Chapter 4: Senior Customer Satisfaction in Hospitality: Peculiarities and Challenges by Gender

The Mercer Consulting Group reported that customer satisfaction is incredibly crucial for strategic decisions in any business (Hekman et al., 2010), including hospitality. In modern competitive reality, this phenomenon is affected by many factors, such as population aging (Lohmann & Danielsson,, 2001; Mungall & Gherissi, 2009), gender (West & Zimmerman, 1987), and occupations (Littrell, Paige, & Song, 2004). However, being an economy branch, hospitality is also impacted by income, education, residency, and willingness to spend money (Zimmer et al., 1995). On the other hand, Shanka and Taylor (2004) interline that age has a particular moderating effect on the guests' satisfaction in hospitality, for instance, senior customer preferences, such as trip duration, income, accommodations, and reservation system in return. Hunter-Jones and Blackburn (2007) indicated that seniors would be one of the most significant prospective market segments for hospitality in the long run. Ing (1993) points out that senior travelers wanted a copy of travel brochures with all costs included responsible and reliable information, the timely receipt of invoices and ticketing, an efficient and accurate reservations system, and value for their money. On the other hand, health status influences the selection of destinations among the seniors (Gilly & Zeithaml, 1985). Progressively, the behavior of senior travelers has become a paramount point of the investigation, as the potential growth of this travel market size has been widely recognized by tourism marketers and researchers (Chen & Jiang, 2019; Fiscger, Bashyal, & Bachman, 2012; Hsu, Cai, & Wong, 2007; Nazareth, 2007). To this end, it is necessary to shed light on some points that are critical for the tourist market of senior travelers.