Du Xianli and his wife, both at the age of 77, spent their Spring Festival, the Chinese Lunar New Year, in southeast Asia. Their vacation is a vivid example of popular "gray hair" tourism in China.
As China turns to an aging society, the booming tourism industry is welcoming a wave of "gray hair".
More and more senior citizens choose to travel, thus bringing vitality to the fledgling "gray hair" tourist market, according to the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA).
China has one of the largest aging populations in the world. By the end of last year, the number of people aged above 60 had exceeded 100 million.
Experts concluded that the wave of "gray hair" helped unleash the great potential in China's tourism industry.
An official with CNTA said the senior citizens have plenty of free time and enough money from savings and pensions.
Most of the seniors are healthy and tend to pay more attention to their life quality than past generations. Travel agents organize tourist groups in the low seasons when accommodation and traffic fees are cheaper and fewer people visit scenic spots. Some 91 percent of the 45,000 aged tourists Beijing received last year expressed willingness to travel again.
At present, hundreds of travel agents offer convenient, cost- effective services for the elderly.
Some tourist agents cooperated with ship companies and organized voyages on the Yangtze River. Tourism services which combine travel with calligraphy, paintings, photography, dancing and chess received positive feedback.
"Enjoying themselves" is a pursuit for many "gray hair" people in cities, experts said.
The first tourism website for the aged was opened recently and is expected to cover 27 big travel agents soon.
(Xinhua 02/13/2001)
