Abstract
Today, one of the essential service areas for elderly consumers is health tourism. Considering the basic elements promised to the target audiences within the scope of health tourism, the importance of the market segment formed by the elderly consumers becomes more and more noticable. Fundamentally, this chapter discusses the place, importance, and application forms of health services for elderly consumers, considered as a growing market and increasing its impact in many sectors, especially with regard to health tourism. Within the scope of the chapter, the concepts such as old age and being old are explained, before further elaborating the general characteristics of the elderly population and the consumer identities of the elderly. After creating a baseline with general information about elderly consumers, it is explained with examples how elderly consumers can be handled within the scope of health tourism, what strategies and practices can be developed accordingly.
TopBackground
One of the most important consequences of life for all living things is aging. On one hand, time spent on earth allows us to have unique experiences, and on the other hand, it causes us to wear out physically and psychologically. The human body changes as time passes, and this change is directly reflected in the way a person perceives the world and events, and in their feelings and thoughts about themselves and others. Undoubtedly, this process does not occur in the same way and at the same time in every individual. For this reason, the scope and characteristics of the concept of old age show a highly variable appearance.
Today, in many parts of the world, aging and the elderly population is a subject that attracts the attention of researchers. Although the concept of old age is a topic most discussed, many explanations of it, starting from the definition of the concept, contain a certain relativity. When we look at the studies on aging in general, some sources emphasize on biological and physical processes, while others focus more on social, cultural and psychological characteristics.
Going through the literature, it is seen that the concepts of age and old age are classified in various aspects such as chronological age based on calendar age, cognitive age based on cognitive abilities, and perceived age based on how one feels. Kastenbaum et al (1972) explain the concept of age with a quartet classification as “feeling age”, “looking age”, “doing age” and “interest age”. Edgar and Bunker (2013), on the other hand, adds new items to this classification and defines 10 different age measures:
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feeling age (how old a person feels),
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looking age (how old a person feels they look),
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doing age (the extent to which what a person does reflects a certain age group)
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interest age (the extent to which a person’s interests reflect a certain age group)
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perceived age in relation to (the age of) people the respondent said they mixed with;
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perceived age in relation to their thinking/mental processes
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perceived age in relation to mental energy
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perceived age in relation to physical energy
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perceived age in relation to the nature of ambitions and the respondent’s horizons
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perceived age in relation to the types of people the respondent identified with
Key Terms in this Chapter
Health Tourism: Protective/preventive treatments, traditional healing methods or alternative treatments (spa, thermal water, massage, meditation, yoga, aromatherapies, herbs and healthy lifestyles) in order to provide body, mind and spiritual healing, and to ensure good/healthy aging by making the healthy life philosophy a habit. It is a type of social tourism where patients/tourists receive holistic health services by traveling from their countries to other countries in order to carry out treatments and surgeries for certain diseases, accompanied by specialist doctors. Today, health tourism has turned into a holistic tourism activity with the addition of other tourism activities such as cultural, historical trips, sea, sand, sun tourism, gastronomic tourism, entertainment to health tourism activities as a value.
Medical Tourism: It is a type of health tourism that involves people traveling to another destination from their place of residence in order to get medical treatments (surgery, therapy, etc.) in health care facilities and expert health teams in order to find solutions to their health problems.
Information Processing: The process of understanding, classifying and storing an external stimulus in the human mind, mental ability.
Old Age: Following the mid-life, the last stage of life with physical, psychological and social dimensions. The age of 55, 60 or 65 can be considered as starting age.
Wellness Tourism: It is a type of health tourism that creates a scope involving recreation activities (such as; massage, spa, ayurveda, aromatherapy, treatment with healing herbs, healthy eating)which increases the life quality of individuals in order to escape from the problems of routine life, to have a holistic healing experience spiritually, physically and mentally, to adapt to healthy life and healthy aging philosophy integrated with other holistic tourism types providing cultural, histrorical and social attraction.
Recreation: It refers to the activities that will enable the individual to keep the quality of life at a high level by having a holistic health, which indicates the physical, spiritual, mental and social recovery throughout life, and the scope of such activities.
Baby Boomers: Person born between 1946 and 1964 after the Second World War, population division, generation.
Silver Economy: A marketing medium, economy formed by all of the services and products financed by the elderly consumers.