CATERING TO THE MILLENNIAL GENERATION: ENHANCING UNIVERSITY CAMPUS CULTURE VIRTUALLY

This study has as its objective to enhance the tertiary experience of students studying at the Macao Institute for Tourism Studies (IFT) in Macao. The millennial generation represents students presently studying in universities around the world; these individuals were born between 1983 and 2000. This generation is generally characterized in the literature by a number of traits such as having strong ties, being peer- centric, needing conventionality, achievement driven, technically-savvy and consumer orientated. Recent research indicates that this is a challenging generation to please in that they consider a degree equivalent to a product that they’ve paid for and as paying customers have the right to make service demands. Using the generation model developed by Strauss and Howe universities can modify not only their educational programs but enhance the campus culture and lifestyle by catering to the needs of their present students. If we consider the generational model to be an indicator of general traits evident among a particular group of people there may be strong indication that in order to survive our university programs need to periodically change. This survey study explores students’ perspective of an online community developed through the use of an interactive learning platform and introduced as an aspect of campus services for one academic year. The virtual community environment served as a campus message board through forums, a means for event registration and interactive discussion, a tool for self- learning experiences and was enrolled by year one to year four students in an undergraduate program studying for management degrees related to the Hospitality and Tourism industry in Macao. This study has implications for Universities considering ways to enhance campus lifestyle and suggests that transformational leadership could be applied to address present challenges and prevent future ones from occurring.