In a recent posting on an Internet chat site operated by Lonely Planet for senior travellers, a 62-year-old grandmother was seeking a like-minded companion for adventures that could include cruising the canals of Europe and a four-wheel-drive tour of Australia or Africa.
"Please don't be hard on me and tell me to stay home and mind the grandkids," she wrote. "I tried that. I still want to go do stuff while I have health, pension and time left."
Her desire to "trade copra in the South Pacific or whatever seems exciting and different" may not be typical of all seniors, but she does belong to the fastest-growing segment of travel consumers.
Healthier, wealthier, better educated and with more time on their hands than the previous generation, mature travellers -- variously defined as 50 or 55 and older -- have become the dominant force in the industry. With an aging, self-indulgent generation of baby boomers hot on their heels, marketers are paying attention.
The demographic trends are certainly clear. Statistics Canada predicts that seniors 65 and older will make up 23 per cent of the Canadian population by 2041, almost double the percentage in 1995. And not only are they living longer, they have more money than any other demographic group.
People over 50 own three-quarters of all financial assets and account for half of all discretionary spending power in developed countries, according to Senioragency International, a company specializing in marketing to the elderly.
For the travel industry, tapping into this lucrative group has meant a radical adjustment from previous marketing attitudes that lumped anyone over 60 into a grey basket of frailty and inactivity.
Gone are the days when older travellers were relegated to cruise ships, tour buses and shuffleboard courts, Ward Luthi, founder of Colorado-based travel company Walking the World, said in a recent New York Times interview.
"Older travellers want to exercise their minds and bodies," Mark Ferver, president of tour giant Grand Circle Travel, said last month in an article on SeniorWorld Online, a Web site for seniors. "They don't want to see the world go by from the window of an air-conditioned bus. They want to get out and touch it and experience it for themselves."
Roger Heeler, professor of marketing at York University, agrees. "There is some recognition in the market that not all people over 65 want to sit in a coach with 30 other seniors and two 20-year-old guides and be shown the sights they shouldn't miss before they pass from the mortal coil."
The message of "experiential" travel's increasing popularity is being heard even by traditional sun-and-beach tour operators such as Toronto's Signature Vacations.
This winter, Signature is offering a range of cultural and soft-adventure tours in Mexico, Cuba and Costa Rica, company spokeswoman Martha Chapman said. Guided tours in the Yucatan will take travellers to historical sites such as Merida, Campeche and Chichen Itza. In Cuba, trips will be offered to inland attractions away from the beach, and in Costa Rica, the company will organize nature tours.
While maintaining their core product, some companies have added options aimed at attracting older travellers.
Butterfield & Robinson, best known for their luxury hiking and biking tours in Europe, are now offering home-based trips where guests stay at one property and use it as a base to explore the region.
Company spokeswoman Cari Grey said the company is also offering "by sea" excursions on small ships to places such as the Galapagos Islands.
"They appeal to older travellers and are ideal for travel by extended families," she said. " Baby boomers are becoming grandparents, and many of them want to take their grandchildren on trips."
Not all senior travellers, however, are ready for coddling. Grey said that even on the most active of Butterfield & Robinson's trips, older guests tend to be in good physical shape.
York University's Heeler said many older travellers relish their physical abilities on an active vacation: "You talk to some of them and it is a point of pride that they were the oldest in the group and put the younger ones to shame."
Most industry observers agree that the growth in active vacations designed for seniors is driving the growth in the soft-adventure market. Dozens of North American companies have sprung up in the past decade to meet the demand.
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