Online communities as a resource in older adults’ tourism

Galit Nimrod
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Abstract

Purpose of the study: Previous research found that tourism is a subject commonly discussed in seniors’ online communities. The present study aimed to explore tourism-related contents in these communities and to discover specific age-related themes. Design and Methods: The study applied an online ethnography (Netnography) approach, and was based on a full year’s data from 14 leading seniors’ online communities. The final database included 3,425 posts. Results: Contents were divided into three main categories: ‘Practical information exchange’, ‘Search for contacts’, and ‘Travel stories’. Specific age-related themes referred to retirement, seniors’ tours, health insurance concerns, and special rates for elders. Implications: Results indicate that online communities serve as a resource in older adults’ tourism both before and after traveling. Dedicated to seniors, they also provide a sphere for expressing age-related issues, which are probably less discussed in other online forums.

KEYWORDS

Internet, Social Networks, Leisure Travel, Later Life

Introduction

A balanced approach to computer training for older adults suggests that training should focus equally on online and offline aspects of computer learning, and that this may enhance users’ sense of well-being. Hence, seniors should learn to use the Internet as both a means to an end and as an end in itself (Xie & Jaeger, 2008). Accordingly, the Internet can serve as a resource in older adults’ leisure in two ways, the first being an activity in itself. It may serve as a source of information and entertainment, offering many enjoyable activities such as games, online courses, blogging and many more. It can offer occupation and meaning and help older adults to maintain and even expand their social relationships. The second role of the Internet is being an instrument for learning, planning, and purchasing offline leisure services. The endless information available on the World Wide Web may help seniors learn about various leisure opportunities and make plans. The Internet can be used in the process of decision making regarding almost every leisure product or service. Moreover, it can be used for purchasing leisure services and products, from hiking shoes to organized tours. This article focuses on older adults’ tourism, and aims to explore how a specific web-based activity, namely, participating in seniors’ online communities, is used as a resource by older tourists both online, as an activity in itself, and offline, as an instrument for travel planning.

Literature Review

The older tourists segment has been growing rapidly in the past decade, due to the aging of populations in many countries and the changes in older adults’ sociodemographics and travel patterns (for review see Patterson, 2006, Ch. 4; Schröder & Widmann 2007). Overall, today’s seniors are healthier, richer, more educated, more independent and more obligation-free than older people in the past (Martin & Preston, 1994; Zimmer, Brayley & Searle, 1995). They place tourism high in their priorities (Statts & Pierfelice, 2003), and they are distinct from former cohorts of seniors in that many of them have travel experience, both in groups and alone, in connection with their work lives as well as a result of traveling for pleasure (Hayslip, Hicks-Patrick & Panek, 2007). These trends and characteristics made seniors an attractive target population for the global tourism industry.

The growing senior segment has also been drawing increased attention from tourism researchers. Studies examining tourism in later life have explored several areas of interests, including descriptive characteristics of older adults’ tourism behavior (e.g., Georggi & Pendyala, 1999; Hossain, Bailey & Lubulwa, 2003), associations between various sociodemographics and seniors’ tourism (e.g., Peterson, 2007; Zimmer et al., 1995), motivations for tourism (e.g., Sellick, 2004; Shoemaker, 2000), factors influencing decision making (e.g., Bai, Jang, Cai & O’Leary, 2001; Kerstetter & Pennington-Gray, 1999), constraints on tourism in old age (e.g., Burnett & Bender Baker, 2001; Fleischer & Pizam, 2002), differences between older tourists and younger tourists (e.g., You & O’Leary, 2000; Gibson & Yiannakis, 2002), associations between retirement status and travel activity (e.g., Blazey, 1992), and sub-segments within the older adults’ segment (e.g., Pennington-Gray & Lane, 2001; Shoemaker, 2000). Although these studies were very diverse, they shared a common feature: most of them used quantitative methods. The dominance of the quantitative approach was criticized by Patterson (2006), who argued that researchers should further develop and apply qualitative methods that will enable “to gain a better and more in-depth recollection and understanding of the actual trip experience” (p. 40).

