A moment that changed me: realising, aged 16, that I couldn’t handle alcohol | Lou Sanders

I was 16, on holiday in Alicante on my own – my Aunty Sue was due to join me the next day. So in preparation for her arrival, I drank almost a litre of vodka, hit the town and passed out. A Spanish stranger called an ambulance and the local hospital kindly pumped my stomach. “Olé! Olé!” as they say (translation: Oi! Oi!).

I was in a foreign place, didn’t speak the language, and had no idea where my hostel was. I thought I was streetwise but I was a street idiot. Like many people my age, I was a turbulent sea of emotions: a mix of hormones, some unprocessed family happenings, and a classic case of a broken heart. Because of this emotional maelstrom, the male nurse thought he could drop me back to my hostel via his place and have sex with me, since I was too low on self-esteem, and way too out of it, to put up any sort of counter-argument. Turns out he was right. Muchas gracias, maaate!

I’d like to say that this was the moment that changed me, but I still needed another 117 occasions just as murky to decide that maybe drinking wasn’t for me and that, rather than saving me from my problems, it might have actually been causing quite a few of them, or certainly giving them some fertile ground in which to blossom.

A year later, when I was 17, I was working as a bartender in one of the roughest pubs in Margate. To give you some idea, a lot of the clientele had the latest jewellery in electronic tags, and some of the customers were working as local concubines. It was run by a couple called Pam and Bob and they, as you can imagine, had seen all sorts.

The establishment let you accept drinks as tips while you worked. Big mistake, Pam and Bob, big mistake. I’d had some super-strength lager on the bus over, so the double whiskies really topped off the trouble. By 10pm, I had burnt the arm of my jumper, I had one foot stuck in the bounteous fag bin, and I had smashed a whole dishwasher tray full of drinks into a wall. I was not winning any bar-staff awards that night and, of course, got asked to leave. Later on I found out that I was so drunk my bosses thought that I couldn’t have just been intoxicated – I must have been on drugs. I was not on drugs – well, not that night anyhow.

Around this time, I was also arrested for drink-driving. I was driving at 5mph, so as not to arouse suspicion. Then when I realised the police were tailing me, I thought I could trick them by indicating left, and, you guessed it, turned right. They saw through my plan and pulled me over, but drunk me had another scheme; I downed a bottle of lemon grass aromatherapy oil and told them I was “in a rush, so must be getting on”. Needless to say I was prosecuted, and quite right too.

I have lost count of the incidents through the years and the number of times I gave up drinking. But I did get better at controlling it. When I was younger I used to wet myself and pass out, and I’d often come to with a “friend” who had decided that he would try to remove my clothes and insert his penis in me. It’s a shame judges sometimes blame the women in these scenarios, because if a woman was passed out drunk and someone started punching her in the head (another physical violation) would they say – “to be fair she was drunk, so she was asking for it”? She was only asking for “it”, if “it” is a fully clothed snooze, thank you. Or indeed a nudey-snooze if she so fancies.

Anyway, I cleaned up my side of the street and bit by bit became stronger and started working on the trauma and shame. I do believe that if you are lucky and meet the right people, some horrific situations can be an opportunity to grow stronger, and every single person has a spectrum of events happen to them, which don’t have to define them. I’ve forgiven all the people who used me and abused me when I was drunk because, really, they were just as unconscious as me – just in a different way.

There was no knowing when the beast would be unleashed. But, at some point, the beast was always unleashed

I thank them for all the lessons they brought with them – through their “teachings”, as they all helped me to reach that well-documented rock-bottom, so that all I could do was build upwards. And year on year, slowly but surely, I built a rock-solid foundation. I’ve also forgiven myself for everything in the past (I think), and I hope that all the people who I’ve inflicted my pain on have forgiven me too.

