Youth Travel and Intercultural Communication

Youth and student travel is increasingly being recognized as an important segment of the global travel market. Independent youth travellers tend to travel more frequently and for longer periods than many older tourists or those taking package holidays. The international student population expands, incomes rise among young people and new markets are opened up. The main motivation tendencies of youth travel are: exploration of other cultures (83%), followed by excitement (74%) and expansion of knowledge (69%) – demonstrating the desire to encounter different people and places. Individual tourism stimulates the development of communicative competence. While travelling on one's own, it is necessary to know the language and the emblems characteristic of a given country. The motivation to broaden the knowledge about particular regions of the world and to confront it with own experiences is increased. Tourists ' penetration of local societies also verifies a stereotypical image of a given nation. While communicating with somebody from a different culture, we base on our experience with this culture. The more we know about it, the more accurate our predictions are. The knowledge of a culture of a country visited, its language, beliefs or ideology allows us to predict the possible reactions of a given person to some transmissions