Existing qualitative studies provided some in-depth understandings regarding the roles of tourism in older adults’ lives. Gibson (2002) found that for most retirees, leisure-travel was a meaningful component of life, and it became so significant only upon retirement, when they felt that they had more freedom to enjoy it. Similarly, a recent study (Nimrod, 2008) found that retirees perceived retirement as an opportunity to travel, and that their tourism corresponded with their present realities, as well as with pursuits, relationships and roles adopted prior to retirement. This led to suggesting that tourism served as a mechanism that helped retirees preserve a sense of internal continuity. White and White (2004) found that some retirees celebrated their entrance to retirement by taking long-term travels. These travels served as a neutral, transitional zone between voluntary or imposed endings and new beginnings, where summaries of the past and plans for the future were made.

Other studies provided insights regarding the benefits of tourism for older adults. Weiss (2005), for example, found that traveling provided challenges, often shared with spouses, which involved planning, solving unexpected problems, facing new situations, new people, food and so forth. Successful coping with such challenges led to a sense of accomplishment, which was demonstrated by returning with stories and photographs to display. Roberson (2001) found that the travel experience provided older tourists with new perspectives of the living conditions in their home countries, and led to more appreciation of them. In addition, travelling led to changes in self-perceptions and attitudes, and enhanced a sense of independence and freedom.

Previous research demonstrated that older tourists use various information sources in the process of decision making, and that they increasingly use the Internet as an information source when they plan a trip or vacation (for review see Patterson, 2006, Ch. 7). The percentage of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) users among people who are 60 years old and over is still much lower than among younger age groups, and online seniors still tend to be more male than female and have higher education and higher income than offline seniors, but their number grows rapidly every year (Boulton-Lewis, Buys, Lovie, Barnett & David, 2007; Pew Internet and American Life, 2010).  

The “silver surfer” discourse reinforced the notion that older adults stand to benefit from ICT in various ways. The main functions described were communication medium, information source, task-orientated tool (e.g., shopping, financial management), and leisure activity (c.f., Cody, Dunn, Hoppin & Wendt, 1999; Iyer & Eastman, 2006; Kiger, 2006; Loges & Jung, 2001; Opalinski, 2001; Pew Internet and American Life, 2004; White et al., 1999; White & Weatherall, 2000;  Xie, 2007). Moreover, using the Internet seems to have a strong impact on older adults’ well-being. It enhances a sense of independence (Henke, 1999), and is associated with higher levels of social connectivity, higher levels of perceived social support, decreased feelings of loneliness, lower levels of depression, and generally more positive attitudes toward aging (Cody et al., 1999; Dickenson & Hill, 2007; Fokkema & Knipscherr, 2007; Nahm & Resnick, 2001; Van De Watering, 2005; White et al., 2002).

While an increasing number of older adults enjoy the benefits of ICT, for most seniors the information available on the web is out of reach since they lack computer access. This problem is usually described as The Digital Divide (Kiel, 2005), and it results from various cultural and technical barriers, such as computer costs, not knowing how to use it, fear of modern technology (technophobia), lack of available training and technical support, lack of perceived need and difficulties with reading the small letters on web sites. The digital divide is a main concern for many studies that examine the barriers and limitations for participation, intervention programs, and their effect on participants’ well-being (e.g., Bradley & Poppen, 2003; Campbell & Wabb, 2003; Cody et al., 1999; Kiel, 2005; Loges & Jung, 2001; White et al., 2002; Xie, 2007, 2008, 2009). However, it has also been argued that even those who use Internet resources face difficulties in locating authoritative and reliable electronic-based information and more senior-friendly web sites (Broering, Chauncey, Gregory & Gomes, 2005; Curran, Walters & Robinson, 2007).

Among the many new possibilities that the cybernetic revolution provided for seniors, online communities that are dedicated to older adults seem to be well accepted and thriving. Such communities can operate through diverse applications – email lists, newsgroups, forums/message boards, chat rooms, interactive sites, blogs, and similar online media. The number of seniors’ online communities is growing, and some of them have hundreds and even thousands of members. A recent pioneer study (Nimrod, 2010) followed a year of activity in a sample of leading seniors’ online communities. Results revealed that the average daily number of threads (i.e., discussions) in these communities has doubled during the research period, and the number of authors and posts (i.e., messages) has tripled. This study also found that one of the salient subjects discussed in these communities was ‘travels’.

