Digital Lifestyle and Online Travel: Looking at the Case of Digital Natives

Abstract

The integration of digital technologies into daily life is transforming human behaviour and social practices. This change has come especially quickly to many commercial activities. The travel industry has been especially transformed. Where once the travel agent was the chief mediator between the customer and a multitude of travel services, travel consumers are now enabled to interact with travel services directly from the comfort of their home. With the emergence of an Internet travel market, travel information and services have become marked by fragmentation. Further, a multitude of user-created travel information and services now augment and compete with traditional commercial enterprises. Digital Natives – young people who can not imagine a life without Google, Youtube and Wikipedia – are often found at the forefront of recent transformations in the travel experience – and therefore, the travel industry.