Autor(es): Rodrigues, Ana ; Amaral, Marta ; Diniz, Alice
Data: 2020
Identificador Persistente: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.15/2850
Origem: Repositório Científico do Instituto Politécnico de Santarém
Assunto(s): OEC model; Senior tourism; Tourism experience; Tourism packages; VOLTO JÁ project
Purpose: The senior tourism market is fully integrated in sociodemographic trends and overall demand of tourists in the present decade (Alén, Dominguéz, & Losada, 2012). This paper aims to describe a methodological proposal for the design of tourism packages and evaluation of tourist experiences for the senior market segment within the VOLTO JÁ project (‘I’ll be right back’), a project for the exchange of institutionalized elderly people in social economy organizations (SEO). The business model for the VOLTO JÁ project is the operationalization of a senior social exchange programme to enable tourism to be available to everyone regardless of their social status (Oliveira et al., 2017). Methodology: This paper is anchored in a conceptual model definition for the development of tourism packages and evaluation of tourism experiences in senior mobility which were drawn up based on a set of data collection instruments. The proposed model, called OEC, is divided into three phases: (i) Organic (O), aiming to contact the privileged information agents (the SEO representatives); (ii) Experiential (E), aiming to collect data during the senior´s exchange, through direct observation, free elicitation and visual records (image), and (iii) Complex (C), comes after senior´s exchange, with the use of a semi-structured interview. Findings: The proposed model has already been operationalized by carrying out 12 seniors’ exchanges achieved within the objectives of VOLTO JÁ project. Originality: With this proposal, the authors intend to transfer the model to other contexts that work with this market segment, senior tourists, in order to constitute a tool for evaluating the tourism packages and the experience itself.
