Older adults’ perceptions of digital cultural tourism in ‘Super-Aged’ nations: The case of Finland and Japan

ABSTRACT | Older adults have been recognized as a key tourist segment for cultural tourism. Despite the growing population of older adults, limited research have explored their experiences and needs within digital cultural experiences. Therefore, this research note takes on an exploratory approach in understanding older adults’ perceptions towards digital cultural experiences in the context of two ‘super-aged’ nations: Finland and Japan. The findings illustrate that differences do exist, and that Finnish older adults are found to be more open to technology-use in the context of digital cultural experiences than their Japanese counterparts. Implications for e-tourism research and management are discussed.

Keywords: cultural tourism; digital services; older adults; digital divide; Hofstede

Zainal Abidin, H., Tuomi, A., & Moreira Kares, E. (2023). Older adults’ perceptions of digital cultural tourism in ‘Super-Aged’ nations: The case of Finland and Japan (pp. 361-366). In: Ferrer-Rosell, B., & Massimo, D., Berezina, K. (eds) Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2023. Proceedings of the ENTER 2023 eTourism Conference, January 18–20, 2023. Cham: Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-25752-0_41