Asian Youth Travellers

Catheryn Khoo-Lattimore is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Tourism, Sport and Hotel Management, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. She has research and training interests in marketing to tourists and guests in tourism and hospitality industries, with a passionate focus on women, families and young children. She is also particularly interested in understanding these segments from an Asian perspective, and how their travel experience and behaviours differ cross-culturally. Catheryn has expertise in feasibility studies and qualitative research methodologies using photographs, virtual texts, observations, focus groups and in-depth interviews. She has started and sold businesses for profit and experienced consulting for institutions and organisations; and also designed and conducted soft-skill training programmes for public-listed companies. Catheryn is Editor-in-Chief for Tourism Management Perspectives; Second Vice-Chair for the Council for Australasian Tourism and Hospitality Education (CAUTHE); and founder of Women Academics in Tourism (WAiT).

Elaine Yang is a researcher at the Department of Tourism, Sport and Hotel Management, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. Her doctoral research project investigates the gendered risk perception of Asian solo female travellers. She researches in the areas of gender studies and critical approaches in tourism.

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.