Tour coach operations in the Australian seniors market

Abstract

Growing interest in travel by seniors has generated numerous opportunities for the tourism industry to develop new products and services to meet the specific demands of this group of travelers. In the future seniors will become even more able to afford travel as the Baby Boomer generation commences to retire. One group of tourism operators that have benefited from the growth of the seniors market has been tour coach operators. This paper examines the perceptions of seniors towards tour coach attributes and then compares these perceptions against the perceptions that tour coach operators have of the needs of seniors using an identical group of attributes. The paper finds that tour coach users are generally satisfied with current levels of services. However, the research identified that tour coach operators appear to have overestimated their market share of seniors travel and are unaware of the needs of seniors who presently do not use tour coaches. The need to identify the needs of sen-iors not currently participating in tour coach travel will grow in importance as in-creasing numbers of Baby Boomers commence retiring in the next two decades.