Giving up drinking was a slow and gradual thing. In my late 20s, I drank a fair bit, and was for the most part a big, fun drunk without incident. But there was no knowing when the beast would be unleashed. And, at some point, the beast was always unleashed. I had so much shame and guilt that I drank to forget it. Which is a bit like saying you crave exercise so much that you cut off your legs.

Now, finally, I love not drinking. I love the clarity and simplicity of it, but it’s taken a long time to get here, via many, many mistakes. I used to think I was missing out, so inevitably I would always, slowly, creep back to the wine. Then, through a combination of being in the right place at the right time, meeting the right people and finally being ready – I gave up for good. I also read a great book called The Easy Way to Stop Drinking, by Allen Carr (not that one). It somehow made me realise that I wasn’t missing out; in fact, I would only be missing out if I started drinking again.

The word sober sounds so serious. I still love dancing till 2am and talking shit. I still love all the enjoyable things I did drunk, but there’s choice and power in my decisions now. And I’ve also given up drinking lemongrass aromatherapy oil; that was the big one for me.

• For information on all of Lou’s upcoming projects please visit lousanders.com

A moment that changed me: realising, aged 16, that I couldn’t handle alcohol | Lou Sanders

A moment that changed me: having an abortion, aged 17 | Tiff Stevenson

It was 12.30pm on a Wednesday when it happened. I won’t forget it … ever. It wasn’t quite spring. Rainy and gloomy outside. I’m in my surgical gown waiting in the ward. I see a girl I recognise from a local shop, I go to say hello and then realise the abortion clinic probably isn’t the best place for a catch-up: “How you doing? Is it a boy or a girl you are not having?”

Most of the women there don’t look pregnant apart from one; I keep trying to catch her eye so I can smile at her. The nurse comes to collect me; they put me on a gurney and wheel me to the anaesthetist. Lying on my back shivering, I’m not sure if it’s cold or pure dread. The anaesthetist comes over and asks: “Ready?” Just one word. And I cry and cry and cry. Streams of tears, more shivering. The anaesthetist looks at the nurse confused. “What’s wrong with her?”

What’s wrong? This is not how it’s supposed to go down. I’m 17. I already have a blip on the radar … a bump in the road, if you excuse the pun. My life isn’t perfect, but idiotically at 17 I think it will be. The nurse says: “She’s just not sure if it’s the right thing to do.” I’m about to do the scariest thing I’ve ever done. The last thing I see is the nurse’s sympathetic eyes. Next thing I know I’m in recovery, from the first operation I’ve ever had. They call it a vacuum aspiration although there is nothing aspirational about it.

I wake up again, back on the ward. I feel no pain. I don’t know if that’s better or worse. He is sitting on the end of the bed. Crying. Ah, so there will be pain, just not the physical kind. “Why did you kill our baby?” He says those words to a young girl who is not much more than a baby herself. The same girl that he screamed at when she told him she was pregnant and said it wasn’t his problem. He was such a catch at the time, what with his job as a pizza-delivery boy.

When I get home, Mum makes me tea and gives me a hot-water bottle. I crawl into my bed. I had gone into that clinic a girl, but became a woman when I left. Not in the way I would have wanted, not by some beautiful moment of transcendental awareness, but in the most cold and brutal way. I had walked in there with the potential for life inside me, but one that would have almost certainly destroyed mine.

Up until that day I thought that if you wanted something enough it would just happen. I had been in love with this boy since I was 13 years old. He was charming, exotic … well, Spanish, popular, and I knew one day he would be mine. He was the best-looking guy in my satellite town. We started going out when I was 15, it was instant love. The emotional Armageddon of first love.

I found out I was pregnant in the toilet cubicle at work. My friend thought she was pregnant and bought some tests. I took one almost as a joke, never expecting it to be positive. I felt no joy in that moment. Two years in, our relationship was in dire straits. I had to tell my mum, knowing she would be angry and think I was an idiot, even though I was on the pill and I was just very unlucky or very fertile. I couldn’t tell Dad, if I wanted my boyfriend to get out of it alive.

