Access Tourism NZ TOURISM FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES, SENIORS, AND AGEING BOOMERS IN NEW ZEALAND AND WORLDWIDE

In a first, a new New Zealand Ministry of Tourism report, in recognizing that that Baby Boomers are New Zealand’s largest domestic market segment, has also recognized the role that disability may play in travel by this group.  The report – Domestic Tourism Market Segmentation  Stage 2 – breaks the domestic tourism market into eight segments, giving segments names such as “Rewarding”, “Creating”, “Searching”, and “Immersing”.  One segment – made up of 98% Leading Edge Baby Boomers and Seniors (Fig. 41) – is labeled “Being There”.  According to the report, this is NZ’s largest market segment.  It comprises 22% of the NZ population, its members are comparatively asset rich, and money is less of a barrier to travel than it is to members of other segments.  To our knowledge, the first mention of the fact that “travellers in the older age groups will become even more significant in the future” occurred in the Ministry’s International Visitors Tourism Sector Profile, in June 2009, so it is good to see that this research supports the importance of the older market.  The report goes on to state that the “major barriers to travel (for this segment) are health or disability (their own or that of a travelling companion) as well as a lack of travelling companions” (page 30).  In this way, the report reinforces the idea that it is a person’s disability that is a barrier, rather than  environments such as inaccessible transport and accommodation that are disabling, and which therefore reduce tourism and travel opportunities for people with disabilities.

Graphs on page 79 show that between about 6-8% (estimate) of “Being There” members report disability as a travel barrier to overseas holidays, short domestic breaks, and domestic holidays, compared to about 3-4% of all segments combined. Nevertheless, holidays are very important to members of this segment (page 30).  Matching the New Zealand average, one third of this segment has holidayed overseas in the last 12 months, but they take more frequent overseas holidays than the average New Zealander. ‘Being There’ takes more longer domestic holidays than average (with popular holiday destinations being Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch). They take fewer short breaks and more day trips than members of other segments.  When taking short breaks in New Zealand, ‘Being There’ enjoys sightseeing and shopping; during longer breaks, in addition to these activities, they enjoy natural attractions, walking/hiking and cultural/heritage attractions. The segment’s ideal holiday destination is familiar, safe and affordable, providing scenery, landscape, history and heritage experiences.