| Author: | Luo, Jiang Bo Bob |
| Title: | The Chinese urban senior traveler market and its potential for travel agency industry |
| Degree: | M.Sc. |
| Year: | 2002 |
| Subject: | Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations Older people -- Travel -- China Travel agents -- China -- Marketing Tourism -- China |
| Department: | Multi-disciplinary Studies School of Hotel and Tourism Management |
| Pages: | xiii, 120 leaves : ill. ; 30 cm |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | The purpose of the study is to study a new potential tourist market in China and give China's travel agency industry a better understanding of the significance of Chinese urban senior traveler market. Secondary data analysis and two Focus Group discussions were conducted to achieve the research objectives. This study examined the current situation and identified development trend, current size, market potential and travel motivation factors of a new potential tourist market--Chinese urban senior market. The emerging of Chinese urban senior traveler market was due to social. economic and cultural conditions, which facilitated the growth of urban senior traveler market, especially China's population ageing trend and the change of value orientation made it possible for the emerging of senior traveler market. Although the current size of senior traveler market is still small, it is growing quite rapidly, it is believed that the urban senior traveler market is an important generator of tourism and more significantly, offers better than average potential for future growth. The findings also indicated that some basic ideas about the characteristics of Chinese urban senior travelers. Such as, senior travelers liked to take short-haul tour together with long-haul tour; they did not have any fixed travel time. The expenditure of senior traveler was not too low due to longer length of stay, and their children and relatives paid majority of travel expenditures of senior travelers at present. With respect to travel pattern, currently only small percentage of senior travelers traveled through travel agency, although the percentage will increase steadily. so far the percentage was still very low. It was found that Chinese urban senior travelers considered "Relaxation" and "Broaden knowledge/open perspective of the world" as two most important travel motivation factors. It was also found that Chinese urban senior travelers consider "Compensate oneself' as the less important travel motivation factor, which was a new finding especially for today's Chinese urban senior travelers. In addition, from both senior traveler perspective and travel agency perspective, there was a gap on product and service between travel agency side (Supply side) and urban senior traveler side (Demand side); by the way, tour itineraries were the most important factor for senior travelers to affect the comments to the travel agency and choice of travel agency. The research also explored three barriers that travel agency industry may encounter in developing urban senior traveler market, they are "one size fits all" strategy of travel agency, "lack of enough knowledge of this special market and shortage of experienced and professional staff and "travel agency did not realize the importance and market potential of urban senior traveler market". Keywords: urban senior traveler markets, characteristics, travel motivation gap. barriers. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | restricted access |
Files in This Item:
| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| b16431200.pdf | For All Users (off-campus access for PolyU Staff & Students only) | 3.17 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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