A model of senior tourism motivations—Anecdotes from Beijing and Shanghai

Abstract

The study initiates an original inquiry into the motivations of senior tourism in China, a developing country which witnesses the fastest rate of aging in the world and is at the same time emerging as a global tourism superpower. A theoretical model is developed through an intense scrutiny of textual data collected through in-depth interviews. Using basic psychological theories on aging and motivation and adopting the grounded theory approach, the study proposes a tourism motivations model for Chinese seniors. The model consists of two main components: (1) external conditions include societal progress, personal finance, time, and health, of which personal finance and time are mediated through family support and responsibility