Group lifestyle mobilities: understanding Chinese senior long-stay tourists in rural destinations

Existing work on senior lifestyle mobilities in China has predominantly focused on therapeutic landscape imaginaries and second-home cities. This paper shifts the focus to the group-oriented lifestyle pursuits of Chinese urban seniors who temporarily reside in rural areas for extended vacations. By interviewing Chinese senior long-stay tourists in rural destinations, this study examines how their decisions to engage in long-stay tourism are driven by the quest for a communal leisure lifestyle characterised by group living routines and a sense of camaraderie. Our findings highlight the role of geo-arbitrage in facilitating and accommodating these group-oriented mobility patterns among senior tourists. Yet, their mobile later life experiences are also marked by precariousness and vulnerability due to individual and group-level health decline, as well as the disparities in senior care services between urban and rural regions in China.