Analysing the use of Technology by the Millennial Tourist to India

Abstract

This paper evaluates the use of technology by millennials for travel purposes in India. Millennials are persons in the age group 15 – 34 years. It is this group that is projected to form the majority of tourists to India in the years to come. Therefore, it is crucial to understand their travel behaviour with respect to the use of technology. A qualitative approach was adopted using both primary and secondary data. An analysis of the secondary data indicated that the use of technology influenced tourist behaviour, operations, information searchers, peer pressure and connectivity. Primary data was collected using an online questionnaire, from 30 managers of budget and lower – end hotels in India as it is this hotel format that is mostly used by millennial visitors. It was found that millennials visit India not just for its history and culture but mostly because they find more fulfilment. This is because of the unique spiritual heritage of India and the numerous opportunities whereby visitors can contribute to the betterment of underprivileged communities in the country. Millennials want seamless connectivity to the internet primarily because of their need to host pictures on social media and to engage in online conversations about their travel to friends and family back home. They want to be able to curate personalized travel experiences by leveraging several different stakeholders that may be available in the regions they are travelling to. Millennials want to boast about their travel back home and to be able to use technology to make bookings, search for information, post reviews and pictures, and even to find their way. They view technology as a key means to reducing reliance on third-party middlemen in India whom they regard as being untrustworthy and unscrupulous. Technology is an enabler of many other aspects of their travel such as arranging for transport, for shared accommodation and also for living out the local lifestyles and customs of the areas they visit. As against these requirements, various challenges were identified for the Indian tourism sector. These have been discussed in this paper along with recommendations on how the Indian tourism sector must use technology to attract more numbers of millennials to the country.