Tourism expenditure patterns in China

•The time-path of tourism expenditure at the individual consumer level is analyzed.•The age profiles of tourism expenditure with various characteristics are examined.•The total tourism expenditure and group-tour expenditure by age are hump-shaped.•The age profile of non-group tour expenditure is S-shaped.•The increase of total tourism spending was most salient among the middle-aged.

Using China’s urban household survey data for 2002–2009, this study compares the impacts of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of urban household expenditure on tourism in different age cohorts. The life cycle age profiles of group-tour and non-group tour expenditures are obtained by decomposing total household expenditure. The results show that the age profile of total tourism expenditure is hump-shaped, which conforms to consumers’ income discretionary expenditure cycles. The age profile of group-tour expenditure is hump-shaped whereas that of non-group tour expenditure is S-shaped, corresponding to the substitution of group and non-group tours as children grow older. The implications are discussed in the context of tourism marketing with a view to providing useful segmentation information for tourism decision makers.