Segmenting the senior tourism market in Ireland based on travel motivations

The mature market in Ireland as a tourism cohort is viable in terms of both size and disposable income. Not only is this, but international travel by the mature market in Ireland is a relatively new phenomenon, presenting opportunities for targeting this group. Previous research has indicated the heterogeneous nature of this cohort and the need for segmentation within this group has been documented. However, in an Irish context little or no research has been conducted into the motivations and behaviour of this tourism segment. Therefore, taking a sample of 500 mature Irish individuals, this article incorporates the multivariate techniques of both factor and cluster analyses to segment the mature tourism market in Ireland based on an examination of their push and pull (Dann, 1977) travel motivations. From this analysis, four distinctive segments are identified, namely enthusiastic travellers, cultural explorers, escapists and spiritual travellers.