TY - JOUR

T1 - Predicting Travel Patterns of Senior Citizens

T2 - How the Past May Provide a Key to the Future

AU - Lohmann, Martin

AU - Danielsson, Johanna

PY - 2001/10/1

Y1 - 2001/10/1

N2 - Given the projected growth of the senior citizens market, designing specific marketing strategies to meet the prospective needs of elderly tourists will become increasingly important. There has been an implicit assumption that there will be a close relationship between the travel behaviour of today's seniors and those of future ones. This paper reports on a re-analysis of results of the German annual travel survey (Reiseanalyse), and suggests that such an assumption might be misleading. Tourist demand and travel behaviour are not necessarily determined by age, but by generation. For the last third of the life cycle, the travel behaviour of a particular generation seems to be quite rigid, and does not change significantly because of factors such as retirement. The results of this analysis show that travel propensity, or patterns of tourist behaviour, remain the same up to 20 years for a given generation. Therefore, understanding the future travel behaviour of senior citizens is perhaps not as difficult as it might first appear. In conclusion, the actual travel behaviour (including expectations, motivations and aspirations) of people aged between 55 and 65 years in 2000 allows a prediction of prospective travellers aged 65 to 75 years in the year 2010. Such an approach supplies reliable data for the design of future marketing strategies and suitable products. © 2013 Henry Stewart Publications, 1356-7667.

AB - Given the projected growth of the senior citizens market, designing specific marketing strategies to meet the prospective needs of elderly tourists will become increasingly important. There has been an implicit assumption that there will be a close relationship between the travel behaviour of today's seniors and those of future ones. This paper reports on a re-analysis of results of the German annual travel survey (Reiseanalyse), and suggests that such an assumption might be misleading. Tourist demand and travel behaviour are not necessarily determined by age, but by generation. For the last third of the life cycle, the travel behaviour of a particular generation seems to be quite rigid, and does not change significantly because of factors such as retirement. The results of this analysis show that travel propensity, or patterns of tourist behaviour, remain the same up to 20 years for a given generation. Therefore, understanding the future travel behaviour of senior citizens is perhaps not as difficult as it might first appear. In conclusion, the actual travel behaviour (including expectations, motivations and aspirations) of people aged between 55 and 65 years in 2000 allows a prediction of prospective travellers aged 65 to 75 years in the year 2010. Such an approach supplies reliable data for the design of future marketing strategies and suitable products. © 2013 Henry Stewart Publications, 1356-7667.

KW - Tourism studies

KW - senior travellers

KW - future travel patterns

KW - longitudinal trend analysis

KW - German tourists

KW - Business psychology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=10844249785&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/085e2a7c-230f-3529-a0de-79f3bcd7bb83/

U2 - 10.1177/135676670100700405

DO - 10.1177/135676670100700405

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 7

SP - 357

EP - 366

JO - Journal of Vacation Marketing

JF - Journal of Vacation Marketing

SN - 1356-7667

IS - 4

ER -