In the National Day holiday in early October, a number of travel agencies in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region designed a series of tour programs for elders.

According to a president of a local travel agency, the idea of conducting special tour programs for the elderly came from the 2000 China tourism trade fair hosted in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, in July.

"Setting Sunshine", a Beijing-based service center for the elderly, opened China's first tourism network during the fair, attracting a host of domestic travel agencies.

So far, 27 travel companies from a dozen provinces and cities across China have been connected by the network to jointly develop the tourism market for Chinese elders.

The elderly population in China account for the one-fifth of the world's total. By last October, China had 126 million people that were 60 years old or over, making up one-tenth of the country 's total population.

Wu Yueming, planning manager of the Shenzhen-based international travel company for employees, said that the company organized a travel program for 200 elders in Hong Kong, Macao and Shenzhen last year.

The warm welcome to the program by the elderly gave Wu confidence to further the service on domestic and overseas market.

Tours for elders are different from regular tour programs, she said, they focus on longer periods for sight-seeing, low cost and more interesting entertainment.

There are 100,000 elderly persons living in Shenzhen, China's earliest special economic zone in south China's Guangdong Province, Wu said, adding that elderly tourists generally consist of retired employees, professors and senior engineers in the city.

As a booming industry, tourism has become one of the country's rising economic sectors. In tourism, travel programs for the elderly will play a pillar role in the industry.

With increasing income, more and more children of the Chinese elderly will also join the service. The Chinese elderly tourism market foresees a prosperous future, Wu concluded.

(People’s Daily 10/30/2000)