Korea's aging society is rapidly progressing as compared to other developed countries, establishing itself as a major social problem. An aging society can be said to accompany many changes in the respect of society and economy with the increase of the...
Korea's aging society is rapidly progressing as compared to other developed countries, establishing itself as a major social problem. An aging society can be said to accompany many changes in the respect of society and economy with the increase of the elderly population, not simply meaning that the number of the elderly is large. The elderly people in such a class of the older people are referred to as the silver. In terms of the emphasis of the physical change of the elderly, the silver generation is a new term created for the elderly generation that is playing a pivotal role socially and economically, which is a positive part. The aging phenomenon is occurring not only in Korea but also in the world, and the advertising strategy, marketing, and product development targeting the silver consumers are emerging as important challenges of the related companies and academic world as silver consumers have become the customers with substantial purchasing power with the tendency of the baby-boomer generation's retirement. Many researchers' are focusing on the leisure activities of the elderly in that their leisure life can be a way to solve their problems through the improvement of their life quality in the aging society.
This study aimed to deeply investigate the silver travelers' purchase intention of travel products utilizing the theory of planned behavior (hereinafter referred to as TPB) proposed by Ajzen(1991). The TPB is a theory to predict various human behaviors, and it insists that attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control have an influence on the intention and that perceived behavioral control and intention have an influence on a specific behavior. This study utilized the extended TPB that added new variables for the expansion and deepening of this theory.
This study, for its purpose, investigated if each of attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and perceived risk factors, which are the antecedents in decision-making for the silver traveler's purchase intention of travel products, have an influence on the visit intention. In particular, it also additionally investigated if the past purchasing experience shows the moderating effect for each factor.
The SPSS 20.0 program was used to conduct the multiple regression analysis and moderating effect analysis to verify the hypothesis of this study, and the results are as follows.
As all of the attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and perceived risk showed a significant influencing relationship with purchase intention, all of the four hypotheses raised in this study were adopted. Attitude (β=.131, p<.05) and subjective norm (β=.450, p<.001) were found to have a positive influence on purchase intention. Therefore, it can be said that purchase intention increases as attitude and subjective norm increase. Perceived behavioral control (β=-.537, p<.001) and perceived risk (β=-.524, p<.001) were found to have a negative influence on purchase intention. Therefore, it can be said that purchase intention decreases as perceived behavioral control and perceived risk increase. This regression model was found to describe the 68.8% of the purchase intention variance. In addition, as a result of the investigation according to the past purchase experience, only attitude was found to have the moderating effect on purchase intention.
The implications based on the analysis results of this study are as follows.
First, the study model that was utilized based on the TPB model proposed by Azjen(1991) has been proved to be the suitable model that can be utilized in measuring and analyzing silver consumers' purchase behavior. Therefore, the measuring factors and study model used in this study imply that they can also be used in the future studies on purchase intention and purchase behavior.
Second, perceive risk, a new variable for the theoretical expansion of this study, was confirmed to have a significant influence on purchase intention. If the understanding of the roles of the antecedents of the existing TPB was increased and the explanatory power was accordingly enhanced, Ajzen(1991)'s argument allowing the introduction of a new variable was proved, contributing to the expansion and deepening of the TPB.
Third, the results of this study revealed that the past experience of purchasing travel products shows the moderating effect partially among the antecedent variables for purchase intention. This presents the previous researchers' theoretical rationale that revealed the significant difference depending on whether or not there is past purchasing experience, and suggested that there is a need to carry out customer management continuously so that silver travelers can re-purchase other travel products even after the purchase of travel products.
Fourth, as a result of investigating the influencing relationship between silver travelers' general characteristics and purchase intention, the purchase intention according to age was higher in the age group of 65~69 years compared to the age groups of 55~59 years, 60~64 years, and 70~74 years. In addition, as a result of the analysis of the purchase intention according to the occupation, the purchase intention of the silver travelers without a job was found to be the highest. As a result of the analysis of the main income source for purchase intention, the pocket money from their children was higher than their own income. This indicates that the modern silver generation is still dependent on the pocket money from children although its socioeconomic environments and consciousness structure have been improved as compared to the previous silver generation. This suggests that the product and marketing that can also meet the needs of the children who substantially purchase travel products as well as the silver generation should be developed when developing overseas travel products in the future.