Consumer Kids and Tourists – Creatively Marketing a City to Young Tourists - Family Tourism - page 147

mostly been ignored' (Thornton et al ., 1997: 289). They reinforce this by
citing Cullingford:
Children are not the target audience for the tourist industry as a whole,
especially when it comes to travel abroad for a major holiday. It is
generally assumed that they submit to whatever choices their parents
make, and that they have little secondary influence on their parents'
particular choice of holiday destination. (Cullingford, 1995: 121)
From the market analysis undertaken in Britain it does appear that
some areas of tourism are now understanding the influence of children and
teenagers on family travel. Both VisitBritain (2006) and the National Trust
(2010) state that their change in marketing tactics was due to responsive-
ness to market demands.
While Cullingford (1995) claimed that the tourism industry is reluctant
to market to young consumers, there also appears to be reluctance by many
organisations to research what marketing activities young consumers relate
to and what motivates them. This reluctance could be misguided, in that 'in
tourism research, few researchers have identified children as having an active
role in decision-making' (Thornton et al ., 1997: 289) or it could be a way to
avoid the ethical and moral considerations that arise when surveying young
people (or, as many marketing professionals describe them, as 'children'). As
Belch et al. , (2012) discuss, not only are there government regulations placed
on the marketing communications industry on how it communicates to
young people, but, due to parental and other social pressures, along with
ethics, most industry associations have developed their own set of rigorous
guidelines for advertising and marketing to young consumers.
If the tourism industry wants to encourage return visitation and
establish longer-term strategies for the future tourists, it needs to begin con-
sidering young people as a key target audience. There are restrictions on the
marketing communications industry in how it communicates with young
people (Neal et al. , 2000) and it is acknowledged there are limited data on
their buying power for family holidays (Nanda et al. , 2006). However, this
does not mean that DMOs should avoid developing marketing strategies
specifically for this audience. As Bronner and de Hoog explain, 'knowledge
about family decision dynamics has not yet evolved to the extent that
coherent marketing communications have been developed' (Su et al ., 2003,
as cited in Bronner & de Hoog, 2008: 978). Nanda et al . maintain that the
'traditional thinking that children are not the target audience for travel
products should be reconsidered because children are no longer submissive
to whatever choices their parents make' (Nanda et al ., 2006: 118).
The challenge, then, is to suggest ways that DMOs could strategically
develop destination marketing specifically for a young audience, aged, say,
8-16 years, especially as there is limited literature published in this area