Senior tourism from the point of view of customers' preferences

Abstract

The ageing of the population has brought the concept of the silver economy to the economy and senior tourism to the tourism. This paper aims to evaluate seniors' preferences for tourism based on selected indicators in the context of various socio-economic characteristics. The perception of senior tourism was analysed based on a questionnaire survey. At the same time, we tested hypotheses regarding the relationship between seniors' socio-economic characteristics and travel preferences. Our research has shown that most seniors travel for relaxation, for health, i.e. visiting a spa or wellness centre, for culture or tourist activities. Less significant reasons for seniors to travel were to visit relatives, religion, shopping, social interaction, dining or business travel. Hypothesis testing revealed that men and women perceived length of stay, price of stay, discounts on visit, or motive or type of accommodation equally when planning a holiday. However, women plan holidays with more time in advance than men. Similar results were obtained by testing selected indicators in the context of respondents' place of residence -urban and rural. We did not observe any differences in holiday planning across age groups of respondents.