This exploratory study identified 18 factors influencing the choice of an educational-travel program and refined a typology of the older adult educational-travel participant. A mail questionnaire queried 963 Canadian and American participants, aged 45 to 92 years, who had enrolled in a fall 1997 Elderhostel Canada program, but not yet attended. The number of useable surveys was 811, representing an 84.2% rate of return. The analysis employed descriptive statistics, correlation, factor analysis, step-wise regression analysis, analysis of variance, and content analysis. / Five participant types were identified in this study: the Explorer, Activity-Oriented, Content-Committed, Convenience-Oriented, and Opportunist. Sixty-three percent of the population could be assigned to one of these categories; 22% were assigned to a combination of two categories; and 15% of the study population did not fit this typology. The two dominant participant types were the Activity-Oriented and the Explorer. / This study revealed 18 factors that influence the program choice of older adult educational-travel participants: Social, Comfort, Location, Attend alone, Attend Accompanied, Activity, Information, Cost, Program, Personal Limitations, Escape, Travel, Organizational Attributes, Accessibility, Previous Experience, Dates, Seasonal Influence, and Work. Using step-wise regression analysis, the program choice factors that best discriminated the various participant types were the Activity, Program, Location, Personal Limitations, Accessibility, and Organizational Attributes factors. An analysis of the mean scores revealed that six factors had the greatest influence on program choice: Organizational Attributes, Location, Program, Attending Accompanied, Social and Comfort.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.34908 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Creators | Arsenault, Nancy. |
| Contributors | Anderson, Gary (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Faculty of Education.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001641741, proquestno: NQ44349, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
Page generated in 0.0022 seconds