and are now becoming widespread. Cities are growing rapidly and industry requires increasingly larger areas. Many traditional rural areas are being abandoned. Tourism should also play an important role in this context. Thus, interestingly, many historic agricultural districts have maintained, or even recovered, their local population numbers through intelligent strategies of tourism focused on nature and rural culture. Natural landscapes and biodiversity are becoming increasingly appreciated. The tourism industry must be able to respond to these aspirations.

Shivya Nath quit her corporate job at age twenty-three to travel the world. She gave up her home and the need for a permanent address, sold most of her possessions and embarked on a nomadic journey that has taken her everywhere from remote Himalayan villages to the Amazon rainforests of Ecuador. Along the way, she lived with an indigenous Mayan community in Guatemala, hiked alone in the Ecuadorian Andes, got mugged in Costa Rica, swam across the border from Costa Rica to Panama, slept under a meteor shower in the cracked salt desert of Gujarat and learnt to conquer her deepest fears. With its vivid descriptions, cinematic landscapes, moving encounters and uplifting adventures, The Shooting Star is a travel memoir that maps not just the world but the human spirit.

Tourism Management: managing for change is a complete synthesis of tourism, from its beginnings through to the major impacts it has on today's global community, the environment and economy. Provocative and stimulating, it challenges the conventional thinking and generates reflection, thought and debate. This bestselling book is now in its third edition and has been fully revised and updated to include complete set of brand new case studies, a new four colour page design to enhance learning and improved online companion resources packed with must have information to assist in learning and teaching. Tourism Management covers the fundamentals of tourism, introducing the following key concepts: * The development of tourism * Tourism supply and demand * Sectors involved: transport, accommodation, government * The future of tourism: including forecasting and future issues affecting the global nature of tourism In a user-friendly, handbook style, each chapter covers the material required for at least one lecture within a degree level course. Written in a jargon-free and engaging style, this is the ultimate student-friendly text, and a vital introduction to this exciting, ever-changing area of study. The text is also accompanied by a companion website packed with extra resources for both students and lecturers, including learning outcomes for each chapter, multiple choice questions, links to sample chapters of related titles and journal articles for further reading, as well as downloadable PowerPoint materials ad illustrations from the text. Accredited lecturers can request access to download additional material by going to http://textbooks.elsevier.com to request access.