Why retirees are the future of China’s outbound tourism market

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By Ralph Jennings

Published Mar 31, 2025

Over-65s make up a fast-growing segment of China’s vast outbound travel market – and they tend to be big spenders.

Chinese retiree John Wang, 74, has travelled abroad to five countries, and took a particular shine to the United Kingdom. He liked the public parks dotting the centres of British cities – and even praised the country’s public transport network.

“The environment was good and living was convenient,” said the Beijing resident, who relies on his English-speaking relatives to communicate when overseas. “The green spaces are big, and there are places like supermarkets where you can freely take a rest.”

Retirees like Wang represent a huge opportunity for global travel companies, as millions of well-off Chinese baby boomers hit retirement age and start jetting off around the world in search of new cultural experiences.

Over-60s are already a fast-growing segment of China’s vast outbound tourism market, and they tend to be big spenders, travel operators said. Unlike earlier generations in China, they are often retiring with generous pensions and large asset portfolios built up over decades of saving.

That allows them to splash out on relatively long trips, giving them time to immerse themselves in new cultures, rather than hopscotching from one highlight to another over just a few days as younger tourists often do.

“The silver group is a new blue-sky segment that the outbound tourism market should focus on,” business consultancy Dragon Trail International said in January, after completing a market survey that found elderly travellers represent a “vast untapped market”.

Last year, outbound bookings by older travellers soared by some 50 per cent year on year, according to Chinese travel platform Fliggy. The most popular offshore destinations among retirees were Hong Kong, Macau and Southeast Asia.

Fliggy is a subsidiary of Alibaba Group, the owner of the South China Morning Post.

Travel firms expect the growth to continue this year.

The proportion of Chinese travellers aged 65 or over is set to jump from around 7-9 per cent last year to 10-12 per cent in 2025, travel technology and marketing firm China Trading Desk predicted last week.

Unlike a lot of people 20 to 30 years their junior, retirees can spend freely on trips without fretting about how to afford things later, as they have more savings, assets and retirement income, according to economists and industry analysts.

Chinese retired or pre-retired travellers born in the two decades after 1960 will normally have relatively large pensions, Dragon Trail said. That means they are “less price sensitive than other market segments and seek high-quality travel experiences”, the company added.

Many of them also have a “lifetime of savings behind them” and have benefited from decades of rising property prices, said Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at Dutch financial services corporation ING.

Retirees’ incomes are likely to receive a boost from a 30-point Chinese government action plan to stimulate consumption. The plan, released on March 16, sets a goal of improving basic pensions, with individual retirement accounts promoted as a “third pillar” of the pension system.

Elderly Chinese travellers have shown a preference for longer-distance and longer-duration trips this year, according to Zhang Chen, Fliggy’s vice-president. “Compared to younger travellers, this demographic has notably higher expectations for seamless itineraries, local hospitality and tour guide services when travelling abroad,” Zhang said.

London-based market research consultancy Savanta said in a September report that China’s high-income elderly want “slow luxury”, meaning a mix of unique experiences when they travel.

But the “silver” travel market remains “rich in untapped potential”, with just 14 per cent of surveyed outbound travel agents in China offering products that specifically cater to older tourists, Dragon Trail said.

Increasing numbers of Chinese retirees travel to gain knowledge and improve themselves, according to a report by the Beijing-based research organisation China Tourism Academy.

Travel companies looking to target this demographic should create packages for small tour groups that include health-related activities and plenty of rest time, Dragon Trail said.

Wang, the retiree, said he normally did not have to worry about money during his overseas trips.

“We had a planned economy when I was young, so my spending power is definitely stronger now,” Wang said. “At that time, buying a TV set or a refrigerator was very expensive. Today’s lifestyle and that of the past are totally different.”

But downtime is essential, Wang said. His tours of the UK, US, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea were enjoyable because there were “plenty of places to rest”, he added.