Social Tourism & Later Life Well Being Professor Nigel Morgan [email protected].

Social Tourism & Later Life Well Being

Professor Nigel [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Overview

• Social tourism background • Contextualising later life in the UK• Later life social tourism• UK social tourism: research gaps

Tourism policy and research have nothing like the same tradition of addressing non-participation as sport or leisure policy/studies (Iwasaki, 2006).

Despite significant work (e.g. McCabe 2009, 2012 & McCabe & Johnson, 2013), tourism has more to do to fully engage UK social policy in promoting the wider socio-economic benefits of tourism participation.

British society has become more affluent since WW2 yet there has been little increase in the number of people able to take a holiday.

UK tourism participation has remained at just over half of the population. The huge rise in the numbers of holidays is a ‘concentration of consumption’ not a widening of access.

Studies demonstrate how tourism can foster subjective wellbeing for low-income families (Sedgley et al., 2012); teenage lone mothers

(Minnaert, 2013) and for people with health issues and disabilities and their carers (Hunter-Jones, 2007; Richards et al., 2010).

• Tourism has become an integral component of modern lifestyles and to be outside it is to be outside the norms of everyday life.

• Tourism provides opportunities for family members to spend time together.

• Non-participation in tourism makes a deep contribution to exclusion that goes beyond the immediate experience of being deprived of participation in these activities.

McCabe, S., Minnaert, L. & Diekman, A. (Eds.) 2012. Social Tourism in Europe: Theory and Practice, Clevedon: Channel View Publications.

How does tourism collide with later life

social exclusion?

Overview

• Social tourism background • Contextualising later life in the UK• Later life social tourism• UK social tourism - research gaps

• As a proportion of the world population, people over 60 will double to 22% by 2050.

• Unsurprisingly the tourism industry has recognized the market potential of older people and research has focused on developing competitive business strategies to target them.

• Such research is premised on the notion that it is possible to predict the travel behaviour of an entire generation and has led to stereotyping.

• Older people are a diverse demographic group but the sizeable age ranges that researchers use when classifying them compounds generalizations.

• The current economic crisis impacting many of the world’s affluent societies has laid bare an impending pension crisis in Europe and the US, which threatens to create a new generation of impoverished older people.

• Lord McFall, the chairman of the Workplace Retirement Income Commission tasked with investigating the UK pension crisis, commented that almost ¾ of private sector staff will be unable to “adequately exist” when they retire and that many workers retiring after 2020 should expect a “bleak old age.”

• This should be seen against a background where many older people are already unable to afford a paid holiday away from home.

• 1.8 million UK pensioners live below the poverty line on a weekly income (after housing costs) of £119 for single pensioners and £206 for a couple (DWP, 2015).

• Over a million or 10% of people over 65 say they are often or always lonely (Help the Aged, 2015).

• Economic and demographic developments are contracting retirement income systems across developed economies and in the next 20 years 24 million UK employees will retire on substantially smaller pensions than those of their parents.

• With 650,000 people turning 65 every year in the UK, social policy responses are required to meet the challenges of a growing but less affluent population (Morgan et al., 2015).

Age discrimination prevents the social inclusion of older people. Negative attitudes and age stereotypes leave older people feeling isolated and excluded from opportunities (Abrams et al., 2009).

In addition to the negative impact age discrimination has on individuals, there is also a cost to society, including lost productivity of older workers and long term health costs of those excluded from economic activity (The European Older People’s Platform, 2007).

Overview


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○ Morgan, N. Pritchard, A. and Sedgley, D., (2015) Social Tourism and Well Being in Later Life, the Annals of Tourism Research 52, pp. 1-15.

○ Sedgley, D., Pritchard, A. and Morgan, N. (2012) Tourism Poverty in Affluent Societies: Voices from inner London, Tourism Management, 33, 951-960.

○ Sedgley, D., Pritchard, A. and Morgan, N. (2011) Tourism and Ageing: A Transformative Research Agenda, the Annals of Tourism Research 38 (2), pp, 422-436.

○ Richards, V., Pritchard, A. and Morgan, N. (2010) (Re)Envisioning Tourism & Visual Impairment, the Annals of Tourism Research 37 (4), pp. 1097–1116.

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○ Morgan, N. Pritchard, A. and Sedgley, D., (2015) Social Tourism and Well Being in Later Life, the Annals of Tourism Research 52, pp. 1-15.

○ Sedgley, D., Pritchard, A. and Morgan, N. (2012) Tourism Poverty in Affluent Societies: Voices from inner London, Tourism Management, 33, 951-960.

○ Sedgley, D., Pritchard, A. and Morgan, N. (2011) Tourism and Ageing: A Transformative Research Agenda, the Annals of Tourism Research 38 (2), pp, 422-436.

○ Richards, V., Pritchard, A. and Morgan, N. (2010) (Re)Envisioning Tourism & Visual Impairment, the Annals of Tourism Research 37 (4), pp. 1097–1116.

