China's seniors on the move as retirement travel booms
When Li Caohua retired in her late 50s, the former doctor immediately joined millions of other mainland seniors and hit the road to see more of her giant country.
When Li Caohua retired in her late 50s, the former doctor immediately joined millions of other mainland seniors and hit the road to see more of her giant country.
At the top of her destination list was tropical Hainan island in the south and the ancient villages around her hometown, Beijing. Then there was the most grandiose of the mainland's landscapes - the mythic brown waters of the Yangtze River and its mist-enveloped Three Gorges.
Over the decades, Li survived such horrors of 20th century Chinese history as the man-made famines that killed more than 30 million people in the late 1950s and the political anarchy of the Cultural Revolution that followed. Now, as she and hundreds of other seniors danced, played cards and chatted on Thursday in the winding walkways of Beijing's Temple of Heaven, Li said it was her time to play.
"We are fortunate in China that we can travel, and I've seen so much," the 60-year-old woman said. "We're all travelling now to a lot of places."
Before, the elderly saved all their money … Now, they want to see the world
Travel agencies and packages catering to elderly mainlanders say business is booming, amid overall growth in the country's travel industry. The number of senior tourists jumped by 58 per cent last year compared with 2013, according to China Daily, and 62 per cent of senior citizens join organised tours.
One such tour ended tragically last Monday when a river cruiser carrying more than 450 people, mostly elderly tourists, capsized in a heavy storm on the Yangtze. By yesterday, nearly 400 had been confirmed dead, making it the deadliest maritime tragedy in the country since the civil war seven decades earlier.