As spring outings and the May Day holiday ignite China’s senior tourism market, older adults are becoming a dynamic force in the cultural and tourism sector. With China embracing an era of longevity, abundant leisure time, modern retirement perspectives, and better health are fueling seniors’ travel enthusiasm. In March, China launched the Special Action Plan to Boost Consumption, prioritizing the silver-hair tourism industry to tap its market potential. In today’s smart media landscape, bridging the “digital divide” to enable seniors to navigate digital tourism platforms and access seamless smart travel services has become essential for destinations to engage older visitors.
Age-Friendly Digital Platforms
Tourism websites and apps now offer senior-optimized interfaces with large fonts, icons, buttons, and high-contrast text designed for seniors’ needs. To streamline entry, many scenic sites employ facial recognition, payment aggregation, ID verification, and anti-fraud technology for one-code access. Jiangsu and Xinjiang introduced digital tourism cards for reservation-free entry, while mini-programs like Happy Shanghai, Explore Pingtan, and Travel Zhejiang enable scan-to-enter convenience. Safety is paramount: Ningxia’s Western Xia Imperial Tombs equip lamp posts, restrooms, and elevators with one-tap alarms, Xuzhou’s Quanshan District provides real-time crowd monitoring and comfort metrics, and Beijing’s Summer Palace offers wheelchair reservations.
Enhanced Smart Guides
Scenic areas utilize voice recognition, natural language processing, and GPS to deliver tailored guide services. Quanzhou’s Qingyuan Mountain mini-program provides audio narration in Mandarin, Hokkien, English, Japanese, and Korean, with slow-speed playback for seniors. Fingertip Hulunbeier offers Russian and Mongolian senior versions, while Guizhou’s digital guide “Dany” and Huangshan Mountain’s AI assistant support interactive Q&A. Explore Pingtan features a “scan-to-learn” tool, allowing seniors to identify plants and animals with educational content.
Immersive Experiences
Immersive tourism products captivate seniors with interactive engagement. Natural sites like Mt. Tai and Laoshan Mountain in Shandong Province use VR to display breathtaking landscapes, while historical sites like Tunhuang in Gansu Province and the Terracotta Warriors in Shaanxi Province recreate vivid historical scenes. Mini-programs like One-Code Guizhou and Tour Xinjiang provide live-streamed scenery for home viewing, and AR photo features enable seniors to capture moments with historical figures.
Age-friendly smart tourism innovations satisfy seniors’ wanderlust, making journeys safer and more enriching.

(By Wu Jing and Jimo Zhang
Jing Wu is affiliated with Qingdao University of Science and Technology, and Jimo Zhang is affiliated with Shandong Vocational and Technical University of International Studies.)