Information sources of elderly for vacation decisions

Abstract

The travel industry is discovering a new love: elderly travelers. People over 65 constitute a perfect market for the travel industry because many senior citizens have the time to travel and are willing to spend an appreciable amount of their income for this purpose. The older market also holds a large share of the country’s discretionary income because their children are usually grown and their house payments are complete. In addition, the over 65 market can fill the peaks and valleys for airlines and hotels because of the flexibility of their travel schedules. Moreover, older persons like to travel. A 1977 National Travel Survey indicated that more than 50 percent of all persons over 65 took a vacation the previous year (Allen and Bretman 1981:50). Another factor that makes this market attractive is that older people spend more money than average on vacation travel, entertainment, and restaurant needs (W&L StreetJournal 1983). The purpose of this research is to identify the demographic and psychographic characteristics that are significantly related to the perceived importance of information sources regarding the selection of a vacation trip destination among the elderly. This investigation is designed to be more exploratory than definitive because of the lack of theoretical or empirical grounds on which to base expectations at the nature of these relationships. Not much is known regarding the relative importance of different sociodemographic and psychographic variables in explaining the perceived importance of pre-purchase information sources for the elderly. However, knowledge of consumers in general provides some indication as to what might be expected. Generally-consumers that are information seekers, more self-confident, more open-minded, better educated, higher socioeconomic status, and lower in age engage in more information search (Hawkins, Best, and Coney 1986:587).