“More money, less time” has been influencing working-age travellers.
30th November 2022
There are questions about how much hospitality and tourism businesses can adjust to meet the customer needs of contemporary issues. “More money, less time” – the latest trend has been influencing not only the travellers’ behaviours but also the destination where travellers visit.
Tourists of working ages (23-55 years old) are most affected by “More money, less time”. People often need to clock in extra hours due to many outside and inside factors affecting the workload, such as the pandemic, lack of labour, etc. Therefore, spending time on recreational activities is highly valuable to many tourists. The evidence of “More money, less time” can be seen in some countries such as Japan, South Korea and China.
The indication of “More money, less time” – Overworking
Japan is the first country that comes to mind when thinking about overworking culture. The legal number of hours a person normally works per week according to Japanese labour law is 40 hours, which is similar to developed European countries. However, OECD highlighted that Japan is among the top countries with the longest working hours every year, surpassing many European countries like the United Kingdom, Spain and Germany.
In 2016, A survey done by the Japanese government indicated that close to 25% of local companies require their employee to work at least 80 hours of overtime a month. To combat the overwork problem, Japanese policymaker reformed their labour law so that a person is limited to 45 hours a month of overtime. But the situation has stayed the same; as Insider noted in 2021, almost 9000 companies violated overtime laws, some even having their employees work 200 hours of overtime a month. Japan even has a word to describe this overwork problem – Karoshi meaning “death by overwork”.
Looking to the west of Japan, South Korea is in a worse predicament for overwork than Japan. Before the Korean labour amendment in 2018, people were allowed to work up to 68 hours a week, which caused a wide range of issues, from suicide to heavy drinking. Korea has its own word to describe the overwork culture like Japan called “Gwarosa”.
For the country with 2nd largest economy, China, is also dealing with the same matter of contention of overwork. Especially with many tech companies apply the dangerous overtime culture called “996”, in which employees work from 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week. This work culture has even been endorsed by Jack Ma, the Alibaba founder. The phenomenon is so common in China that “Guolaosi” has been coined for it.
The result is “More money, less time” for the tourism industry.
This phenomenon causes several barriers to tourist behaviour of tourists. Travellers who are limited by time typically choose locations in their own and close country rather than go to far-flung destinations.
The report of Thailand’s Ministry of Tourism and Sports shows that between 60 and 80 per cent of all foreign visitors to the country are from Asia between 2019 and 2022. When broken down by type of visitors by nationality, Chinese, South Korean, and Japanese visitors consistently rank in the top 20. Therefore, Thailand is the go-to destination for tourists with “more money, less time” because of its convenient location.
Similarly, China and South Korea also placed among the top 15 source countries for tourists travelling to Singapore in 2022. Simultaneously, approximately 1,550,00 visitors aged 23 to 55 travelled to Singapore between February 2022 and July 2022.
Source: the Business Profile of Culture Newspaper, Thua Thien Hue Online Newspaper, the Business Profile of Saostar
In addition to affecting the choice of destination, this issue also affects the travelling budget of tourists. Those in this situation will often spend more money on the best services and items as if they are rewarding themselves with the best. Besides, Thailand recorded that visitors in countries with high overtime hours (China, Korea, Japan) spent $197 – $173 a day while visiting their country. This is among the top 20 foreign tourists spending the most per Capita in Thailand in 2019. Once again, all three countries (China, Korea, and Japan) were also recognized by Singapore as three countries with outstanding contributions to Tourism Receipts per Top Country with expenditures of about 38.3 million dollars – 536.86 million dollars.
“Advantages or disadvantages?!?!”
“More money, less time” also positively impacts the hospitality and tourism industry for the above effects. More specifically, the country has a high number of tourists each year, which indicates that the tourism standard of those countries presents in high excellence. In addition, this is also the way to promote the country at an accessible price. As well as helps promote the tourism economy of those countries by supporting in creating a soaring contribution to their GDP.
What are the consequences of “More money, less time”? The first major problem is that a lot of tourist’s destinations infrastructure having to deal with the extra influx of people due to “More money, less time” issue. Next, overcrowding may cause significant damage to the local ecosystem if not managed, which is bleak for many destinations that focus on nature. The final knock-off effect of “More money, less time” is the increased waste accumulation as more people gather in tourist destinations. The waste problem due to “More money, less time” might ruin the brand image if those destinations do not create plans to solve the issue.
In summary, the “More money, less time” trend has influenced tourists’ travel behaviour in working-ages to value their travel time and travel closer to tourist destinations. This situation is highlighted best in Japan, Korea, and China. The phenomenon does have multiple benefits for the hospitality industry. Otherwise, this trend detriments it may bring to tourist destinations should be considered by countries and hospitality companies.
