The Profile and Behaviour of 'Digital Tourists' When Making Decisions Concerning Travelling Case Study: Generation Z in South Jakarta (original) (raw)

Generation Z is predicted to be tourism"s main target market in the next five to ten years. This generation"s social behavior is relatively different from that of its predecessors, especially as they grew up and developed in the technological era. Market behavior concerning tourism is important information for tourism industry stakeholders. They are required to always anticipate and adapt to changes in market behavior or tourists especially how generation Z organists their travels (pre-trip, during the trip, and after the trip). This research seeks to identify these behaviors and to describe the media this generation use. The sample for this research is made up of adolescents who were born between 1995 and 2000 and lived in South Jakarta. A qualitative descriptive approach was used for this research, while the data analysis technique uses the triangulation method, or in other words by synchronizing various data sources such as interviews, literature studies, and questionnaires. The study found that Generation Z can be categorized as "digital tourists" as they are highly dependent on and intensively use (six to 16 hours per day) technologies such as gadgets, social media, and the Internet. When travelling, they are more likely to utilize online media than conventional travel agencies to search for information and make reservations. Meanwhile, during their trip, Generation Z tends to obtain "direct contact" with local people, having an interest in culture and culinary areas. In addition, whether a location is "Instagramable" or not is a very important factor as most of their activities involve documenting images or videos and publishing these on their social media accounts. In general, due to their characteristics, this generation can be called "Incipient Mass" tourists. Keywords: Generation Z; digital tourists’ behaviour; making decisions and travelling.