Baby-boomers hitting the road: the paradoxes of the senior leisure tourism

ABSTRACT

An increasing growth of older people has caused significant socioeconomic transformations for almost all sectors of society, including the tourism industry. In the last decades, older adults have become an important target group for the leisure tourism market on a global scale. It is estimated that older individuals, especially the representatives of the baby-boom generation, will be responsible for a relatively large share of all holiday spending, and that senior tourism will become the fastest and biggest potential driving force in the hospitality markets. Yet, senior tourism is still a marginal branch in aging and tourism studies. This article aims to address this gap by highlighting the complex nexus of recreational later-life mobility, active engagement and successful aging. It interrogates whether the senior tourism market liberates and empowers older adults, or further perpetuates age-related inequalities and reinforces consumerist pressures and the ideals of a good old age. To answer this question, it sheds light on the positive aspects of leisure travels in later life, such as an enhanced sense of well-being, happiness and psychological health. As a counterargument, the article shows how the senior leisure market, constructed around neoliberal Western notions of successful aging, further deepens discrimination among older adults.

KEYWORDS:

• Active lifestyles
• aging
• baby-boomers
• neoliberalism
• senior leisure tourism
• successful aging

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research received no external funding.#8232;

Notes on contributors

Ieva Stončikaitė

Ieva Stončikaitė holds a PhD (2017) in cultural-literary gerontology. Currently, she is an adjunct lecturer in Comparative Literature at the University of Lleida. Her research interests include literary-cultural expressions of ageing, old age discrimination, senior leisure tourism, and arts-based research on ageing.