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We favour humanist, participatory approaches to the study of later life. Such enquiry foregrounds older people’s voices and agendas and:

(i) complements existing approaches to gain richer insights into older people’s lives;

(ii) actively engages older people in the research process, so that policy makers hear their voices and recognize their perspectives;

(iii) creates more personalized accounts of experiences in later life that embody emotion, agency and individuality;

(iv) promotes the social inclusion, human dignity and human rights of older people.

Sedgley, D., Pritchard, A. & Morgan, N. (2010) Transforming Tourism & Ageing Research, Annals of Tourism Research 38 (2), pp, 422-436.

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In partnership with the NBFA, we explored the value of social tourism for people in later life.

Based on participant-driven interviews with NBFA clients, the study reveals that these short breaks present opportunities for respite, companionship and reflection.

The study discusses the role of tourism in enhancing well-being in later life and argues for greater dialogue between tourism management and social policy.

• Respite

• Companionship

• Reflection

• Renegotiation of self-identity

Well I’ve left them all [my worries] behind and I sleep so much better. In fact, I’ve had a better night’s sleep here than I’ve had for months at home because I haven’t got anything to worry

about (Mrs Wood).

• Respite

• Companionship

• Reflection


• “Loneliness, there’s a lot of loneliness and depression and nobody helps [pause] but on trips like this, people do help and they try to talk to each other and make friends… it is very, very lonely in the night” (Mr Singh).

• “Just being able to relax, being with people that you can have a laugh with. I mean these people probably spend most of the day every day, or nearly every day, on their own. So they’ve got companionship, something to look forward to, there’s something going to happen tomorrow…” (Mrs Lloyd).

• Respite

• Companionship

• Reflection


Mr Major felt that this holiday enabled him to re-evaluate his life. After a long period suffering from cancer and numerous operations, it gave him the space to decide to begin anew.

In his words, “it’s woken me up ... I realize alright this is my life here but there’s also a life out there and I must get out to it.”

• Respite

• Companionship

• Reflection


• People in later life often have to deal with significant challenges and life transitions such as widowhood, physiological change and increased frailty linked to poor health and reduced socio-economic circumstances.

• E.g. for Mr Singh it was his first holiday since his wife’s death the previous year - this is the first time I did my own packing. My wife used to do all the packing and everything.... This is the first time in sixty years I did the packing myself.

What am I getting out of this holiday? A great deal actually ... it’s nice to be with other people because when you lose your husband or your partner it’s a very strange experience going into an empty house and being on your own so that’s number one.

When you live alone, sometimes you don’t always feel like cooking and it’s very nice to be able to come away and have your meals prepared so that’s another big bonus and also to meet new people, see different places and a lot of benefits (Mrs Wood).

These social tourism breaks also provide a chance to refresh and face the future for many older people.

The sense of the break representing a new beginning is typified by Mrs King.

Her 34 year old son with special needs, whom she had cared for at home until very recently, now lives in sheltered accommodation and for her the holiday represents ‘Freedom… I’ve started a new life… It’s a new world to me.’

To summarise later life social tourism benefits:

–Respite from stressful and limited social worlds;

–Companionship;–Renegotiation of self-identity (e.g. post

spousal bereavement).

Overview


Final Thoughts

Tourism studies needs a stronger, more holistic, person-centred research agenda, which explores the physiological, psychological, social and spiritual impacts of tourism on people’s wellbeing.

There must be a greater engagement with social policy agenda and social policy initiatives.

• At the beginning of this century most tourism professionals were anticipating that the so-called grey market would remain a highly profitable segment and that the newly retired would continue to follow in the footsteps of the boomer generation and enjoy even greater affluence and health in their old age (WTO, 2001).

• Tourism managers and policy-makers need to reappraise their understandings of older tourists as market segments and reassess the role of tourism in later life.

• There is a need to raise awareness of how tourism enriches older people’s lives and addresses global agendas on active and positive ageing, social inclusion, well-being, and life satisfaction.

• For example, at a time when depression is identified as the most common mental health problem in later life, with 2.4 million older people in the UK suffering from depression severe enough to impair their quality of life (Institute of Public Policy Research, 2009), the positive impact of holidays on older people’s emotional well-being is completely overlooked.

Research areas in later life:

• Men • Black and ethnic minorities• Post-bereavement renegotiation of identity• Mental health and wellbeing• And more…

• The last five years have seen, at most, a very small reversal of the long-term decline in support for welfare spending.

• Support for increasing taxes and spending more on health, education and social benefits fell from 63% in 2002 to 32% by 2010 – and increased slightly to 37% by 2014.

• The level of agreement with spending more on welfare benefits for the poor fell from 61% in 1989 to 27% in 2009, and remained low, at 30% in 2014.

Public support for welfare spending is in long-term decline

http://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/latest-report/british-social-attitudes-32/welfare.aspx



Social policy responses must be evidence-based yet there remains a significant gap in our understandings of the needs and experiences of economically disadvantaged older people (Morgan et al., 2015).

Photo credits: shutterstock

Social Tourism & Later Life Well Being Professor Nigel Morgan [email protected].

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Transcript of Social Tourism & Later Life Well Being Professor Nigel Morgan [email protected].