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The study intends to develop guidelines for the communication and marketing policy of Swiss tourism service providers aiming at targeting the future senior citizen market. It is of an exploratory nature, and based on interviews with current senior citizens in Switzerland and a Delphi study with 30 experts from the Swiss tourism and hospitality sector, as well as specialists from senior citizen associations and research institutes. The results show the importance of the increasing request by senior citizens for learning experience through holidays. The different marketing strategies aimed at such clientele will be increasingly profiled according to the specific motivation and preferences of this clientele.

This paper presents the results of a questionnaire-based exploratory survey among hoteliers in Switzerland, measuring their perception of the senior clientele. These hoteliers were also asked about the specific arrangements they have made in the past for the senior customers, as well as the investments they have undertaken. The main finding is that, even though the senior segment is recognised by most hoteliers as being potentially profitable, a less than flattering image of this customer category seems to have dissuaded a great number of Swiss hoteliers from concentrating a lot of effort and resources on adapting their products and services to this customer segment. This bad image (serious physical handicaps, problems in cohabitation with other clients) deserves to be corrected. Besides, the wish of senior tourists for a personalised product and service should be taken into account by Swiss hoteliers in their future investments and offers aimed at the senior guests.

Following increasing competition on the international tourism market, a great number of Swiss hotels which are generally family businesses with small structures and aging infrastructures, find themselves in a critical financial situation. Thus, many hotels having exhausted their economic potential, cannot adequately upgrade their performance. For this reason they are forced to respond to the requirements of potential investors by presenting the progress of their activities through models of cooperation with other hotel establishments and/or other actors. In view of the significance of this issue, the present article proposes to study the effect of collaboration intensity and the type of management on the performance of Swiss collaborating hotels. By adopting a global approach to performance, it appears that hotel performance is influenced by the intensity of collaboration. Regarding the effect of the type of management the results are more questionable.