Tourism, ageing and the demographic timebomb - The implications of dementia for the visitor economy: A perspective paper

Abstract

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.