I carried the burden of it all, from paying for my abortion, to driving myself there, to the sweat-drenched nightmares after. He carried on as usual, and with other women. I would dream about her … my child. I dreamed I had a girl: I would take her to the park and push her on a swing. Another dream had us sitting in the kitchen where I would plait her curly brown hair, just like his.

She would be 21 years old now, and I try to imagine what our life would be like. Her father went to prison six months after my termination. I certainly wouldn’t be an actor and stand-up comic. I imagine I’d be surviving on meagre benefits in a tower block, most likely stoned and angry at a world that robbed me of opportunity at the age of 17. Taking my little girl to visit her father in prison. What hope for that child? What a way to bring someone into the world.

I was lucky I had a choice, that’s why I feel so strongly about reproductive rights, because I wouldn’t be here now without them. It has become a strong theme in my stand-up. In 2011 I did an Edinburgh show in which I talked a little bit about this. My dad came along and I had to flag up that there might be a section of the show that would upset him. Afterwards he told me that I was excellent and very brave; I still don’t know if he meant doing stand-up or the operation itself.

I get furious at the suggestion that abortion is somehow this flippant decision, like deciding whether or not to buy a new pair of shoes. I hate it when people suggest that mothers are better people, more responsible, invested and loving than women without children. The decision to not have a child is just as hard and responsible, if you know you aren’t in a position to give that child what it needs.

Women in Ireland are still being denied that choice. It breaks my heart to think there are women like the 17-year-old me: women who are frightened and getting on a plane with no one to hold their hand because they have to go to another country; judged because if a woman books a last-minute trip to Britain, chances are people will guess why she is going; some of them pregnant as a result of rape or incest; some of them risking their own lives if they continue with a pregnancy; some just like me, making a choice, wanting autonomy over their own bodies. If they manage to get an illegal abortion in Ireland they could face up to 14 years in prison: 14 years for the temerity of choice.

I’m proud of the 17-year-old me. I know I made the right decision, even if it was hard. All women should have that choice: let there be no more unwanted children. If I do ever have a daughter, I will stand by her right to choose too, and I’ll hope to have all the necessary tools to support her, no matter what she does.

• Tiff Stevenson is on tour with the show Seven. She will be hosting a Stand Up for Choice gig on 28 March at London Irish Centre

A moment that changed me: having an abortion, aged 17 | Tiff Stevenson

Norma McCorvey, "Roe" in Roe v Wade case legalizing abortion, dies aged 69

Norma McCorvey, who was just 22 years old when she became better known as Jane Roe in the landmark 1973 supreme court case Roe v Wade, has died aged 69 in her home state of Texas.

Her death was confirmed by journalist Joshua Prager, who was working on a book about McCorvey and was with her and her family when she died. He told the Associated Press that she died of heart failure at an assisted living center in Katy, Texas.

Pregnant and unmarried in 1969, McCorvey sought to terminate a pregnancy that year, setting off a long struggle through the courts that culminated in a legal ruling that would become, and remains, a touchstone for a bitter culture war over reproductive rights.

When McCorvey brought the action, under the pseudonym Jane Roe in 1970, she was simply looking for the right to end a pregnancy she did not wish to bring to term. Three years later, the supreme court handed down its historic 7-to-2 ruling, establishing the constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. By the time the ruling was delivered, McCorvey’s baby was 2 ½ years old and had been given up for adoption. She later claimed that she was misled by her lawyers who, she said, used her as a “patsy” to bring about abortion rights.

McCorvey later became a figure­head for both sides of the issue. Initially, she was celebrated by pro-choice campaigners and reviled by anti-abortion activists, and campaigned in the 1980s in support of abortion clinics.

But McCorvey abruptly converted to evangelical Christianity and was baptized in a swimming pool, in front of network TV cameras, by the minister who headed the group Operation Rescue. McCorvey became a fierce opponent of abortion rights, and remained so through her conversion to Catholicism. .

