Elderly and heritage tourism: a review

Abstract

The increment of the ageing population across the globe shows a rapid social change of the generations. The phenomenon that was utterly debated in the past four decades surrounding developed Western countries are now expanding the horizon of concern to developing countries too. However, an extensive review of literature identified that there exists a lack of appeal towards the elderly in heritage tourism of developing countries though they have sufficient disposable income and greater commitment compared to the past. Hence, the objectives of this review paper are to identify the elderly's characteristic and underpin the importance of heritage tourism. Review works of literature were identified through multiple sources including range of tourism databases obtained from the wide sources available in open access journals and Google Scholar (high impact journals and published books) along with tracking citations from the research literature. Result highlights socializing, health wellbeing and cosmopolitan experience as three main characteristics of the elderly while two main importance of heritage tourism are economic and social significance. Hence, a new direction towards fulfilling the needs of this market need to be considered due to noteworthy opportunities for wider visitor economy and eventually ensuring towards heritage tourism sustainability.