ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the importance of appropriate segmentation of the market in order to be able to identify major new opportunities, and also to define sound marketing strategies for the hospitality industry. However, its main aim is to show how segmentation criteria that are relevant for identifying growing market opportunities can be too broad to adapt marketing strategies to individual consumers, and more accurate segmentation should be undertaken to achieve good decision-making outcomes. We illustrate this idea with a case study of a segment that is receiving increasing attention from the academic and practitioner world: the silver segment. Its consideration as a broad segment has yielded interesting conclusions, but it does not allow the adoption of specific marketing decisions orientated to this segment. The country of origin determines important differences in the tourism behaviour of the senior segment, highlighting the need to adopt a multi-domestic approach in marketing decisions. In conducting an in-depth analysis of the reasons for this fact, we show that in each country the senior sub-segments are the same, but they have a different relative weight. We conclude the chapter with the main conclusions for the tourism and hospitality industry and suggestions for further research avenues.
