Introduction: Families in Tourism Research - Family Tourism - page 3

as at least one child and one adult (Schänzel et al ., 2005).The adult here can
be a parent, legal guardian or caregiver (although in the present work the
term 'parent' will be used throughout, for the sake of simplicity). These
definitions are fairly narrow, in that they are based merely on length of stay
and minimum size of the travelling group, and do not take into account the
different experiences of children and parents.
Holidays are commonly defined around push motivations that are
orientated either towards escape (Iso-Ahola, 1982) or towards a break from
routine (Crompton, 1979) but this does not necessarily apply to family
holidays. According to Shaw et al . (2008) parents with children differ from
other tourists in their strong focus on social values, such as family together-
ness, creating family memories and generativity. This indicates a purposive
element to family holidaying that involves connections with, rather than
escape from, social relations (Larsen et al ., 2007). While parents seek together-
ness on holiday they may also desire personal space, which can be a source
of conflict and requires compromise. Gram (2005) identified an inherent
dilemma in family holidays: because parents seek relaxation and children
seek activities, the ideal of togetherness is hard to achieve. Gram's study,
however, was largely based on the parental perspective rather than being
informed by the individual members of the family. According to Schänzel
(2008), who included the voices of all family members, family holidays are
primarily about doing activities that are different to normal routines and
that involve spending time together 'with' the family (including extended
family) rather than being an escape or break 'from' home routines. They
serve a purpose of (re)connecting people, through tourism, and can be seen
as a social practice that involves networking, family capital formation and
social obligations. Because Schänzel included the voices of children it became
evident that fun was an important factor, as evidenced by the comments of
an eight-year-old boy: 'It is not a holiday if it is not fun. If it is fun then it
is a holiday' (Schänzel, 2008). As a result, the following definition of 'family
holidays', based on the experiences of all family members, was adopted for
this topic:
A purposive time spent together as a family group (which may include
extended family) doing activities different from normal routines that are
fun but that may involve compromise and conflict at times.
The Under-representation of Families in
Tourism Research
Despite the economic significance of family tourism for the tourism industry,
holidays with children have largely been marginalised in academic research
(Schänzel et al ., 2005). Most tourism research focuses on the individual and