Atributos motivacionais na escolha de hostels como meios de hospedagem

Abstract

The means of lodging, as important components for the tourist activity, have a set of elements that contribute to the competitiveness of the sector. The hostels are one of these elements, and in particular, they have been highlighted because they have the opportunity to offer the exchange of experiences to their guests. In this sense, knowledge about the behavioral changes of its consumers becomes important for the generation of competitive advantage, considering the complexity of the study of consumer behavior and the factors that influence choice decisions. The importance of identifying consumer values, whether intrinsic or extrinsic, is emphasized. This research presents as main objective, the analysis of the motivational attributes to choose the hostels as means of lodging. The methodology used to reach the goal proposed in this study consists of two steps: first, the questionnaire was applied, containing six closed-ended questions to identify the profile of the new consumer of hostels in Brazil; Then online focus groups were conducted through the Messenger application in order to identify the main attributes of hostel choice. Thus, the research is characterized as exploratory-descriptive, with a qualitative approach. For the analysis of the data, NVivo 11 software was used with ways to facilitate the critical interpretation of the content. We analyzed the reports and discussions of 53 participants of the online focus groups, whose results pointed out a new hostel consumer in Brazil that has, as priorities, interaction with other guests, experiences and cultural exchanges and cost-benefit, classified as attributes Which add more value when choosing a hostel as a means of tourist accommodation. It was concluded with the presentation of the trends of the hostels due to the increase of tourist demand with focus on the experiences. Given that tourism becomes, in this case, the facilitator of social exchanges, making it possible to meet people from different countries and cultures in one place.