Honor flight: Recognition of preeminent-mature tourists

Margaret J. Daniels, Laurlyn K. Harmon, Russell E. Brayley, Rodney Vese and Minkyung Park

Annals of Tourism Research, 2019, vol. 74, issue C, 95-107

Abstract: The “oldest old” (aged 85+), here coined as the “preeminent-mature,” have been largely ignored by tourism scholars based on medical and access barriers. The research described herein was conducted to help close the gap in understanding this unique segment of tourists. Using participant-observation techniques, researchers joined two “Honor Flight” bus tours, comprised primarily of World War II veterans and their attendants, in order to detail the experiences of preeminent-mature tourists and highlight considerations for service provision and the creation of memorable experiences. Five themes were supported: nostalgia reenactment, relationship development/socializing, identity renegotiation, constraints removal, and comfort reassurance. The findings extend previous service excellence research by considering the distinctive needs of preeminent-mature tourists.

Keywords: Senior tourists; Service excellence; War tourism; World War II (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160738318301154
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:anture:v:74:y:2019:i:c:p:95-107

DOI: 10.1016/j.annals.2018.10.006

Access Statistics for this article

Annals of Tourism Research is currently edited by John Tribe

More articles in Annals of Tourism Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().