Off the beaten track

On weekends, they drive a car to explore Chengdu's surrounding areas for a getaway. For example, they might camp near the Ya'nyu Lake in Ya'an city, and visit villages for cultural experiences such as pottery and cloth-dying.

They visited Xishuangbanna and Pu'er in Yunnan province and avoided crowds at some less visited places. They took the boy to pick up pineapples in Xishuangbanna's Manyuan village, and learned about the coffee planting history in Pu'er, and visited a plantation.

He says compared with before, some domestic destinations have developed new experiences to cater to the needs of visitors. For example, in Xishuangbanna, tourists can take a stroll with an elephant in a tropical forest.

"After several years of traveling, my son likes to communicate with others, and when we travel overseas, he plays with other kids even if he can't speak the local language. He's also broadened his horizon and be mature," Ren says.

In September 2018, they were stuck for about 40 hours in the airport in Osaka, Japan, due to flooding caused by a powerful typhoon. They had to sleep on the ground and the boy didn't make a fuss. When the Chinese embassy sent buses to pick up Chinese tourists, he lined up for several hours and knew the importance of public order.

Some parents, he says, are worried that there will be many problems if they travel with their child, for example, whether the child might have carsickness or airsickness, or won't like the local food.

"If you want to travel with your kid, you should have confidence in him or her. Children have great adaptability and they're not as delicate as you think," Ren says.

"They want to have fun every day during a trip. At first, you can take them to places with better infrastructure for children."

Liu Simin, vice-president of tourism at the Beijing-based Chinese Society for Future Studies, says: "Frequent outbound visitors have traveled many places, with a higher consumption power and demand for destinations. It's natural that they would explore less traveled domestic places to meet their needs."

"Rather than common scenic areas, they prefer in-depth travel and are interested in the local lifestyles and local people. For them, tourism has become a kind of lifestyle, and lifestyle has also become an essential part of tourism."