SENIOR TOURISM PERSP ECTIVES IN THE CONTEXT OF THE PENSION REFORM IN RUSSIA

Abstract

The pension reform in Russia, launched in 2018, will have pronounced and multifaceted impacts on many industries in terms of production, consumption, marketing and employment. The development of segments of senior people's tourism, the features and specificity of economic psychology, motivation and consumption of tourist products by people of the third age, the increasing inclusion of elderly workers in the labor force in the tourism and hospitality industry as a new productive resource and other strategic considerations are becoming even more relevant to scientific and practical examinations. The article presents an attempt to summarize the specific risks and problems that the tourism sector will have to face in connection with the increases in the retirement age. Along with this, the opportunities and prospects that are opened up to the industry as a whole and the development of particular types of tourism and tourism sub-sectors are identified and analyzed under the condition that the increases in the retirement age are indeed accompanied, as it is planned, by overall improvements in the socioeconomic activity, productivity and paying capacity of senior citizens. Accordingly, pensioners and pre-pensioners will provide greater demand in the market of tourist services. By attracting elderly people to work positions in the tourism and hospitality industry, the threats of mass unemployment and precariousization of employment of pre-retirees would be partially partly mitigated. The paper also presents examples of international experiences and practices in the development of tourism of the older generation and its employment in tourism, which will become more relevant along with the implementation of the pension reform taking into account socio-economic and cultural specifics, formal and informal institutions of the Russian society in general and the regions in particular.

Keywords

• retirement age
• elderly tourists
• senior consumers
• third age
• tourist product
• social tourism
• sociodemographic segments
• pre-retirees