El turista sénior en europa: actualidad y futuro

Europa es en estos momentos una de las zonas con mayor turismo internacional, y donde el turismo representa una actividad económica relevante. El envejecimiento que están experimentando muchos países europeos hace que el turista sénior empiece a plantearse como un gran mercado turístico de presente y especialmente de futuro. Sin embargo, el turista sénior es todavía un desconocido. En el presente trabajo se ofrece información sobre este segmento de mercado, el turista sénior europeo, que sea de utilidad para las empresas turísticas y los poderes públicos y organizaciones gestoras de destinos, puesto que analiza y ofrece de manera organizada, la escasa y dispersa información disponible sobre este segmento de mercado. La información disponible y analizada permite inferir que el turista sénior representa una gran oportunidad para el sector turístico, si bien éste deberá adaptarse a las necesidades de dicho turista, que en el futuro van a ser diferentes de las del presente

Can tourism be sustainable? : service experiences from tourism destinations in Europe

The tourism industry is growing rapidly, and thus there is an urgent need to developing sustainable tourism. The research objective of the thesis is to explore and discuss the concept of sustainability within the tourism industry from a marketing point of view, focusing on the perspective of tourist producers’. The thesis consists of four studies, each of which contains different perspectives to support this overall objective. The first study deals with how a hotel can achieve economic sustainability by creating a high level of customer service delivery using a refined GAP-model. The second study examines how tourist producers at mass tourism destinations work with sustainable tourism as a strategic marketing tool in their tourism product development. The third study addresses economic sustainability at the macro level by estimating the tourism demand for Sweden and Norway in five different countries. In the fourth study, the concept of sustainable mass tourism is developed and analyzed from a conceptual standpoint. Study 1 and study 3 concentrate on economic sustainability from a micro and national perspective. The main contribution of Study 1 is the refined GAP-model, which can be seen as a theoretical contribution to the service marketing research. Study 3 shows that exchange rate trends strongly affect tourists’ choice of destination. Study 2 examines sustainable mass tourism as a strategic marketing tool at the destination level. The conclusions of Study 2 contribute to the findings of Study 4 and consider the tourist producers approach to sustainable tourism. One of the contributions of Study 4 is that the concept of sustainable tourism should be divided into three separate parts; economic sustainability, social sustainability and environmental sustainability.

Residents’ perception of the benefits of cultural tourism: the case of Guimarães

In many cities throughout Europe and the rest of the world, cultural tourism plays a major role in local economic development. Tourism also acts to preserve cultural heritage, as it provides a way to acquire the revenue needed to restore and preserve historical buildings, and encourages local people to value their traditions and festivals. However, tourism success can be a double-edged sword with tourist flows having a strong impact on the quality of life of residents when certain tourist thresholds are surpassed. This paper aims to address local residents’ perception of the benefits of cultural tourism. To capture their perception, a survey was implemented, addressed to both the city centre inhabitants and the non-urban residents of the Guimarães municipality.