“I’m 100% pro-life,” she told the Associated Press in 1998. “I don’t believe in abortion even in an extreme situation. If the woman is impregnated by a rapist, it’s still a child. You’re not to act as your own God.”

She described herself as the victim of her lawyers, who she claimed used her case to win a larger abortion rights cause. “She felt used by Sarah Weddington [her attorney] and she felt a sense of responsibility that her signature led to the slaughter of millions of children,” said Janet Morana, the executive director of Priests for Life and a longtime friend of McCorvey’s.

Norma McCorvey later became a fierce opponent of abortion rights. Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

McCorvey was involved in a handful of legal challenges to Roe over the years, but the bulk of her activism was with religious groups opposed to Roe.

“Norma found out about Roe v Wade passing by opening her door one morning and seeing the newspaper,” Morana said.“Norma never had an abortion. She gave birth to the Roe baby.”

After her conversion, Morana said, “she used to say, ‘I am Roe no more.’ That was very important to her, that people would understand that she was no longer Roe. She, just yesterday, when I talked to her, she wanted to tell everyone to continue the fight. I take that as a personal mission.”

In 2009, McCorvey was twice arrested for protesting: on one occasion a speech by Barack Obama, and on a second the supreme court nomination hearing of Sonia Sotomayor. McCorvey stopped speaking publicly over the past three years, and in the past year or two her declining health prevented her from attending anti-abortion events.

But her life was never truly settled. She wrote in her autobiography, I Am Roe that, she was a victim of abuse in her childhood in Louisiana and Texas, that she stole money at the age of 10 from a gas station, and that she later struggled with drug and alcohol abuse. Early in her life, she’d been enrolled in a Catholic boarding school and at a reform school for delinquents, and she worked, variously, as a bartender, a maid and a house painter. Her mother told her biographer, Prager, that she’d beaten her daughter over her “wild” behavior.

“She loved life. She loved people. She wanted to make a Texan out of me,” Morana said. “She took me shopping for cowboy boots and hats.”

“I don’t require that much in my life,” McCorvey told the New York Times in 1994. “I just never had the privilege to go into an abortion clinic, lay down and have an abortion. That’s the only thing I never had.”

The Associated Press contributed reporting

Norma McCorvey, "Roe" in Roe v Wade case legalizing abortion, dies aged 69

Cancer victim Reece Puddington dies aged eleven

His mother Kay, 40, wrote on his Twitter and Facebook accounts: “Reece Puddington 6th December 2002 @12.11am – 20th Could 2014 @twelve.11pm Hobbit, Pirate and all round inspiration!”

Reece was diagnosed with the cancer of the nervous program in May 2008 when he was just 5 years previous and celebrated two many years later on when medics advised him he had beaten the illness.

Nevertheless, the his joy was reduce short when he learnt the cancer had returned right after complaining his head “felt funny” in the shower.

Reece was offered a newly-trialled drug but warned the cancer was terminal and had spread to his bone marrow.

In his final blog submit on Might 9, Reece thanked his numerous loyal supporters and urged them to hold donating to the charity.

He stated: “Thank you to every and each and every one of you that’s taken the time to like my webpage, adhere to, share, like and comment on my posts and for all the donations in the direction of my bucket checklist.

“You guys rock!”

After his diagnosis, Reece drew up a bucket listing of things he wished to do just before he died which incorporated seeing his mother find out to drive so they could go on day journeys.

His other wishes included meeting his favourite Hollywood actor Jonny Depp and getting a hobbit hole built in his back garden.

He started his Facebook website in July 2011.

A single of his earliest entries in September 2012 read: “Hello everyone! On the 5th September the medical professionals advised my mummy that in spite of becoming four &amp one/4 years from diagnosis, I have sadly relapsed.

“I have a tumour on my skull and lots of speckled ailment on the rest of my skeleton.

