Japan Tourism Marketing and Nikkei New Senior Life Design Laboratory jointly conducted a survey on senior lifestyle that compares difference of awareness between new senior generation (50 to 64 years old) and current senior generation (65 to 79 years old), targeting 2,472 travel experiences in the past year from 18 to 79 years old.
The results find that the current male seniors preferred to travel alone for purpose-oriented trip (41.8%) and for trip at their pace (35.5%), both of which were much higher than 26.8% and 25.8% of the current female seniors. Among the current female seniors, the ratios of ‘hope to travel alone when a tour accepts it (30.4%)’ and ‘travel alone in traveling in Japan, travel with companions in traveling overseas (24.3%)’ were high.
Asked about ideal travels, the most answers overall were ‘activities without bookings (63.8%).’ For the current senior generation, the high ratios were found in ‘a service for a travel planner to teach how to make a plan in a friendly manner (54.8% for the current seniors, 53% overall)’ and ‘a community for traveling together (41.2% for the current seniors, 39.2% overall). The survey report said that a potentiality may be found in a new support service to seniors who are reluctant to make travel plans.
Regarding senior lifestyle, the current male seniors preferred to living with family (47.8%), while the current female seniors to living independently (41.5%). Also, many new female seniors had an idea of need determination for living alone (41%), while the ratio for new male seniors was 21.4%.
It is noteworthy that the survey discovered the ratio of 49 years old or younger who had an idea of ‘it is OK to share a house, not own it’ reached 44.7%. The ratios were 29.7% for new senior generation and 22.0% for the current senior generation. The same trend was also found in land. On the contrary, many current seniors answered it is OK to share a car. The survey report said that the sharing economy idea may affect how to spend money in the future.
