Youth travel

Youth Travel is defined as independent trips of less than one year by people aged 15–30. Unlike typical vacations, youth travel is motivated by several factors, including the desire to experience other cultures, build unique life experience, and benefit from formal and informal learning opportunities from other countries, including education or work abroad.

Youth travel is also known as a combination of youth, student and educational travel market.

The youth travel market accounted for over 20% of all international arrivals in 2014 (equals to 227 million arrivals and US$250 billion). It is estimated that youth and student travel will generate more international arrivals than business travel by the end of this year.

Youth travellers stay longer (average 53 days), they spend more (US$1,000 to US$6,000 per trip) and travel more frequently (1.44 trip pa) than the average tourist while they use their money with local retailers.

Youth travel has been a stable and ongoingly growing industry. Boasting continued to growth also during and despite the global economic downturn – outperforming global tourism (e.g. in 2012, 28.8% 5YTD increase in Higher Education).

Youth travel influences the size and patterns of global tourism development. Young travellers form their future purchasing and travelling patterns often based on their youth travel experiences (estimated lifetime travel budget at US$80,000).

A conservative estimate predicts that the youth, student and educational travel market will reach 300 million arrivals by 2020 and represent US$320 billion in market value.

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Wikipedia