| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺南大學 === 行政管理學系文化與自然資源管理組碩士班(95 === 96 === An ageing society has been developing in Taiwan and senior citizen related markets have been attracting great attention recently. However, a senior related market is still evolving. As is recreational merchandise and an environment designed especially for the senior citizen. This paper aims to discover the motives, behavior models and travel experience of the senior citizens as well as to understand their special needs, interests, preferences and opinions.
In this paper, a qualitative research approach, in-depth interviewing, has been applied. Eight senior citizens, aged between 56 and 87, were interviewed and the conversation between the interviewer and the interviewees were audio-recorded. The audio material was then transcribed into data used for further analysis. This research adopted hermeneutic phenomenological methods to analyze and interpret the data and to elicit the research findings. The findings are as follows:
1. Travel positively enhances the senior citizens’ sense of satisfaction and euphoria in the physical, mental, spiritual or interpersonal aspects of the life of the graying population.
2. In addition to the factors previously discussed in some quantitative research, more factors that affect the involvement of the travel behavior have been investigated in this paper, which include personal traits, significant others, travel companions, people unexpectedly encountered during the trip, club-membership, equipment and facilities of travel sites.
3. There are five roles that travel behaviors play in the senior citizens’ life: spiritual support, self-fulfilling catalyst, happiness advocator, anti-aging facilitator, life enrichment.
4. Travel produces additional values and facilitates accomplishing the goal of successful ageing.
Lastly, the research proposed suggestions to the seniors, travel agents, officials and researchers for further study or policy creation.
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