“The medical professionals can give me some Irinotecan &amp Temozolomide chemo to give me some time with my family members but cannot remedy me.

“We are going to try out and raise funds for an Intergrated treatment method program made up of Nutritional &amp Natural therapies which would be my only opportunity of a remedy.”

Reece, from Seasalter, Kent, posted photos of birthdays, gifts he acquired from wellwishers, chemotherapy sessions and stored followers up to date on his fundraising efforts.

In February, with the assistance of his family, he announced he was going to cease any much more life-extending remedy.

He wrote: “As you know soon after the newest scan outcomes I was sent house to rest and believe over the two feasible alternatives.

“I could opt for an additional trial, but this would imply travelling a whole lot to the hospital and coping with the side results, but could also hopefully lengthen my lifestyle, or I could merely do nothing, stay at home and let nature get its program which would lead to me shed my daily life somewhat earlier than if I’d had a lot more remedy.

“My mum had often hoped more than the final 5 to 6 years that she would have the courage to know when enough was sufficient.

“Following careful consideration, my mum thought that if she was carrying out it for herself she would maintain sending me for treatment as she wouldn’t want to allow me go, but if she was undertaking it for me she’d allow me go.

“Nicely, she’s letting me go…..”

Kay, who looked right after Reece even though his dad Paul, 48, worked as a income assistant, explained at the time: “The total household was in agreement, it would be unfair on him to continue making an attempt to deal with him.

“I had to know when sufficient was ample. Reece has been so good, he by no means moans truly.”

On the sixth anniversary of his original diagnosis on May 9, Reece posted ‘The Last Chapter’ in which he wrote: “My lifestyle was even now very much about gaming, motion pictures, consuming and really tiny health-related intervention etc.

“All was going nicely until finally the past week the place there have been some noticeable small changes.

“As it really is been 6 years these days since I was initially diagnosed with Neuroblastoma, I feel it really is the excellent time to announce that this will be my last update….I’m merely as well weak and tired to have an active roll in my blog now.”

By way of his illness Reece campaigned to raise income to buy a seashore hut for other sick kids to appreciate.

He finished his ultimate message by adding: “Though it truly is too late for me to have a beach hut, there is plenty of kids who could still benefit from 1, so please preserve the donations coming.”

Reece leaves an older brother Ryan, 19, and sisters Jamie, 16, and Nikki, 14.

Cancer victim Reece Puddington dies aged eleven

Cancer charity fundraiser Stephen Sutton dies aged 19 - video report

Teenage cancer fundraiser Stephen Sutton has died peacefully in his sleep, his mother announced on Wednesday morning. Sutton, from Burntwood, Staffordshire, was re-admitted to hospital on Sunday after building breathing troubles caused by the re-growth of tumours. David Cameron praised the outstanding efforts of Stephen, who in his last number of months fundraised much more than £3.2m for the Teenage Cancer Trust

Cancer charity fundraiser Stephen Sutton dies aged 19 - video report

Increasing old stressfully: persistent tension and prematurely aged cells | James Kingsland

Forty years in the past, the Whitehall Examine of men operating for Britain’s Civil Services famously uncovered that those at the bottom of the pecking order had been considerably a lot more likely to die prematurely than people at the prime – irrespective of other danger aspects this kind of as smoking. They had higher mortality charges from all triggers, but especially heart ailment.

So the lowly paid doorman, no matter whether or not he was a hefty smoker, was far more likely to drop dead than the clerk sitting at his desk all day earning far more income. As ever, lifestyle was deeply unfair. But what was the biological explanation for this wellness inequality? 1 theory was that the anxiety and lack of handle in excess of their functioning lives skilled by guys in lowlier jobs were placing their wellness at danger, however how that worked physiologically was anyone’s guess.