How would you choose a destination if you had more money but less time? Leave a comment below.
Hmm that’s a tough one , both opinion are important , everything always has two signs effect . For me , you only live once so you want the maximum amount of time to enjoy it and to enjoy it you need cash cause life cost money. Most fun , useful things require cash. So I would say it depends of the age you are. At this point I don’t fear death but I am only in the early 20 so I would say cash now. Probably time later.
Thank you for your comment, chery! I could not agree more with what you said about enjoying life requires money. However, we believe that time is also important as well cause having a lot of money would be pointless if you do not have the time to spend it.
“More money, less time” is a phenomenon caused by economic factors that promote a country’s development. An issue affecting the top working-age people is when they have to choose a destination to rest and travel in the difficult decisions of limited time. We are increasingly rushing to follow jobs without enough time to sleep even though we have it in hand “more money”. In this working age group, there will be many enthusiastic and young people anyway, so even if you try to follow work, take time to rest for yourself because health and happiness is the most important thing above all.
Hi Esther, thank you for your comment. We agree that economic is the main factor causing the “More money, less time” phenomenon. However, social and cultural factors can also play a major role in this phenomenon, the work culture in Japan is the best example for the cultural factors. We concur that is in our best interest as people to take care of our health first over work.
For me, the term work-life balance for youngster is hard to reach. In the 20s, you should spent most of your time to pursue work, gain experiences, improve career path and reserve money. Try to set yourself a work boundaries not to get overwork and burnout. Later on 30s when reach higher position in your career and money is not a problem, it is time to travel and take care of your health.
Thank you, Joyce! Yes, it is vital for your health that you should not overwork yourself and try to enjoy your life like you said so brilliantly.
Really interesting blog article. I feel more informed about this travel behaviour issue and I will put more consideration where I would travel to in the future. Although that might be difficult to do for those who do not have a lot of free time on their hand.
Hello Bao, Thank you for the comment. We are glad to see that our blog made you reconsider where would you travel in the future. It is crucial for us that this travel behaviour issue should be discussed more cause changes like these have a huge impact on the tourism industry.
I never thought that overcrowding would be a burden to the hospitality industry! Thanks to your post, I realised that it may be critical to the hospitality industry in general as the maintenance cost may be exceeded.
Thank you so much for your comment Giang. Overcrowding is a big issue for many popular tourist destinations and it is critical for governments to work with the tourism industry finding solutions to this ever larger issue.
This is really a useful post, I can learn many useful things through this. Thank you very much.
Hello Quynh, many thanks for your comment on the blog. We are glad that you enjoy our blog and learn more about the “More money, less time” issue. We hope that you can share this blog to your friend so that they can learn something new as well.
What a useful post
What a nice post, thank you for sharing
Thank you Dustin for your comment! We are glad that you find this post useful and we encourage you to share this to others so that they can learn about is as well.
This is a great post thay give me a knowledge about the phrase “more money, less time”.
Hi Jinny, Thank you for your comment on the blog! We are glad you learn more about “More money, less time”. We hope that this blog post help to spark more discussion about the issue and we hope that you can help us in that by sharing this post to your friends.
The article mentioned 2 aspects of nowadays global contexts, especially the issue that the young employee is facing and leading to depression. I suppose that a break is an ideal solution for them, might be less but better.
Thank you for your comment Duyen. It is true that a lot of young people are dealing with this issue of overwork. However, we believe that taking a break is only useful for the short-term. A change in the workplace culture and hours is the best option when it comes to solving the issue that young people are dealing with.
Good explanation about the quote, this post also show the strong definition and concept that I can help others to understand the main points
People nowadays is looking for the best service so it’s easy to understand why this phenomenon becomes popular.
Thanks for helpful blog.
This website is interesting and helpful for people who’re into travelling like me. Thanks for sharing by all your posts. Hope to see more content from you 🥰
The paper discussed two current worldwide settings, including the problem that young employees face, which leads to anxiety. To get away for a while would probably be the best option for them; it would be a temporary solution, but better than nothing.
Hi Nam, thank you for the comment! It is true that a lot of young people are dealing with this issue of overwork. However, we believe that taking a break is only useful for the short-term. A change in the workplace culture and schedule is the best option to solve the issue.
Thank you for this critical post. I think that I would prefer to prepare myself with enough money and then take a break to spend time on myself. I also believe that having a lot of time means having less money, so I would not take the risk myself.
If one day I have “more money, less time” to travel, I definitely choose somewhere not too far from my current residence and use the most premier facilities that place has.
Btw, the post is really detailed and informative. Love how you use up-to-date statistics to prove your point of view.
