Factors influencing travel motivations and propensities in third age tourism: A study on domestic tourists

Today, due to the developments in technology and health, human lifespan is rapidly prolonged. While the prolongation of the human life first caused the increase in the population, secondary it brought community aging with it. This demographic change that shows up rapidly all over the world, while creates serious changes in many sectors such as technology, education, health, real estate, architecture, finance and food, tourism sector is experiencing one of the most important changes. With the increase in the senior population, the number of senior individuals participating in tourism activities has also increased. Senior individuals play a key role in the tourism sector due to their increasing numbers, leisure time and reduced economic obligations. In this context, third age tourism, defined as the participation of senior people in tourism activities, has been one of the important fields of study in recent years. Being able to reveal the demands, expectations and needs of the third age group is important for the tourism sector. On the other hand, be able to detect these conditions specific to the old people, it will also contribute to understanding the travel behavior, motivation and limitations of older individuals. Based on this background, the purpose of this study is to research travel motivations by adopting the theory of push and pull of older people living in Antalya as a conceptual framework and reveal their travel propensity. This study was designed quantitatively and the data were collected face to face and online surveys wtih the participants. SPSS package program was used in the analysis of the data obtained. In the analysis of the data, factor analysis, chi-square analysis, multiple regression analysis and logistic regression analysis were used. 306 people participated in the study and 39.5% of the participants were women (N: 121) and 60.5% (N: 185) were men. The ages of the participants vary between 55 and 88. Looking at the distribution by age groups; Individuals aged 55-64 years composed 58.8% (N: 180) of all participants, individuals aged 65-74 years 34.3% (N: 105) and individuals aged 75 and over 6.9% (N: 21). When the travel motivations and limitations of the older individuals are analyzed by factor analysis, four push factors, namely "novelty", "ego-enhancement", "escape" and "relaxation and socialization" and three pull factors namely "cleanliness and security", "activities, transportation and cost" and "facilities and culture, have been defined. The most important push factor determined for the older people is "novelty" and the most important pull factor is "cleanliness and safety". As a result of the factor analysis carried out to determine the limitations; three constraints were identified: "physical well-being", "perceived risks related to the destination" and "responsibilities and personal reasons". It has been determined that the most important travel limitation for the older people is "perceived risks related to the destination". When the factors affecting the travel propensity of the older individuals are analyzed in terms of demographic factors, the most critical factor is found to be the economic situation. It is seen that older people with good economic conditions tend to travel more than others. In this context, it is suggested that the travel propensity of older individuals can be increased by offering special facilities and economic easiness to older people within the scope of social tourism. However, one of the important findings of the study is that older women tend to travel more. In this context, third age tourism should allocate a special place for 'old women' besides the older people. On the other hand, when evaluated in terms of motivations, limitations and positive/negative affect; it has been revealed that positive affect and motivation of relaxation and socialization have a positive effect on older people's travel propensity. Keywords: Senior Tourism, Travel Behaviour, Travel Motivation, Travel Constarints, Travel Propensity