Creating New Relationships Through Tourism: A Qualitative Analysis of Tourist Motivations of Older Individuals in Japan

Abstract

The current study is an exploration to examine older Japanese individuals' motivations for travel. The study employed an open-ended survey and in-depth interviews in order to gain insight into the creation of human relationships through tourism. Our results show that tourism is perceived as offering extraordinary opportunities to meet new people, and to form and develop new relationships by Japanese older individuals, who experience fewer opportunities to interact with other people in their everyday lives compared to individuals in younger generations. In particular, distinct features of tourism settings, such as liminality and touristic communitas, allow older tourists to express themselves more freely by escaping from their existing relationships as well as from many social norms, hierarchies, and prohibitions.