ICT and the Sustainability ofWorld Heritage Sites. Analysis of Senior Citizens' Use of Tourism Apps

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and applications (apps) for tourists
are key tools for the sustainability ofWorld Cultural Heritage Sites (WCHS). Their integration into
tourism marketing strategies poses challenges regarding the satisfaction of the expectations of the
target stakeholders, particularly senior tourists, people aged 60 and over. This paper adopts an
exploratory and descriptive approach that combines qualitative techniques (focus groups), to study
the use senior citizens make of ICT and tourism apps, with quantitative ones. In this sense, content
analysis has been performed on a sample of tourism apps. The results reveal that ICT are essential
tools for senior tourists and positively influence tourists’ final perception of the travel experience.
The analysis of these mobile apps shows that they meet the expectations of senior tourists, who
constitute a relevant generation for cultural tourism and are of special interest for the sustainability of
WCHS. The configuration and development of these tools must be adapted to this generation, which
we call GenerationW.