The body’s response to acute pressure – the battle-or-flight response – equips us to deal with sudden threats to our survival by releasing adrenaline and cortisol, which amid other factors raise blood strain, heart rate and blood sugar ranges. But sustained or persistent stress is hazardous to health, growing the risk of depression, bodyweight obtain and heart disease.

Because the 1980s, scientists at University School London have been following up the Whitehall Study to locate out how stress at function prospects to poorer well being, and their newest study reveals that older males whose bodies have difficulties returning to typical soon after a demanding occasion display the hallmarks of accelerated cellular ageing – which could place them at better threat of heart illness. The guys who had this faulty pressure response and indicators of cellular ageing had been also a lot more probably to lack social support and score hugely on measures of pessimism and hostility.

The study involved 333 healthful men and girls, aged in between 54 and 76. As proxies for cell ageing, the researchers measured the length of telomeres – the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes that get worn down each time a cell divides – in their immune cells. They also measured the exercise of telomerase, which is the enzyme responsible for repairing telomeres.

In older cells that have been through many cycles of division, the telomeres may be worn away to this kind of an extent that the cell stops dividing and gets “senescent”, or even undergoes apoptosis or “cell suicide”. Shortened telomeres have been linked to many age-associated diseases, so they are usually utilised as a marker of cellular ageing.

The study was created to keep track of the participants’ physiological stress responses. They were also given psychological exams to assess their amounts of social and emotional assistance, optimism and hostility. In addition, they have been asked about adverse occasions early in their existence, such as the death of a mother or father or sibling.

The volunteers were offered a couple of standardised tasks that put them under psychological tension. 1 concerned making use of a metal stylus to trace a star, which could only be seen as a mirror picture. Every time the stylus strayed from the outline of the star the apparatus emitted a loud beep and a blunder was registered. To increase the tension further, participants had been informed the “average person” could full 5 circuits of the star in the allotted time.

The scientists took blood and saliva samples just before and following the nerve-racking duties. Blood strain, heart rate and heart fee variability have been also monitored whilst the duties have been carried out and then at forty and 70-minute intervals afterwards.

As anticipated, the nerve-racking duties led to increases in heart charge and blood pressure, and a reduction in heart charge variability in all the participants. They also raised ranges of the tension hormone cortisol in saliva and blood ranges of molecules concerned in inflammation.

What was surprising was that in men with quick telomeres and substantial telomerase activity, these anxiety responses took longer to return to normal. In addition, these guys scored greater for hostility, had significantly less social help in their lives, and had been much less optimistic. Their mothers were also far more most likely to have died just before they have been 16.

The associations still held even soon after the men’s entire body mass index, age and socioeconomic status were taken into account.

All this suggests that an inability to manage pressure, maybe as a consequence of a hard early life and lack of social help in adulthood, can accelerate cell ageing. It could also support describe why nerve-racking function and a perceived lack of management are associated with poor wellness and elevated mortality rate, regardless of other health dangers this kind of as body weight and rising age.

It’s well worth noting that the males have been all outwardly wholesome, but the evidence of accelerated ageing in their cells suggests they will be much more susceptible to unwell overall health in the coming many years.

The associations were not witnessed in girls, however. The authors are at a loss to describe this, but speculate that oestrogen – which boosts telomerase activity – may possibly have protected the women’s telomeres in their younger many years.

The final results are reported this week in the journal Proceedings of the Nationwide Academy of Sciences (pdf).

The researchers propose that shorter telomeres reflect the cumulative “allostatic load” or put on-and-tear triggered by persistent anxiety, which can lead to higher blood pressure, excess weight obtain and heart disease. The cells they studied had been immune cells, so there’s also a possibility there was age-relevant harm to the immune method as properly.

They conclude that elevated allostatic load predicts the chance of early death and practical decline at older ages. “Our review suggests that these processes could be mediated through accelerated cellular ageing.”

