Antecedents and consequences of well-being perception in the senior tourism industry : Focusing on the group package context

Abstract

As the number of elderly people increases, interest in tourism for the elderly is increasing. In particular, the concept of well-being is also fairly important in the senior tourism industry because elderly people often travel to meet their well-being needs. Thus, the objective of this study was to examine the antecedents and consequences of senior traveler’s well-being perception in the context of group packages. More specifically, this study proposed that tour quality has a positive influence on brand prestige. In addition, it was hypothesized that the brand prestige positively affects well-being perception. It was also proposed that the well-being perception plays an important role in the formation of tour satisfaction. Lastly, it was proposed that the tour satisfaction helps to enhance wordof-mouth. This study collected data from 326 elderly tourists in Korea in order to test the six proposed hypotheses. The results of data analysis revealed that all of hypotheses were statistically supported. That is, tour quality positively affects brand prestige and well-being perception. In addition, well-being perception plays an important role in the formation of tour satisfaction and word-of-mouth. Lastly, tour satisfaction was found to be an important predictor of word-of-mouth. The important theoretical and managerial implications are presented and discussed in the last part of the paper.