Affect, Travel Motivation, and Travel Intention: a Senior Market

The senior tourism market has received increased attention as the importance of this market segment becomes more evident. However, limited efforts have been devoted to understanding psychological aspects of senior tourists. The primary objectives of this research are to investigate seniors' affect and travel motivation as well as interrelationships between these two constructs and to discover the effects of affect and motivation on travel intentions of seniors aged 65 or greater. Using Taiwanese seniors as the study sample, the authors identify “novelty seeking” as the most important travel motivation factor from five extracted factors. It is also found that both positive and negative affective states have significant impacts on travel motivations and that only positive affect is significantly related to future travel intention. Among motivation factors, novelty-seeking not only can be stimulated by affect but also arouses travel intention. The findings of this exploratory study provide empirical support to understand psychological aspects of senior travelers.