Surge in vacationing Chinese seniors drives travel business

Statistics show as much as 40 percent of the senior Chinese are willing and able of going on a tour, at home and abroad. [Photo by Liu Qinli / China Daily]

Ctrip has special tour products tailored for the senior, Happy Tours for Parents, hundreds of routes of which cover home and abroad, said Yan Xin, publicity officer of Ctrip.

Suggested by Yan, the trips are better and less bumpy, to avoid any physical discomfort during the trip. Extreme activities such as scuba diving, jet splash and hot spring are not recommended to prevent possible serious illness or injury.

It is also recommended by Mafengwo that trips should be prepared with essential medical staff and facilities tailored for the senior, or senior citizens should be accompanied by professionals while going on a trip, and go to established destinations with highly developed facilities and services in case of health emergency.

Chen Zhao, a 37-year-old housewife from Liaoning province, recently experienced physical and mental anguish after her father suffered a stroke during an independent tour within the province organized by his former colleagues. He is in a coma and might be left partially paralized.

"My father liked to travel a lot since he retired and has traveled on many package tours over the years to relatively long-distance destinations such as Thailand and Taiwan, and closer ones in East China and within the Northeastern China and no accident ever happened, and my family got careless," said Chen.

"How I wish there could have been someone in their team, not necessarily professional, but at least knowing some basic first-aid measures when symptoms showed up, or he had never gone to that trip."