The Profile and Behaviour of ‘Digital Tourists’ When Making Decisions Concerning Travelling Case Study: Generation Z in South Jakarta

Generation Z is predicted to be tourism’s main target market in the next five to ten years. This generation’s social behaviour is relatively different from that of its predecessors, especially as they grew up and developed in the technological era. Market behaviour concerning tourism is important information for tourism industry stakeholders. They are required to always anticipate and adapt to changes in market behaviour or tourists especially how generation Z organises their travels (pre-trip, during the trip, and after the trip). This research seeks to identify these behaviours 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 Short Research Article Setiawan et al.; AIR, 17(2): 1-13, 2018; Article no.AIR.43872 2 used for this research, while the data analysis technique uses the triangulation method, or in other words by synchronising various data sources such as interviews, literature studies, and questionnaires. The study found that Generation Z can be categorised 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 utilise 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.