Seniors and educational tourism

Having looked at the potential size of the seniors’ market, the need to be more exacting in identifying and targeting psychographic segments within this huge market and the current advertising imagery commonly used, we now turn to a particular type of seniors’ tourism product: Educational Tourism.

The convergence of tourism and education is facilitated further by the need to extend learning beyond school so that individuals, communities and countries may be better able to accommodate change, and the goal of making education more accessible. Thus people can choose more readily to learn a skill or to acquire knowledge to enrich their lives at a time in their lives which is convenient to them. Educational institutions will need to incorporate international experiences into their curricula given the growing interdependence of countries. Universities in Australia have certainly grasped the educational and financial value of international students and programmes and most have dedicated departments to seek out, attract and accommodate both the education and inbound tourism needs of international students.

The high propensity to travel among seniors and their growing desires for life-long learning ensures ongoing and increasing demand for the educational tourism experience. Kalinwoski and Weiler (1992, p. 17) make the education/tourism experience link explicit when they say:

[It] can serve a wide variety of purposes such as satisfying curiosity about other people, their language, and culture; stimulating interest in art, music, architecture or folklore; inspiring concern for natural environments, landscapes, flora and fauna; or deepening the fascination for cultural heritage and historic places.

Tour operators and non-profit organisations such as Saga in the UK and Odyssey Travel in Australia have this market fixed firmly in their sights.