Adventure travel companies are redesigning brochures, adjusting advertising campaigns and providing better-quality hotels to woo high-spending customers aged over 50.

Adverts and brochures that were once designed to look “funky” are being toned down to have a more considered style, with a greater emphasis on cultural sights. Hotels are being upgraded to the best on offer to satisfy demands for comfortable rooms - no “slumming it” allowed.

With pensioners now outnumbering those aged under 16 in Britain and improved diets and healthcare expected to increase the ageing population, operators predict that the grey travel market will continue to grow. People over 50 who have already travelled extensively will venture farther afield than ever, operators believe.

“During the past five years we've turned the way we market our trips completely on its head,” said David Leck of the Russia Experience, which offers trans-Siberian train journeys. Higher disposable income among older travellers is behind the trend, he added. “It's been fascinating: whereas we used to attract backpackers, now we're getting people in their 50s, 60s and 70s.” The company's formerly “basic” brochure has been updated with details about sights and a wider selection of quality hotels. “We just took two sisters in their 70s,” said Leck. “They had a whale of a time.”

Exodus and Explore Worldwide - the country's two leading adventure holiday operators - say that the average age of customers is late 40s and early 50s. A fortnight ago, Explore issued a tailormade brochure aimed at babyboomers. The company looks after the holidays of more than 5,000 people aged over 65 every year, selling trips to Uzbekistan, Bhutan and Togo (for “voodoo breaks”).

Saga Holidays, which specialises in over-50s travel, is now the UK's leading tour operator to Chile and Nepal. A spokeswoman for the Association of British Travel Agents said: “Older travellers are going to where they might once have backpacked, doing it in style. Places like Cambodia, Laos, Ecador are mainstream now.”

New destinations for over-50s being offered by operators include Syria, Algeria, Mauritania, Tajikistan, Yemen, Timbuktu and Iran.

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