An online survey of 685 persons over age fifty found that discounts aimed at persons over a certain age are not the driving force in where they decide to eat. Nevertheless, most believe that restaurants should offer discounts to older diners. Findings also show that high users of age-based discounts are more supportive of the practice than are low users, who are less driven to seek such discounts. The chief implication of these findings is that restaurateurs must consider carefully whether and how to offer discounts for Americans over a particular age. Rather than rely on discounts, restaurant operators must consider the overall price-value position that they are offering.
Hair, book and lyrics copyright 1968 by Gerome Ragni and James Rado (performance license owned by the Tams-Witmark Music Library).
2.
Amy Zuber, “Discounting Not a Quick Fix for Fast Feeders,”Nation’s Restaurant News36, no. 47 (November 25, 2002): 1-4.
3.
Ken Dychwaldt, Age Wave (Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1989).
4.
George P. Moschis, Euehun Lee, and Anil Mathur, “Targeting the Mature Market: Opportunities and Challenges,”Journal of Consumer Marketing14, no. 4 (1997): 282-296.
5.
George P. Moschis, Danny N. Bellenger, and Carolyn Folkman Curasi, “What Influences the Mature Consumer?”Marketing Health Services23, no. 4 (Winter 2003): 16-22.
6.
Polly LaHue, “The New Mature Market,”Restaurant Hospitality84, no. 1 (2000): 37-38.
7.
Moschis, Bellenger, and Curasi, “What Influences the Mature Consumer?”51-60.
8.
National Restaurant Association, Restaurant Spending, Consumer Expenditure Survey (Washington, DC: National Restaurant Association, 2002), www.restaurant.org/research/spending.cfm.
9.
Moschis, Bellenger, and Curasi, “What Influences the Mature Consumer?”
10.
Eun-Jung Kim and Loren V. Geistfeld, “Consumers’ Restaurant Choice Behavior and the Impact of Socio-Economic and Demographic Factors,”Journal of Foodservice Business Research6, no. 1 (2003): 3-24.
11.
Kelly Greene, “Today’s Seniors Find That Growing Old Isn’t Such a Bargain—Some Firms Cut the Discounts as Elderly Ranks Grow; No More Early Bird Special?”Wall Street Journal, August 31, 2001, p. A1-A1, Eastern Edition.
12.
Ibid.
13.
Ibid.
14.
LaHue, “The New Mature Market.”
15.
Moschis, Bellenger, and Curasi, “What Influences the Mature Consumer?”
16.
Kayo Yamanaka, Barbara A. Almanza, Douglas Nelson, and Sharon A. DeVaney, “Older Americans’ Dining Out Preferences,”Journal of Foodservice Business Research6, no. 1 (2003): 87-103.
17.
Moschis, Bellenger, and Curasi, “What Influences the Mature Consumer?”
18.
Knutson and Patton, “Restaurants Can Find Gold Among Silver Hair.”
19.
Greene, “Today’s Seniors Find That Growing Old Isn’t Such a Bargain.”
20.
Andrew Compart, “Big Carriers Put Squeeze on Senior Discounts,”Travel Weekly61, no. 24 (July 22, 2002): 4-4.
21.
Marjorie Coeyman and Ron Sympson, “Seniors,”Restaurant Business95, no. 7 (May 1, 1996): 113-113.
22.
Jacqueline K. Eastman and Rajesh Iyer, “The Elderly’s Uses of and Attitudes towards the Internet,”Journal of Consumer Marketing21, no. 3 (2004): 208-220.
23.
Susannah Fox, Older Americans and the Internet (Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2004), http://www.pewinternet.org.
24.
This study was not paid for or sponsored by anyone or any group. We gratefully acknowledge, however, the in-kind contribution by SeniorDiscount.com for hosting the link to the survey’s Web site.
25.
See www.seniordiscount.com.
26.
Dychwaldt, Age Wave, 237-237.
27.
Moschis, Bellenger, and Curasi, “What Influences the Mature Consumer?”
28.
Lisa D. Spiller and Richard A. Hamilton, “Senior Citizen Discount Programs: Which Seniors to Target and Why,”Journal of Consumer Marketing10, no. 1 (1993): 42-52.
29.
Fox, Older Americans and the Internet.
30.
Knutson and Patton, “Restaurants Can Find Gold Among Silver Hair.”
31.
Ibid.
32.
LaHue, “The New Mature Market.”
33.
Knutson and Patton, “Restaurants Can Find Gold Among Silver Hair.”
34.
Moschis, Bellenger, and Curasi, “What Influences the Mature Consumer?”
35.
Joseph P. Pine II and James H. Gilmore, The Experience Economy (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1999).
36.
Spiller and Hamilton, “Senior Citizen Discount Programs.”
37.
Barbara Yost, “Dining Cards, Coupons Provide Opportunities for Savings,”Jewish News of Greater Phoenix50, no. 41 (1998): S19-S19.
38.
Pui-Wing Tam, “Commentary,”Wall Street Journal, April 23, 2001, p. R14-R14, Eastern Edition.
39.
Enz, Canina, and Lomanno, “Why Discounting Doesn’t Work.”