The Present Study

The present study aimed to examine the tourism-related contents in seniors’ online communities, and to explore how these communities are used as a resource in older adults’ tourism, both online and offline. Moreover, as seniors’ use of the communities may be similar to that of younger age groups use of online communities, the research aspired to discover specific age-related themes in these contents. By investigating such themes, insights into seniors’ tourism were discovered, and assumptions about the unique role of seniors’ online communities as a resource in their tourism could be drawn.

Design and Methods

The study was based on the same data set that was used in the aforementioned pioneer study (Nimrod, 2010), but while the former study utilized a quantitative approach, the current investigation was qualitative and applied an online ethnography approach often referred to as netnography (Kozinets 2002, 2006; Langer & Beckman, 2005; Sade-Beck, 2004). Netnography is based on observations of technologically mediated communication in online networks and communities (Hine, 2000; Mann & Stewart; 2000). The researcher may utilize a participative approach, which is closer to traditional ethnographic standards. On the other hand, the study may also be purely observational, in which the researcher is a ‘lurker’ (Kozinets, 2006). The benefit of non-participant observations is that they assure that the dynamics and contents expressed in the examined online communities are not influenced by the researcher’s presence (Dholakia & Zhang, 2004).

Netnography suggests the use of specific procedures, including (a) Entrée: establishment of research questions and identification of suitable online sites for the study; (b) Data collection: direct copying of the texts from the computer-mediated communications and observations of the community and its members, interactions and meanings; and (c) Analysis and interpretation: classification, coding analysis and contextualization of communicative acts (Kozinets, 2002; Langer & Beckman; 2005).

Entrée

The study examined a full year’s data from seniors’ online communities, which were selected for the aforementioned study (Nimrod, 2010). These communities were chosen out of more than 40 online communities, which, according to their names, home-pages, and welcome posts, explicitly targeted seniors. Each forum/chat was reviewed, and those that were relatively new or non-active (less than a few hundred posts) and/or required registration were screened out (to avoid ethical issues). Given the public nature of online forums, the study was approved as exempted from human subjects review.

The final sample consisted of 14 established communities (see Table 1). Seven of the communities were from the US, four were British, two were Canadian, and one was Australian. However, all of them except for one (Florida Retirement Forums) targeted a global audience. Two communities had both a forum and a chat room, and the rest had just a forum.

Table 1: The Seniors' Online Communities Examined in this Study

Note. IDF stands for I Don’t Feel

Data Collection

Data collection for the current investigation utilized a novel computerized system, the Forum Monitoring System (FMS), designed especially for online forum analysis. The FMS system is owned by 1^st2c Ltd, a commercial company. It enables combining qualitative and quantitative methods of content analysis, and assists in monitoring the level of activity over time, outputting basic numeric values regarding sizes and shares of messages, examining the discussions' tone, and creating a basic graphical presentation for the results.

After downloading the messages from the Internet sites and saving them in a database, the software’s filtering function was used to create a set of messages that relate to tourism. This function enabled to filter the data based on the words included in the posts. The list of key words was derived from the content analysis conducted in the pioneer study (Nimrod, 2010), and included thirty-five terms. While some were general terms (e.g., tour, travel, trip, journey, and vacation), others were specific (e.g., flight or hotel). The overall database, after filtering, included 3,425 posts (almost 1,500 pages of text).

Analysis and interpretation

Content analysis was used to identify the tourism-related issues discussed in the communities. The database was carefully read and categorized. Descriptive codes and categories were generated through open coding, and posts that contained references to more than one issue, were included in a couple of categories, leading to some overlap between them. Due to the large amount of data, it was split between the author and a research assistant. The classification was done separately, while constantly comparing codes and categories to ensure analysis consistency. That procedure led to identifying the range of tourism-related topics discussed in seniors’ online communities.

Thematic analysis was used in order to discover specific age-related themes within the discussion of tourism in seniors’ online communities, the software was used once again to filter posts that contained age-related terms out of the database. The filtering key words were: old, age, aging, elder*(any suffix), senior, retire*, and grand*. Four hundred and twenty three posts contained these terms, and were subjected to cross-case analysis and then constant comparison strategies (Charmaz, 2006; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Descriptive codes and categories were generated through open coding. In order to maintain data reliability, the open coding of this portion of the data was conducted separately by the two investigators, and then their analyses were compared and discussed. Agreement between coders generally reached 85% and differences were adjudicated. In the few cases of disagreements that were not resolved after discussion, data were left as non-categorized and omitted from subsequent analyses.

