Prepared to pay

Zeng is among many dog owners who are eager to travel with their pets, irrespective of the expenses.

Most of the owners were born in the 1980s and 1990s, are well-educated and have higher incomes, according to a survey conducted in December by the pet industry data platform petdata.cn, under the guidance of the China Pet Industry Association.

Owners born in the 90s accounted for 46.6 percent of the total, 2.1 percentage points higher than 2022. Those born in the 80s made up 31.1 percent, up 10.8 percentage points, the report showed.

Last year, the number of pet dogs in China reached 51.75 million, a year-on-year increase of 1.1 percent. The number of pet cats was 69.8 million, an increase of 6.8 percent year-on-year, making the country the second-largest pet market in the world after the United States.

The scale of pet-related industries in China reached 592.8 billion yuan ($81.8 billion) in 2023, and is expected to reach 811.4 billion yuan by 2025, according to consultancy iiMedia Research, based in Guangzhou, Guangdong province.

The rapidly emerging pet tourism industry has encouraged new players to enter the market.

For a decade, Zhang Wei arranged hiking trips, but in February 2022 he switched his focus to pet hiking tours.

"It was because of my dog. I had to leave it alone at home during workdays and again on weekends. It was sad, and I just couldn't do it anymore," said Zhang, 40, from Beijing.

At first, he took his six-year-old border collie on hiking trips whenever he had the time.

"I figured there must be other dog owners, like me, who want to blow off steam with their dogs in the outdoors, since the city is not too friendly to dogs," Zhang explained.

With his rich hiking experiences, he soon came up with a few hiking routes that owners and their dogs could tackle together. The outings were an immediate success.

Zhang's first WeChat hiking group was soon filled with 500 members, and more people requested his services through word-of-mouth. "Many people treat their dogs like children and have a desire to travel with them," Zhang said, adding that most of his customers are aged 20 to 35.

To date, he has about 5,500 followers in more than 10 WeChat groups.