Retirees’ tourism behaviour in Andalusia: stability and change in the first decade of the twenty-first century

Abstract

Adding to temporal approaches, this article examines changes in retirees’ tourism behaviour, focusing on life cycle and period effects. Based on microdata exploitation of a broad survey of visitors to Andalusia, first, a comparative analysis of retired and other tourists’ behaviour plus a cluster analysis of retirees’ behaviour were repeated in three separate time periods (2000, 2004, and 2008). Second, the results were compared over time. Cross-sectional outcomes indicate that retirees’ behaviour is different from other tourists, but also heterogeneous. The temporal analysis shows both signs of stability and change in retirees’ behaviour. The study highlights how the retirement situation may influence tourism behaviour and underline differences with respect to other tourists.

Keywords:

• Senior
• retirement
• tourism behaviour
• life cycle
• temporal analysis
• destination

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on the author’s doctoral dissertation, which was funded by a grant from the Consejería de Turismo, Comercio y Deporte, Junta de Andalucía. The author wishes to thank her thesis directors for their guidance during the thesis work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.