The object of interest of this paper is senior tourism (Italian: turismo della terza età; German: Seniorentourismus): a tourism segment that has been growing steadily over the past few decades and that offers great opportunities to tour operators and travel agencies, but also requires a careful planning of the tourist offer and an adequate
communication with the (real or potential) tourists. The paper con trastively examines promotional texts in Italian and German in order to give some initial suggestions to language experts working in this field. After a brief introduction, section 2 gives an overview of the phenomenon of senior tourism and mentions the most important demographic factors behind it. Section 3 outlines how this kind of tourism is dealt with in tourism marketing and management, with particular attention to its definition and classification, as well as to the main designations used for senior tourists. Section 4 focuses on promotional texts and presents some instances of effective and lesser
effective communication.
