Constraints and facilitators for senior tourism

This paper provides a detailed understanding of how and why tourist behaviour changes in old age. Multiple case studies are built employing qualitative biographical interviews with 23 seniors from Freising, Germany. A model is developed that draws upon hierarchical leisure-constraints dimensions, facilitators, and the fundamentals of ecological systems theory, thereby linking constraints, facilitators and negotiation strategies with their underlying causes rooted in seniors' individual life courses. The model illustrates how intrapersonal and interpersonal constraints and facilitators (e.g. health and emotional stress, loss of travel partners) and microstructural and macrostructural factors (e.g. finances and travel regulations) explain tourist behaviour among seniors. The model incorporates strategies that seniors develop to overcome constraints to travelling, via anticipation and intervention. An understanding of the constraints and facilitators for senior tourism can assist tourism businesses and destinations to develop strategies to reduce negative effects and reinforce positive influences on seniors' participation in tourism.