Business travellers’ use of mobile travel applications: a generational analysis

Abstract

Generational differences in the workplace, particularly in the area of technology usage, have become an area of increasing interest, both for academia and industry. Mobile travel applications have found a distinct role in business travel and support the business traveller at any stage of the travel cycle. The dynamic nature of the business environment, business travel and mobile technology requires research to ascertain the nature of the use of mobile travel applications by business travellers, how this usage differs between generations, and how these applications should be developed in future to meet the needs of the changing workforce. An internet based survey was completed by 232 business travellers with the results showing that mobile travel applications are currently more frequently being used by older generations than younger generations, but that younger generations are more likely to use certain applications in the future than older generations. This study answers the call by previous researchers for future research to focus on emergent transaction channels and communication platforms (such as mobile computing) that could affect different generations by providing a generational analysis of business travellers' use of mobile travel applications. It should also assist managers in better understanding their travellers, especially in terms of their technology usage, enabling them to manage the company's travel programme more effectively.

A Cross-National Comparison of Intragenerational Variability in Social Media Sharing

“…Similarly, Amaro, Duarte, and Henriques (2016) identified five segments of travelers that differ in their consumption and creation of social media for travel purposes, spanning the spectrum from inactive to fully engaged. Shifting the focus to generations of travelers, research has identified generational differences in Internet use in travel planning (Kim, Xiang, and Fesenmaier 2015; Xiang, Magnini, and Fesenmaier 2015), online travel information search (Beldona 2005; Beldona, Nusair, and Demicco 2009), and the adoption of mobile travel applications (Douglas, Lubbe, and Van Rooyen 2018; Gotardi et al 2015). While intergenerational studies of the variety of ways that travelers engage with social media are receiving more attention than in the past, there is also likely to be significant within-generation heterogeneity.…”

Ageing in a Modern Era: Evidence from South African Resort Spa Visitors

“…Concerning generational research in the South Africa literature, studies focused on consumer behaviour, consumption and purchasing (Anvar and Venter 2014;Charters et al 2011;Kreutzer 2009;Mandhlazi, Dhurup and Mafini 2013;Van Deventer, De Klerk and Dey 2017), branding, loyalty and consumer satisfaction (Mostert, Petzer and Weideman 2016;Musson 2014;Musson, Bick and Abratt 2015), employment, management, gender and cultural differences (Ebrahim 2017;Hoole and Bonnema 2015;Koloba 2017;Lynton 2012;Strauss 2010;) as well as student work and entrepreneurial orientation (Funde 2017;Koloba 2017;Maluwa 2017). Generational research on tourism includes: music event preferences of Generation Y (Kruger and Saayman 2015), business tourist retention/travel application use (Douglas, Lubbe and Van Rooyen 2018;Swart and Roodt 2015), and tourism destination satisfaction (Haydam et al 2017). The aforementioned studies investigated generational differences, yet, similar to the international studies included in Table 1, the majority has focused on Generation Y.…”

Examining the role of personality traits in guestroom technologies

“…For example, Hilton has launched hotel rooms with complete mobile controls, enabling guests to customize and control their stay using the brand's mobile app. Nowadays, hotels offer improved guestroom technology (GRT) amenities to be competitive in the marketplace (Kim and Han, 2022; Douglas et al , 2018), and hotel companies started to invest intensively in GRT. For instance, according to Erdem and Cappiello (2022), hotels planned to spend 63% of their 2022 information technology (IT) budgets on maintaining GRT to remain competitive.…”