Millennials as disruptors

: the impact of this demographic on the luxury hotel segment in the future

Abstract

The hospitality industry is a developing sector, and the luxury hotel segment is experiencing a growth in demand by the Millennial generation for the last few years. Millennials are a different cohort from the rest of the population, as scholars characterize them, a group which the existing studies have not yet investigated deeply. The main goal of this study is to understand which factors Millennials take into consideration when choosing a luxury hotel, and how these decision factors can be optimized by this industry. The data was collected by an online survey, and semi-structured interviews were conducted to industry experts. The results indicated that the most important factors were “Cleaning”, “Quality/price ratio”, “Breakfast quality”, “Free Wi-Fi”, “Room comfort”, “Location”, “Breakfast included”, and “Safety”. The only factor that showed significant difference between Millennials and Non-Millennials preference was “Possibility of a Late check-out”, being very valued to the first and near indifferent to the latter. The results from the interviews pointed that hotels should invest more in their staff, provide extra services for direct books, assure the existence of a strong signal free wi-fi, make hotel services schedules more flexible, reply to online reviews while guests are still in-house, and to source local, organic, and sustainable food. This study offers new insights about which factors are valued by Millennials and how they can be optimized to make luxury hotels more appealing to this generation, which are of foremost importance to hotel managers.

Date of Award	29 Apr 2021
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Peter V. Rajsingh (Supervisor) & André de Almeida Pinho (Co-Supervisor)