There wasn't a lot of time or money for travel when Velma Beare, along with her late husband Tom, was raising three kids and helping with their higher education. Now it's hard to find the Burlington, Ont., woman at home.
Last year the great-grandmother and former legal secretary took one of her adult daughters on a Mexican cruise and the other one to Italy and Germany. She spent a month at a condo in Spain, toured Buenos Aires and Iguazu Falls with her son, cheered on the Toronto Blue Jays in New York, attended a wedding in Whistler and visited friends in Vancouver. A year earlier she got heck from her children for going parasailing while vacationing at a beach.
Velma Beare is 85. She considers herself “very lucky” that good health and money from the sale of her house allow her to indulge her passions for exploring new places and making new friends.
For someone her age, she's a rarity today. But her globetrotting lifestyle could become the norm as the baby boom population bulge acquires its inevitable grey hair and wrinkles. Where Canadians currently 65 and older opt for traditional destinations such as Florida and Arizona in the winter, the aging boomers below them are more adventurous and willing to travel farther, says David Redekop, principal research associate with the Conference Board of Canada. As the boomers grow older, the 55-to-64-year-old market segment will drive the travel market over the next decade. This is especially true since Statistics Canada is projecting a slowdown in the birth rate that will put a damper on the family-with-kids segment of the market, he says. That puts Canada in line with the worldwide trend. Jacob Kirkegaard, a research associate at Washington's Peter G. Pererson Institute for International Economics, recently told a world tourism conference that “the number of elderly in the world is simply set to explode.” Longer lifespans and lower birth rates will mean more grey travellers, particularly from Asia and Latin America.
Eventually the sheer volume of travelling grannies and grandpas may lead to massive crowding at popular destinations, entry restrictions at fragile historic monuments and higher accommodation prices as the pool of cheap labour dries up.
In the meantime, a new generation of healthy, affluent, active and curious seniors is launched for take-off to the far corners of the globe. Just don't call them seniors, elderly or old.
Because of the perceived stigma of the “elder” label, the venerable Elderhostel organization has adopted a new name — Road Scholar — for programs aimed specifically at baby boomers. Elderhostel, based in Boston, began offering educational travel programs in 1975 and now operates across North America and in 90 countries around the world.
The new Road Scholar clients (average age 63) are independent and curious, says spokesman Adam Hurtubise. Tours designed for them include more behind-the-scenes experiences and independent-learning opportunities than traditional Elderhostel programs (average age 73).
Here are some of the other trends that are shaping senior travel:
All in the family
John Roe and Karen Calvert of Mississauga, Ont., have plans to bring each of their 12 grandchildren, alone or in pairs, with them on an exotic foreign trip at roughly age 12. They have already done Italy and Egypt, and Southern India is coming up. They book through Adventures Abroad, of Richmond, B.C., which specializes in small group tours, some of them designed for families with children.
The couple exemplify “multigenerational travel,” one of tourism's new catchphrases. Increasingly seniors are footing the bill to bring their grandkids, adult children or often large family groups on trips or cruises with them.
“Rather than leaving a big inheritance to be spent after they're gone, they are experiencing this wonderful vacation with their family now,” says Lori Copeland, business development manager with Toronto's Merit Travel. The agency handles bookings for CARP: Canada's Association for the 50 Plus and for the Retired Teachers of Ontario.
Comforts at sea
Twenty-two per cent of cruise passengers are over age 60, according to the Cruise Line International Association. But the passenger profile is changing, says Erik Elvejord, a spokesman for Holland America Line. Those age 55 to 65 are more active and more demanding of comforts than those in their 70s and 80s.
