Determinant factors of senior tourists’ length of stay

Abstract

The current tendency to undertake more trips, but of shorter duration, throughout the year, has meant that the tourist industry has started to show greater interest in attracting those market segments that opt for more prolonged stays, as they are especially profitable. One of these segments is that of seniors.Given the aging demographic of the population worldwide, which is particularly noticeable in Spain, the object of this study is to identify the variables that determine the length of stay of Spanish seniors at their destination. The determinant factors of the length of stay by Spanish seniors identified were: age, travel purpose, climate, type of accommodation, group size, trip type and the activities carried out at the destination. This study is a contribution to this field from an empirical point of view, given the scarcity of studies of this type and their eminently descriptive character; as well as from a practical level, with interesting implications for the sector.

Distance matters: the impact of physical and relative distance on pleasure tourists' length of stay in Barbados

“…In this study, we follow recent developments in the literature and use count data models (Alén, Nicolau, Losada, & Domínguez, 2014;Nicolau, Zach, & Tussyadiah, 2018;Prebensen, Altin, & Uysal, 2015;Rodríguez, Martínez-Roget, & Gonzalez-Murias, 2018;Salmasi, Celidoni, & Procidano, 2012). Our choice of count data models is related to the particularities of the length of stay variable, which is measured as the number of days or overnight stays making it a discrete and strictly positive integer variable (Rodríguez, Martínez-Roget, & Gonzalez-Murias, 2018).…”

“…Over the last few years, there has been a burgeoning body of literature on the determinants of length of stay. To date, length of stay has been linked to a variety of variables, such as age (Alegre, Mateo, & Pou, 2011;Alén, Nicolau, Losada, & Domínguez, 2014), gender (Mortazavi & Cialani, 2017;Santos, Ramos, & Rey-Maquieira, 2015), employment status (Wang, Little, DelHomme-Little, & Ann, 2012;Salmasi, Celidoni, & Procidano, 2012), accommodation form (Alegre & Pou, 2006;Mortazavi & Cialani, 2017;Martinez-Garcia & Ma Raya, 2008), nationality (Gokovali, Bahar, & Kozak, 2007;Thrane & Farstad, 2012), travel purpose (Alén, Nicolau, Losada, & Domínguez, 2014), travel cost (Peypoch, Randriamboarison, Rasoamananjara, & Solonandrasana, 2012), means of transportation (Santos, Ramos, & Rey-Maquieira, 2015), travel party size (Gómez-Déniz & Pérez-Rodríguez, 2019) and travel motivation (Alegre & Pou, 2006). Notwithstanding the myriad of factors assumed to influence length of stay, distance is considered one of the most essential variables (Nicolau, Zach, & Tussyadiah, 2018).…”

Analysis of the impact of length of stay on the quality of service experience, satisfaction and loyalty

“…Most research on length of stay is done from a microeconomic perspective in which econometric models are used to estimate demand function models that include several determinants of vacation duration choice (Alegre and Pou 2006; Barros and Machado 2010; Alegre et al 2011; Peypoch et al 2012; Alén et al 2014; Santos et al 2014; FerrerRosell et al 2014; Grigolon et al 2014. Some variables with a positive effect on length of stay are the visitor's nationality, their level of income and the quality and security of the destination (Gokovali et al 2007 ).…”

Segmentación de los Seniors en función de los productos que compran por internet: impacto en la industria turística

“…Estudios previos sobre los determinantes de la intención de compra en línea se han centrado en las percepciones y actitudes de los clientes, tales como la percepción de riesgo (Zheng et al, 2012), la competitividad de precios (Degeratu et al, 2000), la facilidad de uso o aspectos de diseño (Wen, 2012); así como el comportamiento previo del turista, como puede ser la búsqueda de información o el comportamiento de compra anterior. Trabajos como los realizados por Alén et al (2014) y Losada et al (2016 estudian la duración y frecuencia de los viajes de los seniors españoles, llegando a la conclusión que el género, situación económica percibida y disponibilidad se revelan como unos importantes determinantes a la hora de planificar los viajes de la tercera edad en España.…”