Developing a typology of older visitors to heritage attractions

Abstract

This article examines older visitors to UK heritage attractions and presents a typology to progress our understanding of this under-researched market. Although there is plenty of research on older tourists, scholars regard this market as homogeneous and neglect to investigate older day visitors to local attractions. We apply push-pull motivation and typology theories and employ a quantitative research design, which involves a survey of older heritage visitors. Confirmatory factor analysis produced five push motivation and five pull motivation dimensions, three visitation constraint dimensions, two constraint negotiation dimensions and two visitation benefit dimensions. A cluster analysis identified three distinct segments: ‘Heritage Enthusiasts’, ‘Motivated but Unfulfilled’ and ‘Somewhat Interested but Satisfied’ and developed a typology based on distinctive characteristics. Significant predictors of older visitors’ satisfaction, recommendation and repeat visitation by cluster were also identified. The findings will facilitate more effective marketing of heritage attractions based on these segments.