Senior Tourists in China: perception and satisfaction regarding outbound travel experience in a group package tour

Abstract

Tourism has become one of the fast growing industries in China. In December 2009, the Chinese State Council issued official document named “Opinions about developing tourism industry rapidly” in which tourism industry will be cultivated as strategic pillar industry in national economy and modern service industry that make public perceive more satisfactory (GOV, 2009). The purpose is to strive for developing inbound tourism market, domestic tourism market and outbound tourism market vigorously at the same time. As of the beginning of 2017, people above 65 years old in China reached 122 392 267, which accounted for 8.9% of total population (NBS, 2017). Presumably, China may become the oldest country in the world in next 20 years (Shun, 2017). More and more countries and regions give favorable visa policies to Chinese citizens, the scale of outbound travel market will be expanded even further. Therefore, the willingness of travelling abroad by seniors is becoming easier and easier to achieve. As a result, seniors’ satisfaction is a hot issue in today’s Chinese society, however, the outbound travel requirements and satisfaction of seniors have been not taken seriously by practitioners in tourism industry. Thus, researchers chose the senior tourism market as a segmented market and conducted a study on senior satisfaction towards products and services in the outbound group package tour, which is expected that to understand the characteristics of senior travel market and analyze the importance and performance of each factor and items that influence customer satisfaction. Through IPA model, the advantages and disadvantages of services provided by travel agencies can be and the suggestions will be proposed to make up the weaknesses of current services. This study applies the mixed research method in which involves quantitative research method (survey) and qualitative research method (in-depth interview) in order to collect first-hand data. The results provide new findings of travel preferences and demands of senior travelers to the travel agencies and indicate how to improve the services which can meet the seniors’ travel expectation.