Once this initial coding framework was established, axial coding (making connections between a category and its sub-categories) was used to identify variations found within each category, moving back and forth in collaboration between preliminary sub-groupings and revised versions to refine the codes and settle on sub-categories. Later on, selective coding (making connections between discrete categories) was implemented, and the categories that had been developed to form the initial framework were integrated. Constant comparison between investigators’ interpretations and between different texts enabled generating preliminary and refined sub-categories and axial links. Reflexive and theoretical notations were also used to refine the analysis and shape interpretations.

Results

Three Types of Tourism-related Contents in Seniors’ Online Communities

Examination of the contents posted in the communities led to identifying a wide range of interests and concerns. After grouping the various subjects discussed, they were divided into three categories: ‘practical information exchange’, ‘search for contacts’, and ‘travel stories’. The categories, as well as all sub-categories and their relationships, are illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1 A Visual Illustration of the Content Analysis’ Findings

Notes. RVs = Recreation Vehicles. There is a difference between home exchange under ‘Accommodation’, and that sub-category under ‘Search for contacts’. The first includes discussions of pros and cons of this accommodation method, and the latter includes posts of people looking for exchanges with their online peers.

Practical information exchange. The majority of posts provided practical information to community members who were planning a trip or vacation. In most cases, discussions began when one participant posted a question, and others replied. Replies were usually based on personal experience. The scope of discussed issues was broad, and they were grouped into four sub-categories: ‘Destinations’, ‘Accommodation’, ‘Travels’, and ‘Preparations’.

‘Destination’ concerns were usually attractions, weather, and food. An example for a typical opening question is a post titled “Boston, Massachusetts, Has anybody been there?”:

“I have plans to visit Boston last half of May with my friend. We do a lot on foot. Is anybody here who has been in Boston? Would the weather be pretty nice that time of year? Would one week be too long? Any comments would be appreciated.”

Replies for this post included comments about the weather, things to do in the city and in the area, recommended tours, museums and restaurants, and even some notes about the history of the city. Some respondents provided useful links to relevant websites, and there was no agreement about the optimal length of stay. While some suggested three days, others wrote that there is a lot to do and that one week is a minimum. All replies included comments about personal experiences, such as when and with whom one visited the city, events that occurred during the stay, or unusual interactions.

‘Accommodation’ was another main concern, with posts relating to hotels, rentals, time share units, home exchange, and parks for Recreation Vehicles (RV). Such posts were usually responses to a specific question, such as “Does anyone know anything about renting a place in Istanbul for about a month, or even two?”, or even more focused: “Rice lake area (gore’s landing) Victoria Inn – Anyone been up this way of recent, or stayed at this Inn?”. However, information about accommodation was also often provided in response to a general question about a destination. In response to the aforementioned post about Boston, for example, some replies provided information about nice and conveniently located hotels at reasonable prices. Participants were aware of hotel reference websites (such as ‘Trip Advisor’), but they seemed to better trust their peers from the online community.

The ‘Travels’ sub-category included posts relating to transportation, driving, RV and cruises. Example opening posts related to transportation are: “Does anyone know if there is bus service from Los Angeles Airport to Palm Springs?” and “Cheap flights to Athens, Greece?” Another example, related to driving, is: “Is there anybody that knows the road and travel conditions from Kirkland Lake to Winnipeg?”

‘Preparations’ consisted of discussions of pre-travel preparations, including choosing service providers such as travel agents or tours operators, health insurance, documents such as visas or international driving license, local currency, and communication. Examples for questions regarding such preparations are “Various tour companies – can anyone tell me the basic differences between A, B and C [company names]?” and “I heard that there was a way to avoid [cell phones’] roaming charges. Can anyone help me?”

Search for contacts. Some members used online communities as a platform for establishing contacts, which would contribute to their planned travels. The main contacts identified were travel companions and home exchange. Most members looking for travel companions were single older women, who were looking for a female partner, but there were also ads of couples searching for companions, such as “Traveling to Cannes, looking for other couples to share a glass of wine with”. Some members, especially those who were planning a long stay at one destination, were looking for home exchange. For example, one member posted: “We are considering a home swap for a month to Tuscany and to Provence. We also would like to spend 10 days in Rome. Do you have any recommendation?”

