Millennials’ staycation experience during the COVID-19 era: mixture of fantasy and reality

Abstract

Purpose

Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, the hotel industry has launched various marketing promotions to survive in business, such as those promoting the idea of “staycations.” This study aims to explore what drives millennials’ staycation consumption and experiential components of staycation experiences during the coronavirus pandemic.

Design/methodology/approach

Taking a qualitative approach, semistructured in-depth interviews were conducted with a total of 25 participants who were millennials living in Hong Kong. Content analysis of the textual data was performed.

Findings

This study reveals that millennials’ staycation consumption is derived from the challenges they face in reality (disillusion of travelling) and from their own fantasy (illusion of travelling). Millennials’ staycation experience dynamically comprises their physical and cognitive activities, social interactions and emotional responses, whereby they gain a feeling of extraordinariness combined with the ordinariness of familiar surroundings.

Research limitations/implications

This study contributes to the staycation-related literature by untangling the dynamics of millennials’ staycation experience. In the COVID-19 situation, millennials’ staycation experience entails feelings of both ordinariness and extraordinariness, in which they actualize their fantasy of travelling.

Practical implications

In a bid to gain millennials’ interests in the post-COVID-19 era, hotel management needs to continue designing Instagrammable rooms/amenities and developing variously themed packages by collaborating with local brands and nearby attractions.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the limited literature on staycations in hospitality by revealing the structure of staycation experience during the COVID-19 pandemic and future behavior toward staycations, especially from millennials’ perspective.

Citation

Moon, H. and Chan, H. (2022), "Millennials’ staycation experience during the COVID-19 era: mixture of fantasy and reality", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 34 No. 7, pp. 2620-2639. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-07-2021-0932