Project Description
Rail tourism is a well-developed sustainable mode of transport in Europe. However, people are still more likely to take the airplane or car to their vacation destination. In order to facilitate more sustainable travelling, tourists have to be stimulated by companies such as Interrail. In order to do so, insight into these tourists is necessary. Besides the challenge of climate change, Europe also has to deal with an ageing population. Seniors are very willing to travel, therefore they should be targeted by Interrail. However, Interrail focusses the most on youth travellers, with discounts and free passes. Interrail and generational cohort studies in tourism have shown to be understudied in scientific literature. Therefore, this research applies a bi-generational cohort approach to interrailing by exploring whether travellers from two distinctly different age groups differ in terms of interrail travel behavior, underlying travel preferences and actual experiences. The generations that have been compared are generation Z (born between 1995 and 2012) and generation Baby boom (born between 1946 and 1964). The research project made use of a survey that was distributed in different Facebook groups about interrailing and on social media.
It was found that there are certainly differences between the two generations. Regarding travel preferences, it was found that Baby boomers value travel comfort more, but at the same time reaching their destination fast was less important. For generation Z this was the other way around. Travel behaviour has also been analysed, and it was found that Baby boomers have a budget that is on average twice as high as that from generation Z. Further, they mostly stay in hotels, travel with their partner, like to do sightseeing as an activity and mentioned exploring as their main travel purpose. Generation Z mostly stays in hostels, travel with friends, also like do sightseeing as an activity and also mentioned exploring as main travel purpose. Regarding travel experiences, Boomers travelled mostly during April and May, while generation Z travelled during July and August. Both generations visited around 6 different countries on average and are happy with their interrail experience, however, generation Baby boom is more likely than generation Z to go on an interrail vacation again. As such, this thesis shows that there are considerable differences in terms of experiences, behaviour and preferences among the two different generations. This study informs policy-making to make international train travel, in particular interrailing, more attractive by catering to the needs and desires of different generations, and as such contributes to more sustainable tourism travel.
Author: V. Meijers (2023)
