Do memories of poverty discourage travelling? – the impact of early poverty experiences on older adults’ tourism consumption

This paper combines life course theory with resource preservation theory to construct a new theoretical framework for analysing how early poverty experiences affect older adults’ tourism consumption behaviours. Based on data from the 2011–2020 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), this paper examines how early adverse experiences influence tourism consumption among older adults. The findings suggest that experiencing poverty early in life has a significant inhibitory effect on the tourism consumption of older adults. This inhibitory effect was significantly mitigated by internal personal resources (psychological capital and numerical cognitive ability) and external support resources (social capital and intergenerational support). Heterogeneity analysis indicates that this inhibitory effect is more pronounced among rural older adults, those with fewer children, with lower educational levels, and non-governmental workers. In addition, this paper finds a significant negative effect of health and economic poverty experiences on tourism consumption, but an insignificant effect of food poverty experiences. This paper provides new theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence for understanding tourism consumption behaviours of older adults under the life course perspective.