Cikarang, Indonesia - In a whole month of March 2017, President University had the privilege to host Prof. Dr. Alfonso Vargas-Sanchez, an expert in Tourism Destination Management from Universidad de Huelva, Spain. He was invited to talk on a seminar with the topic of SMART Destination: Future of Tourism in Cikarang. PresUniv’s team also had a chance to interview him one on one on this thoughts about the lifestyle of the millennials, that is, a need of tourism.
It is an inevitable fact that millennials (those who are born within the year 1982 and 2004) have their own way of liberal thinking and lifestyle compared to the former generations. While the baby boomers, the parents of the millennials generation, will obviously think that stability is the most important of all, millennials have a more adventurous way of living. This, all in all, creates an urge for them to travel more, giving impact in the tourism sector. Social Media and The Internet also take part in this lifestyle.
According to Prof. Alfonso, Millennials do behave differently. There’s a new behavior in the life of the millennials.
“Millennials have the urgencies to use and to experience new things”, stated Alfonso.
Looking at this behavior, Alfonso furthermore shared that the tourism sector adapts quickly to seize the opportunity.
“In Spain, there’s a 1,500m2 travel agency who paid Travel Advisors to experience the tourism destinations first hand and then to share to potential tourists who are seeking best tourism destinations that fit their lifestyle and budget”, shared Alfonso.
Furthermore, Alfonso explained that to utilize tourism destinations, Smart Tourism is needed. Smart Tourism is basically the integration between tourism and technology with the support of the government, private companies, and education institutions.
“Government should combine theory and practices to utilize the tourism sector of a country. Government will have a big data to analyze, while the practitioners will have best practices in their sector. Come in between and is also very important is researches and there’s where education institution like President University should come”, explained Alfonso. (AA)