Since most community participants were probably from the US and Canada, there were more replies when the poster was traveling to a destination in North America than when the destination was in other continents. In the latter case, replies included useful information and references. The person that was looking for home exchange in Italy, for example, was referred to the Slow Travel’s website. There was no evidence in the data that useful contacts were indeed created through the communities (i.e., that members actually met or exchanged their homes). Yet it is possible that such contacts were created via personal messages (an application that existed in all communities) to the posters. Perhaps repliers assumed that other community members had no interest in such personal correspondence, and thus chose that alternative medium to respond.

Travel stories. Although many posts which included recommendations also included descriptions of personal experiences, there were also many posts by people who shared their travel stories just for the sake of sharing. In most cases, such stories were posted several days after returning home, but there were also members who reported about their experiences while traveling. Usually, the reports included detailed descriptions of the visited destinations, attractions, hotels, food, funny encounters, thoughts and feelings. In addition, many of these reports included photos or links to online albums and videos. In some cases, however, the post only included basic details about the trip, and the posters invited others, who were interested in more information, to ask specific questions (“I’ve just returned from a week in Paris. If anybody is planning a trip, I may be of some help. Fire away.”). Both types of opening posts tended to create a discussion. That happened when community members asked questions, and when others, who visited the discussed destination in the past, contributed their own memories, stories, insights, and so forth.

Age-related themes

Analysis of posts which explicitly related to advanced age led to identifying four specific age-related themes, which referred to retirement, seniors’ tours, health insurance concerns, and special rates for seniors. Posts relating to these themes were mainly apparent in the ‘Practical information exchange’ category.

Theme I – Retirement as an opportunity. Members seemed to perceive retirement as an opportunity to travel. Having more time, and relatively few obligations, they thoroughly enjoyed the idea that they could travel whenever they wanted and for as long as they wished. Retirement was perceived as an opportunity even for members that have not retired yet, and tourism was a central part in the plans made for retirement. When discussing destinations, participants mentioned whether they were in their “list of things to do” or not, and they took for granted the association between tourism and retirement: “Being a senior I would like to travel more.”

Retirement was not only perceived as an opportunity to travel more, but also as an opportunity to travel differently. With more time on their hands, participants noted that they could travel under no time pressure, and spend longer periods at a destination. Many wrote about planning long trips that were to last several months, or taking such travels, as exemplified in the following correspondence:

(Post) “Like a lot of people in these forums we are hoping to enjoy life a little more after we retire. We are looking at buying an RV, possibly a fifth wheel, and taking it from Ontario to Georgia or Florida for a few months in the winter. We’re at the investigative stage of our plan right now, so we have a few questions…”

(Reply) “Retirement and fifth wheel winters are wonderful! We have been doing it for 10 years and have spent winters moving around the southern USA (Florida, Texas, Arizona, California), and have stayed in one place near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for the past 2 winters. We can’t think of a better way to go.”

Traveling in retirement was also perceived as an opportunity to spend time with loved ones. Family and friends were frequently mentioned in travel stories. They were companions in joint trips or vacations (often in a vacation unit), or were visited in their own cities and countries. While such experiences were usually described as positive, some members described travels as a getaway from the family:

“Our main purpose is to have one Christmas to ourselves without the kids and grandkids … Christmas is too hectic nowadays and we are tired of it…I don’t care if we just sit on one island all by ourselves with great food as long as we are away from the hustle and bustle of the family Christmas.”

Theme II – Seniors’ tours do not fit all. Organized tours for seniors were widely discussed, and there was a general disagreement about them. The main two arguments against these tours were their costs and the tours’ participants. The tours were often presented as “terribly expensive as compared to making arrangements through your local travel agent”. In addition, the fact that one’s experience depended on other seniors in the group was unappealing for many. The following post is somewhat extreme, but provides a good example:

“Nothing wrong with the tour itself, but the average age of the group was distinctly ‘senior’. As a result, getting on or off the bus and finding the right seat was a long process as was taking walking tours of any length. Many required emergency washroom stops and most were too tired to take any optional excursions, with the result that the optionals were cancelled for lack of sufficient interest … Now we all get old but why rush it? This isn’t to bash ‘seniors’ but if you don’t have to travel like one, why would you?”

