Introduction. Tourism as an academic subject is primarily concerned with people and their temporary
mobility from their home area to a destination, including travel in the destination and a
return trip back to the origin area. Yet, while tourism concerns the study of people and
their temporary migratory habits for pleasure and ...
Introduction. Tourism as an academic subject is primarily concerned with people and their temporary
mobility from their home area to a destination, including travel in the destination and a
return trip back to the origin area. Yet, while tourism concerns the study of people and
their temporary migratory habits for pleasure and business, there has been little explicit
linking of tourism with demography (i.e. the analysis of the dynamics of the population,
including births, deaths, migration and ageing). Some cognate areas such as population
geography have developed specialised areas of investigation around demography but it is
not adequately integrated into tourism research. This paper argues the analysis of the
tourism-demography nexus allows us to understand one of the grand societal challenges
facing many countries that will impact the visitor economy – ageing. The ageing population
has created a demographic time-bomb with a population structure that is more skewed
towards a growing proportion of older people. When this is combined with the impact of
one major health condition – dementia and the visitor economy, the future shape of visitor
demand likely to change, albeit at different rates in time and space. Not only will an ageing
population structure reduce the numbers of economically active people able to fund taxes
and the services they require, but longer life expectancy and a rise in complex health
conditions, such as dementia. These health conditions will add a degree of complexity to
service provision for ageing visitor market. For this reason, attention now focuses on ageing
and tourism to conceptualise and understand the tourism-demography-ageing nexus prior
to examining the issues associated with dementia and the visitor economy.
