Abstract:

At the present time, many of the tourist trips are made with package tours. In package tours, which have an important share in Turkish tourism, it is important to identify and use the factors that will increase participation in tours. Older consumers who have become an important market with the increase in their numbers in recent years, have become one of the issues that should be emphasized especially in the tourism sector. The market segment, which includes older consumers, is an ideal target market for companies that organize package tours due to its current size and purchasing power. It is necessary to determine the personal values of these consumers, to understand the factors affecting their travel motivation and purchase intentions. For this reason, the aim of this study is to investigate the effect of personal values of elderly consumers on their travel motivations and the effects of travel motivations on their intention to purchase package tours. In order to test the model created for the purposes of the study, a face-to-face survey was conducted with 310 people. The collected data were tested with Partial Least Squares (PLS)-(SEM) Structural Equation Modeling. According to the results of the analysis, it is seen that especially intrinsic values have a very strong effect on travel motivations. Travel motivations of elderly consumers were examined in four dimensions: socialization, health, intrinsic motivation and novelty seeking. It has been revealed that the motivation of these consumers is high and that their socialization, internal motivation and novelty seeking motivations positively affect their package tour purchase intentions.

Keywords: