news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

on september 13, the new retirement plan was officially announced, which will gradually extend the statutory retirement age for male employees from 60 to 63 over 15 years, and the statutory retirement age for female employees from 50 and 55 to 55 and 58 respectively.

according to the specific age comparison table, most of the young and middle-aged people who now make up the main customer base of the tourism industry will retire at the maximum age, i.e. 63 for men and 55 or 58 for women, which will be extended by three or five years respectively.

©photography.net

is this good or bad for the "silver tourism" market which has been hot in recent years?

first of all, it must be made clear that the impact of age on travel behavior is real, especially for the elderly, who are 3 to 5 years older, and the differences in all aspects are more obvious than those of young people. according to the "2023 silver crowd travel behavior insights" released by ctrip last year, people aged 55 to 60 are the main consumer group of silver tourism, accounting for 60% of the number of travelers, while people aged 61 to 65 account for more than 20%. this difference can be interpreted from multiple angles such as physical fitness and willingness to travel, which is basically in line with scientific laws. it can be said that even the elderly group needs to be stratified by age and cannot be generalized.in general, the older people are in the elderly group, the lower their willingness to travel, and the "early elderly population" is the focus of intensive development.

if we divide them by age, a large number of people who originally retired at 55-60 will retire after 60, and another large number will retire closer to 60 instead of farther away from 60. for this group of people, whether their willingness to travel will arrive later than retirement age is still unknown. if we follow the rule that people become less interested in traveling as they age, the silver tourism market may be greatly affected.

but it is also worth pointing out that the people who retire at or almost at the maximum are those born in the 1970s, 1980s and later. unlike traditional elderly people, they are the generations that have developed the "travel habit" and are now the main consumer group in the tourism market. according to the "china self-driving travel report 2024" by the new era culture and tourism research institute,the post-80s and post-90s, who are the backbone of self-driving tours, will continue this habit into their middle-aged and elderly lives.

at the same time, augustin medina and other famous works "silver economy - seizing the golden opportunity of brands" pointed out that the market for silver tourism is segmented, but a major feature of this group as a whole is that they can travel at any time of the year. for the tourism industry, this means that compared with other groups that are still working,seniors can help the industry to a greater extent during off-peak tourist seasons, because other groups' holidays are usually concentrated during peak tourist periods.

therefore, there is every reason to speculate that when this group of people retire, they may further stimulate tourism consumption behavior, further expanding the silver tourism market.

the impact of the new policy will be comprehensive and far-reaching, and its impact on the tourism industry must be taken seriously and studied from now on.

for government departments, this means that they need to grasp the relationship between aging and the tourism industry from a new perspective, and take the "older" age of tourists as the basis to carry out smart tourism, aging-friendly transformation, market supervision and other work. in places like yunnan, the market has also clearly felt that it is moving in this direction in recent years.

for enterprises, they must also go beyond the short-term perspective to plan and grasp possible market trends. it is more challenging to plan products and communicate marketing strategies from the perspective of comparing the present with the future, but those who seize the opportunity will also gain the initiative in the future market.

for researchers, silver tourism will become a more important research topic. it raises this immortal question from the perspective of the future: how can the tourism industry prove its dual advantages in tapping consumption potential and creating a happy life, which will be most reflected in these elderly people.