Ageing and the Visitor Economy

This significant volume is the first to use primary research evidence to examine tourism, ageing and the implications of an ageing population for the visitor economy. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, this book offers insights into the new opportunities, threats and challenges that the growing ageing-tourism markets poses. The ageing population has created a demographic time bomb with a population structure that is skewed towards a growing proportion of older people. When this is combined with the impact of health conditions, such as dementia, the future shape of visitor demand and tourism behaviour is likely to change and face many new challenges, albeit at different rates in time and space. Chapters include cutting-edge insights into future issues, while interviews are used to illustrate and explain issues affecting ageing and tourism, creating a much-needed synthesis of the ageing-tourism nexus to demonstrate intellectual leadership around this theme. This book will be of great interest to all upper-level students, academics and researchers in the fields of tourism, hospitality, leisure studies, and health and social care.

Stephen J. Page is Associate Dean (Research) and Professor of Business and Management at Hertfordshire Business School, University of Hertfordshire, UK. He holds an Honorary Doctorate from the University of West London and is a Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth. He has worked in a professorial capacity for the University of Stirling, Scotland, Massey University, New Zealand, London Metropolitan University and Bournemouth University, UK, over the last 21 years. He has also worked as a tourism consultant with different organisations, including the United Nations World Tourism Organization, OECD, VisitScotland, Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Harrah's Casinos and Sky Tower, Auckland, New Zealand, among many other clients. He has also worked collaboratively with numerous other organisations such as VisitEngland, Historic Royal Palaces and the Alzheimer's Society. He is the author and editor of 47 books on tourism, leisure and events, and editor of the leading tourism journal Tourism Management. He has also been a Member of the Chartered Association of Business Schools' Scientific Committee for the Academic Journal Guide and is the co-author of the fourth edition of Event Studies (with Don Getz), published by Routledge in 2020. Joanne Connell is Senior Lecturer in Tourism at University of Exeter Business School, where she is the Programme Manager for the Master's degree in International Tourism Management. She is the author and editor of 10 books on tourism, leisure and events and is associate editor of the leading tourism journal Tourism Management. She is also an associate editor of the open-access journal Heliyon. She has worked widely with tourism organisations and has led and worked as part of small project teams with a number of external bodies in a knowledge-transfer capacity; examples include VisitScotland, New Zealand's Ministry of Economic Development and Stirling Council. Having advised and worked extensively with Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority (Scotland's first National Park Authority), she contributed to the development of the National Park's sustainable planning processes. Other projects include event impact evaluations, tourism business surveys, visitor surveys and organisational secondary data analysis to improve business performance. Most recently, her research has focused on helping to make the visitor economy more dementia friendly, and she was a key collaborator with the Historic Royal Palaces and Alzheimer's Society on Rethinking Heritage: A Guide to Help Make Your Site More Dementia-Friendly (2017). She also worked collaboratively with VisitEngland, VisitScotland, the Alzheimer's Society and the National Trust to produce Dementia-Friendly Tourism: A Practical Guide for Businesses (2019).

1. Introduction 2. Ageing, the visitor economy and a leisure society 3. Ageing as a societal challenge: visitor health, well-being, accessibility and the visitor economy 4. Accommodating visitors with specific needs: perspectives on visual, auditory and learning needs 5. Accommodating visitors with specific needs: perspectives on mental health, physical and degenerative conditions 6. The visitor economy, change and business strategies for ageing visitors: towards greater accessibility 7. Future agendas: making the visitor economy age friendly