Participants who favored such tours mentioned the company as an advantage: “We go as a group for the travelling portion of the trip which is nice as you meet a lot of people this way”. Specifically, it was perceived as a benefit for people traveling alone, such as widows or people that “don’t have a known group of friends to go on holiday with”. Another advantage was the tours’ convenience, as “you pay upfront and don’t have to worry about a thing”. Accordingly, they also perceived the price as reasonable:

“When you look at the big picture they are not expensive. Considering all tipping, cancellation insurance, drinks and most meals included, they are a very good value, I think.”

Overall, it seemed that organized tours for seniors do not fit all, and that they are mostly suitable for people who do not have travel companions, for convenience-seekers, and for affluent travelers.

Theme III – Health insurance concerns. Health insurance seemed to be a main concern. Participants were interested to know which companies insure seniors, and what happens if the clients have pre-existing conditions. Another concern was getting insurance coverage for long travels, for example: “Can someone tell me of a company who they know FOR SURE offers it for those aged 60+ for long term, e.g. the above mentioned 93 days. Thanks in advance.”

Members were considerably troubled by insurance costs (“premiums increase with age and every pre-existing condition”), and exchanged information about insurance alternatives, with extensive details about insurance rates, top-up and add-ons, rebates for no-claim clients, and discounts (e.g., “early-bird” rates). While there was no evidence that insurance rates stopped anyone from traveling, it was described as a constraint that affected travel choice, as demonstrated in the following post:

“We ended up spending our winter on Vancouver Island because our health care covered us there and considering my partner’s age and then length of stay it would have cost us more than we were willing to put out.”

Theme IV – Special rates are great. The impact of age on prices was not strictly negative, as demonstrated in health insurance costs, but often also positive. Members enthusiastically shared information about special rates and deals for seniors, such as “Golden Age Pass” for national parks, discounted train tickets, and even getting free-of-charge travelers’ cheques at the bank. They often mentioned what a “great bargain for seniors” these rates were, and explicitly enjoyed them:

“Book a motel and they will meet you and bring you to their motel free of charge and take you in their shuttle to their motel. You get senior discounts on your tickets too. What a great experience that is.”

Being able to travel whenever they wanted to (see Theme I), participants also enjoyed the fact that they could travel off season and pay less:

“Dec., Jan., and Feb. are the Off Season in northern Florida up through South Carolina and the best deals are likely in this area. The weather is fine for golf or tennis or walking the beach… There is a huge surplus of units available during this period and renters for 30 days or more get units that monthly run about what the High Season is weekly.”

Discussion

Netnography, according to Kozinets (1998), is useful not only for studying various aspects of virtual communities, but also for examining general topics. Accordingly, while the current study aimed to examine the contents of tourism discussions in seniors’ online communities, it also provided some general insights regarding older adults’ tourism. Whereas qualitative studies are usually restricted to relatively small data sets, using netnography provided a substantial amount of evidence on the personal reflections on tourism in later life, posted by a vast number of people.  In fact, the number of postings related exclusively to tourism, represents one of the largest qualitative data sets ever examined. Indeed, the number of posts examined may be at least partially responsible for the complexity and diversity of the findings related to tourism reported here. Despite some weaknesses in the data collection process (see the following limitation section), the data examined in this study was varied and rich, and the current investigation only explored a small part of its potential contribution to the body of knowledge on seniors’ tourism.

Apparently, members of seniors’ online communities who participated in discussions of tourism did not suffer from the Digital Divide (Kiel, 2005). Not only did they use computers and Internet, they also used relatively advanced applications, and seemed able to locate authoritative and reliable electronic-based information and more senior-friendly web sites (Broering et al., 2005; Curran et al. 2007). Since most of them used pseudonyms, and without direct questioning, nothing definitive can be said about their socio-demographic characteristics. Based on their computer skills and described tourism behavior, however, it is reasonable to assume that their socio-economic and health statuses were relatively well.

The three types of contents found in this study suggest that members of seniors’ online communities used them as a resource both before and after traveling. A main usage prior to traveling was the practical information exchange. Instead of using formal web sites, or in addition to them, participants relied on their peers’ experience to plan their travels, find a suitable hotel, learn about various attractions and services, and so forth. Coming from people who were more or less at the same age, and based on personal testimonials, this information seemed to be perceived as credible and useful, and could be used as significant factor in decision making.

