What about the 'Oldies'?

The Ministry of Tourism and the Jamaica Tourist Board have been wielding around figures of 3 million tourists per year but they fail to mention just how many of these tourists are senior citizens. The JTB campaigns are somewhat geared towards a younger target; the happy couple, honeymooners and the adventurers. Cruise ships are usually the last resort for the ‘oldies’ and quite frankly, that’s boring and the JTB rarely ever put enough effort and time into attracting more pensioners, retirees, or just someone’s grandparents. What’s up with that! I cannot picture my grandma scuba diving…though that would make for great TV! But the ‘just put them on a cruise ship and that will make them happy’ attitude has definitely lost the JTB some tourists.

Not only that, regardless of what the tourism Board says, the crippling crime rate has definitely had an impact on the amount of tourists visiting the island. It so happens that majority of the senior citizens fears visiting Jamaica because of the high levels of crime and violence. Therefore, in my view, Jamaica still stands to do much better in the tourism industry if they effectively tackle the escalating crime problem. Even though violent crimes against tourists are minimal, there is still great concern over the high crime rate especially among the elderly. This is not surprising considering that the elderly spend most times watching the news and with that gripping report from the BBC, they are bound to be scared of visiting Jamaica. The fact is, no matter how much the JTB glamorize the country, the senior citizens spend little time listening or watching Travel adverts and they aren’t too keen on fads. They like simple friendly language and the JTB should tailor their promotional activities to meet the needs of senior tourists.

According to Fiona Gilmore (Branding for Success), ‘messages need to be simple and consistent, since we are all bombarded with hundreds of messages everyday. They also need to be reinforced by experience.’

I am yet to see any promotional activity from the JTB which involves older people. Why not create a message that appeals to everyone? Is it that you don’t want them in Jamaica JTB?


References

Gilmore, Fiona Branding for Success in the book, Destination Branding: Creating the unique destination proposition edited by Nigel Morgan, Annett Pritchard and Roger Pride (2002), Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford UK