Increasing old stressfully: persistent tension and prematurely aged cells | James Kingsland

China"s Outbound Tourism 2014: The Young And The Old Joining The Middle Aged Abroad

In the autumn of 1989 I identified myself for a amount of complicated reasons organising the first ever German festival of Maltese literature (yes, beside falcons they also have literature on that minor island in the Mediterranean Sea) in West-Berlin. With my six guests I also ventured for a day-trip to East Berlin, where they were “flabbergasted” to comprehend that from the platform of the tower of the French Cathedral they could in fact see the creating in West-Berlin exactly where our festival was taking place, but that the East German citizens standing following following to us would be shot if they attempted to reach it. I, getting grown up with the Berlin Wall cutting my kin into two halves on the two sides of it, even so assured them that this was a properly standard, if unfortunate, predicament which was not about to alter anytime soon. So there was little need for me to be reminded by the popular guide by N.N. Taleb that a “Black Swan”, an unforeseen and unprecedented event, can occur at any time and that stability in the past does not ensure stability in the future. Nevertheless, assuming that the new 12 months in China will be the Year of the Horse, not the 12 months of the Black Swan, we can forecast that nearly all developments described in my last website about China outbound tourism trends in 2013 will continue in 2014.

China will nonetheless be the biggest supply industry for worldwide tourism, very easily surpassing 110 million border crossings, even more supported by the Chinese government exploiting the Soft Energy policy possibilities coming with it. The push variables pollution and overcrowding will continue to motivate Chinese tourists to make the switch from domestic to outbound traveller, even however it is to be hoped that pollution levels will not continue to rise as substantially as in 2013.

The wish of Mr. Huang Ping, director-basic of the Department of Consular Affairs in the Chinese Foreign Ministry, that a lot more countries must signal bilateral visa-free agreements with China, as reported in the January 2014 concern of the COTRI magazine China Outbound Marketplace Intelligence, will almost certainly turn into fulfilled as countries hasten to steer clear of dropping out in the battle for the affluent Chinese guests.

A lot more self-organised travellers will flip up in new areas all above the world from Denver to Turku to Dunedin and the large cash will join the enjoyable each in type of Chinese and global investment aiming at the Chinese outbound market.

Additionally some additional developments need to be pointed out, which are largely linked to the “Long tail” of the Chinese outbound industry. Next to the nonetheless prevalent bundle excursions providing second and third tier city dwellers their first taste of global travel, the officials spending discreet but heavily and the smartphone-wielding (each and every third smartphone in the planet is supposed to be offered in China in 2014) self-organised travellers uploading their minute-by-minute visual report of their trip, niche markets will grow. Is there a want to remind you, dear reader, that every thing is large in China, so niche markets can even now suggest hundred 1000′s of customers? Almost certainly not.

Going on an international ocean cruise will be among these developing niches, as will equipment-based mostly outside pursuits like skiing or diving. Less evident pursuits will have to be extra to this listing, which will probably be triggered by a celebrity, praising on WeChat or Sina Weibo the coolness of walking along beaches in the snow or staying on a houseboat or visiting small workshops making steampunk couture.

Another massive trend for 2014 will be the widening of the age band of Chinese outbound travellers. International travel currently being much less and much less perceived by frequent travellers as unique or dangerous, far more kids can be expected to join their dad and mom or travel in youth travel groups with their classmates or pals. At the other end welcome the Chinese affluent pensioners, a group just beginning to come into existence. Most of them will be still rather in the age group fifty five-65 than over and almost certainly even now be involved in a bit of genuine estate trading and stock markets, but not like the vast majority of middle-aged affluent travellers they are not “time-poor” and can afford to go on journeys which are significantly less frantic, last numerous weeks and are significantly less driven by the question what the other individuals will believe about my trip.

So if you encounter this year Chinese vacationers at sudden areas performing surprising things – or asking you for the following steampunk couture store – don’t fear, it is all completely typical. Hopefully you can even earn some money from it.

China"s Outbound Tourism 2014: The Young And The Old Joining The Middle Aged Abroad