The ‘search for contacts’ was another pre-traveling usage. The contents associated with it suggest that members perceived the communities not only as an information source, but also as a task-oriented tool and as a medium that helps maintaining and even expanding one’s social networks. This usage supports previous claims regarding the various usages that senior make of the Internet (e.g., Opalinski, 2001; Pew Internet and American Life, 2004). Moreover, it seems that the online communities are perceived as a means to negotiate travel constraints such as lack of travel companions or limited budget (Burnett & Bender Baker, 2001; Fleischer & Pizam, 2002).

Although some community members shared their experiences during their traveling, sharing travel stories was mostly a post-travel usage, which may have contributed to processing and savoring the travel experience. In addition, as suggested by Weiss (2005), it may have served as a demonstration of successful coping with the travel challenges, and enhanced a sense of accomplishment. The fact that community members shared their experiences with other members suggests that they perceived them as part of their social network. This may have led to many durable psychological outcomes, such as higher levels of social connectivity and lower levels of depression, which were evident in previous studies that examined the impact of Internet use on older adults (e.g., Cody et al., 1999; Dickenson & Hill, 2007; Fokkema & Knipscherr, 2007).

In addition to discovering the aforementioned usages, the study identified age-related themes regarding seniors’ tourism. These themes provided several insights, the first being the strong association between retirement and tourism. This finding is consistent with previous qualitative studies on seniors’ tourism that reported the centrality of tourism in retirees’ lives (e.g., Gibson, 2002; Nimrod, 2008). Another insight is the existence of polarity of attitudes regarding seniors’ tours. The findings provided detailed information about the perceived advantages and weaknesses of such tours. Moreover, they suggested that such tours are another means used by older adults for coping with travel constraints. The two other themes, which related to health insurance and to special rates, suggested that senior tourists are sophisticated consumers. Moreover, even though it is probable that the community members are relatively well-to-do, they are price-sensitive and tend to compare prices and look for bargains and good value for their money.

These findings suggest that the fact that the communities mainly target seniors encourages participants to discuss issues that they would probably not raise in other forums, which target all ages. It is possible that discussing issues such as health insurance or seniors’ tours is perceived as more acceptable and easier with people from the same cohort. Therefore, the communities may have distinct role as resource in seniors’ tourism. They are not used just as part of the pre- and post-travel experience, but also as a sphere in which to share age-related concerns.

Limitations, implications and future research

Although this study demonstrates the usefulness of netnography as an exploratory tool for studying various aspects of online communities, as well as general topics, it also has several limitations that result from applying this methodology. There is an inherent bias in this sample -  of those who use the Internet and more specifically those who are interested in engaging with others concerning their travels. In addition, as only English-based communities were examined, most participants probably live in English-speaking Western countries. Therefore, they are not representative of all older tourists.

Since the data filtering process primarily relied on a linguistic basis, inaccuracies may have occurred. One type of inaccuracy could result from including an irrelevant post in the database just because it contained a specific term. The other type of potential error could be the exclusion of a relevant post in the data set because it did not contain any of the specific terms associated with the subject. Still, filtering by key words was an effective tool, which yielded almost 1,500 pages that contained mostly tourism-related texts.

The explorative study described in this article mainly provided understanding of the role of online communities in seniors’ tourism. However, the findings also suggest practical implications. Some of the age-related themes may be used as consumer insights by providers of services for older adults. They can guide product development, as well as pricing and advertising strategies. Moreover, service providers can use the communities as a platform for communicating about services, products, discounts, and so forth. This may be done via advertising in the communities, or by offering technological applications to participants (such as insurance calculators or online photo albums for participants in seniors’ tours, which they can share with their online friends).

The findings described in this study are just the tip of the iceberg, as a lot of the data collected may be further analyzed. In fact, each one of the sub-categories described (e.g., ‘hotels’ or ‘RV’) may serve as a basis for a separate examination, and provide many insights about older adults’ preferences and tourism behavior. The main advantage of this data is its authenticity, as community members did not think that their posts would be researched. Future research should also investigate seniors’ online communities across a broader range of cultures, and explore age related themes among older tourists that do not use the Internet. Another direction for future research is examining how the communities serve as a resource in seniors’ daily leisure, and which other web-based activities are used by older tourists.

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