Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine and benchmark the senior tourists’ preferences by considering the importance attached by them and their perception with respect to internal tourism attributes (i.e. package tour characteristics) and external tourism attributes (i.e. destination features). Design/methodology/approach The present study makes use of importance-performance analysis and employs paired sample t-test for this purpose. Findings The senior tourists evaluated the package tour attributes to be more important and better than destination characteristics. They also perceived that the service providers have to pay immediate attention to improve the quality of restaurants and meals and hotels. Research limitations/implications Data are collected only from inbound senior tourists in Poland. In future, research may be conducted with a more representative sample. Practical implications The senior tourists want to explore the local cuisine and then have food choices from their culture as well. “Tour escort” is one of the most essential characteristic of a package tour and it could serve as a factor of differentiation. Hence, the tourist service providers have to pay attention to these factors. Originality/value The paper takes into account the internal tour attributes and destination attributes to evaluate senior tourists’ holiday experience.
Highlights
Tourism is one of the major services contributing to economies worldwide and is expected to grow at an annual rate of 6 percent globally till 2020 (World Tourism Organization, 2010).many countries are looking at tourism as a driver of regional economic growth (Wilde and Cox, 2008), and as the main constituent of the service-driven economy (Yasin et al., 2011)
This study considers 20 tourism product attributes: 7 internal tourism product attributes (ITA) and 13 external tourism product attributes (ETA)
While the t-test has been applied to determine the significant difference between importance and performance, the importance-performance analysis (IPA) has been employed to categorize the attributes on strategic quadrants
Summary
Tourism is one of the major services contributing to economies worldwide and is expected to grow at an annual rate of 6 percent globally till 2020 (World Tourism Organization, 2010).many countries are looking at tourism as a driver of regional economic growth (Wilde and Cox, 2008), and as the main constituent of the service-driven economy (Yasin et al., 2011). Tourism is one of the major services contributing to economies worldwide and is expected to grow at an annual rate of 6 percent globally till 2020 (World Tourism Organization, 2010). The direct contribution of tourism sector in Poland to GDP is PLN29.4bn 2015-2025, to PLN47.6bn (2.0% of total GDP) in 2025 (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2015). The senior market, along with its size, potential for growth, and purchasing power has become the centre of attention in the travel industry (Horneman et al, 2002). The senior travel market is growing, especially because of the increase in elderly population around the world and by 2025 these mature people will represent a huge chunk of population in many countries (Batra, 2009). The current research, attempts to examine the tourist satisfaction in the senior travel segment, which availed package tours
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