Hello Dung, We appreciate your comment about the blog. We hope that this blog helps to get more eye and discussion on this contemporary issue in tourism.
If I had more money and less time, I would choose the most advanced services to relax and serve. I would save travel time by taking a business trip, but the destination should be the most famous and luxurious.
Thank you so much for this article about one of the most popular concerns with young people nowadays during busy working time, especially concentrating on three most developed Asian country – Japan, China, and South Korea where working seems to be very stressful and exhausting, which affects a lot not only on their citizens’ life, but also on their travelling choice when they choose to travel to places as closer as possible. I hope this article will help companies change their working modes, help employees’ lives balance between study and rest, and give them the opportunity to experience more travel.
Hello Tran, thank you for the comment! We are of the same opinion of what you said in your comment that changes in the work models of companies is the main goal to achieve when dealing with “More money, less time”.
To me, the value of time is much more irreplaceable than money. Money can be made, and time is not. Therefore, I think I would spend more money to save my time
Thanks for this insightful article. This blog really highlights one of many major concerns for young people that is the stress and exhaustion that comes from work in those Asian countries mention above. This work-life imbalance really hampers people ability to experience and travel to further destinations as they are limited in amount of free time they can spend on. The tourist industry should adapt to fulfill the demands of young people desire to travel whilst having less time on their hand. However, companies outside the tourist industry should reconsider reducing or changing the work schedule to help employees find a better balance so that employees can enjoy more time on traveling.
A great and informative article, never knew about the overworking issue are prevalent outside Japan.
Thank you for your comment Annie. We glad that you found the blog informative. Yes, the overworking issue is prevalent in lots of countries outside Japan, China and South Korea. We choose those 3 nations cause they are the more well-known examples when it comes to overworking.
Thank you for this interesting post. If I have more money but less time for my next trip, my preferable destination would be Korea cause not only having a lot of quality services but Korea is also nearby Vietnam, so traveling to Korea will cost me less time.
Hello Bin, We appreciate that you read and commented on the blog post.
Useful and interesting post. I love how u use the newest statistics to demonstrate your statement, but the title is a bit clingy, it’s not attractive enough
Hello Ashlyn, thank you for commenting on our blog. It is important for us to show the relevant statistics so that people reading the blog can clearly understand the issue that many people are dealing with at the moment. We do admit that the title is a bit weak and this is something that we should improve in the future.
This article is so powerful for who are very busy like me. Recent years I only go on one trip in 2 years because of lots of work that I can’t arrange. I hope every company will look back on the amount of time employees work to make appropriate adjustments so that they have time to travel and rest as well as the tourism industry should arrange suitable trips for such a very busy person like me.
Thank you for this insightful post. Your post is very detailed and I got a lot of information from it. Looking forward to seeing more of your blogs!
This post has aptly addressed one of the most enduring problems of the modern society, and is all the more familiar to everyone who is participating in the working class, which is work-life balance, particularly regarding the matter of travelling. By citing reliable articles and statistics, it has established a clear relationship between overworking and its impact on the behaviours of travellers, who, as the title implies, are having “more money, less time” as well as the greater tourism industry. Furthermore, the post is also able to support its claim by linking between the “overworked countries” such as China, S.Korea, and Japan its present in the tourism industry of Thailand and Singapore, which is a good critical assessment.
Overall, I think the post is a good read with some interesting insight. Although there are a few points I am not wholly convinced of, I can see the thought-processes behind these claims and why the writer had arrived to them. Lastly, it is also something I can somewhat personally relate to, as I too am constantly struggled to strike a good balance between working and fulfilling my personal life.
Thank you for your comment Bach! We are glad that you find this blog post interesting and relatable. Though we do see your point on these claims can be strange, we figure that starting from these helps to move the ball forwards on the topic so that hopefully a solution to this can be achieve in the future.
This blog is so helpful. Thank you
Blogger these days are getting more and more knowledgeable. I can stay at home and learn new things thanks to these blogs. Thank you
Being living with 5 kids in family, a Mother, I have to take care of my family, and I don’t have time for myself to enjoy a day break. But after reading this blog, I think it will be better to stay with my family. Thank you!!
This is a useful information, however, it only focus on Asian countries, especially Japan instead of Korea, which stands second on the list. It also compare the current trend in Asia and other foreign countries, to show the benefits and to gain better understanding about the value of the trend as well as its disadvantages.
Hi Jack, Thanks for your share. Hope you have a nice day.
Well, Time to me is important because money can be earned, but time one really does not have any control over how to create more time. Enjoy Time, Enjoy Life!!!
Thanks for helpful blog.
Hi Dalziel Hà, Thanks for your thought about our blog. Hope you have a nice day.
An interesting read on how culture affects the way people travel and spend their money.