Does travel motivation influence destination perception in the youth travel market?

This paper presents a preliminary literature review of the youth travel market to develop a conceptual framework for examining the influence of young travellers' motivation on their perception of Australia as a tourism destination. The paper begins with the discussion of the importance of the youth travel market and its potential for the tourism industry. This is followed by a discussion of the specific needs of the youth travel market. Further, the concept of travel motivation and its relationship to destination perception is addressed. Several studies, which examined motivation to travel to Australia and perceptions of Australia as a tourism destination by the youth travel market, are presented. Although this study introduces to the study objectives the method, data analysis and findings are not discussed in this paper. The full study and its findings are presented in two articles to be published in Tourism Analysis and Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing in 2002.