This document discusses tourism among older adults. It finds that age is a critical factor influencing travel decisions. Older women who travel regularly tend to have high incomes and jobs. Retirement can enable extended travel for older adults. Themes that emerged from research on the meaning of travel for older adults included gaining new perspectives and understanding other cultures better. Snowbirds, or northern residents who travel south for winter, engage in outdoor activities and value social interaction. Popular travel methods for older adults include cars, RVs, and cruises. Push factors driving travel include fulfilling inner needs, while pull factors attracting travelers relate to destination attributes. Constraints on older adult travel can include declining health and income in retirement. Temporary communities often form among long

1. Tourism &
Aging
Prepared By Jency Shah

2. Sociodemographic
of Travel
• Socio-demographics
variable include age,
education, religion,
employment, marital
status, income levels,
migration background,
race, and ethnicity. Age is
one of the most critical
socio-demographic factors
that influence
traveller's decisions.

3. • Older women are regular travelers - if they have high income and
good job
• Divorce and single parenting diminishing family wealth so likely they
don’t go for traveling

4. Meaning of Tourism
• Robertson(2001) examined the meaning of the travel experiences
for older travelers to determine whether their experiences were
personally transformative.
• Four major themes emerged from collected data
A new perspective on what they had at home.
A changed sense of self.
Disrupted assumptions were caused by these new
experiences.
A deeper understanding of the problems associated with
a particular country.

5. Research on Snowbirds
• As discussed, a snowbird is a Northerner who moves to a warmer climate in the
winter. Mings and McHugh (1995) investigated the snowbird lifestyle in Arizona
during the winter months. They interviewed 12 couples from three large
Phoenix-area RV resorts. All couples agreed to continue to meet regularly with
the researchers in the future so as to review changes to their lives over the
previous year. The authors found that outdoor activities were most popular
with snowbirds, especially desert sightseeing, walking, golfing, and swimming
all activities that were virtually impossible during the winter in their home
states. The most distinctive aspect of the RV lifestyle was the large amount of
time and attention given to a wide variety of leisure activities. Another aspect
was the importance of social interaction among RVers. Most were outgoing,
group-oriented people with a strong preference for leisure activities that
allowed them to socialize. Card playing, dancing, bus tours, potluck dinners,
and shuffleboard were stated as the most popular leisure activities. Another
common characteristic of the RV lifestyle was the high level of geographic
mobility, including a preference for local sightseeing and overnight excursions.

7. Older Mobile Travelers
• In North America, the term snowbird has been commonly used to
describe older people who travel from the Northeast and Midwest
of the United States and Canada to warmer localities such as
California, Arizona, Florida, and Mexico, where they spend a large
portion of the winter months enjoying the warmer climate.

8. Modes of Travel
• The popularity of the automobile decreases as age increases past 65
years which has been attributed to the general decline in health as
people age, resulting in a lack of stamina for driving for long distances.
Older adults who still use their car tend to visit their children and
relatives and to attend entertainment and functions related to their
work. Travel time was found to be less important for older drivers, who
are not as concerned about stops and delays along the travel route
compared with younger families. Older travelers are also generally more
willing to take side trips, because most have retired and as a result can
take their time. Because of this, many older people stay away from home
for extended periods of time (up to five weeks), and they mainly travel in
the off-season when it is cooler and cheaper accommodation rates are
available.

9. • Another popular form of travel for older people is by camper or
motor home, also known as recreational vehicle, or RV.
Campgrounds of BY parks attract large numbers of RVs, resulting in
high levels of social interaction and friendship with other travelers.

10. Motivation to Travel
• Crompton identified two different levels of socio-psychological
motivation.
Push Factors-
• Push factors are those factors which motivate people to travel. Push
factors are initiating travel desire of an individual to engage in
recreational activities or tourism. .Push factors are the inner motives
which tends tourists to seek activities for needs fulfilment.
Pull Factors-
• All the external factors that pulls or attracts and individual towards
some specific things or any destination. Pull factors appear due to the
attractiveness and the attributes associated with the destination. It is
related to the external condition, cognitive aspects or choices
available on a destination such as attractions, climate, culture etc

11. Constrains of Travel
• Decline in their income during retirement
• Deterioration of their health
• Personal problems such as cost, lack of time, health, age, and family
responsibilities
• Tourism providers' responsibilities such as cost consideration and
poor provision of information

12. Temporary Communities
• Many RVers stay in the same location for several weeks and develop a sense of
community with their fellow travelers. The social patterns of temporary communities
established by mobile travelers in the United States were first investigated by Jobes
(1984). He found that temporary communities were often communities of people
with special interests, that is, people who consciously came together because of their
shared interests, values, and preferred behaviors. Travelers were free to choose
when and where they would go and with whom, although to the outsider it may
seem quite structured and predictable.
• Much often travelers' free time was spent playing cards, sharing meals, and
conversing, and people who were injured or ill were taken in and supported by the
group until they recovered. Mobile travelers referred to themselves as gypsies,
vagabonds, or nomads and developed their own language that included technical
jargon associated with their rigs. This sense of freedom was also reflected in the
travelers' lifestyle, in that they were experiencing a successful retirement and were
economically secure so as to comfortably live a life of leisure.

13. Adventure Tourism
Based on an examination of the current
research literature, future marketing
campaigns must place greater emphasis
on authentic statements by older people
describing their experiences, such as
feelings associated with a sense of
adventure, escapism, and the challenge
of actual involvement. Terms such as
enjoyment, flow, and meeting new
friends should be emphasized so as to
encourage feelings associated with a
sense of freedom, fun, and escape from
a mundane lifestyle.

14. Educational
Tourism
• Educational tourism is about
learning new things, acquiring
new knowledge about culture or
history of other destinations. Its
main focus is on studying new
things, learning about other
cultures, study tours, or to apply
the learned skills. This is one of
the most famous type of tourism
activity for past few years, for
example people travel to learn
foreign languages.
• How is it useful to older adults ?

15. Discussion Post
•Do you think that older people
increase their tourist behaviour
when they retire, or does it depend
on their previous lifestyle, their
current style of living, and their
health?