The Inclusion of Fathers, Children and the Whole Family Group in Tourism Research on Families - Family Tourism - page 69

given the increasing interest in fathers in the leisure and family literature,
as illustrated by recent special publications on fatherhood in leisure (Kay,
2006, 2009) and the establishment of the Fathering journal (Fagan, 2003)
within family research. Kay (2009) considers fathers and fatherhood as
an 'absent presence' in leisure studies but also argues that leisure-based
activities (such as sport) are potentially more prominent in fathering than
they are in mothering. For example, in Australia, engagement in 'sport is
perceived as a major site for fathering to occur ' (Thompson, 1999: 53) and
for fathers to show emotional connection to their children (Harrington,
2006, 2009). Fathers in the UK described leisure to mean 'being with' their
children, resulting in a kind of 'leisure-based' parenting (Such, 2009). Fathers
in general use sport and leisure not only to enact their fathering ideology
but also increasingly as a strategy to express their masculinities (Kay, 2009).
Few studies have investigated the family holiday experiences of
children (e.g. Carr, 2011; Cullingford, 1995; Hilbrecht et al ., 2008; Small,
2008). These suggest that, for children, holidays are about physical activity,
being involved and having fun rather than relaxing. Differences between
children's and parents' holiday needs and desires can lead to intra-family
tensions (Carr, 2011). Hilbrecht et al . (2008) established that newness
within a familiar environment and connections with social relations were
important for children on family holidays. This confirmed results reported
by Small (2002), who found that for 12-year-old girls sharing holiday ex-
periences with others, such as friends, makes for a good holiday experience.
In the social sciences (more broadly) there has been a methodological
shift that has involved repositioning children as the subjects rather than
objects of research (Farrell, 2005) and this is reflected in the increasing work
on children's experiences (e.g. Freeman & Mathison, 2009; Greene & Hogan,
2005). This is a reminder that tourism research is not only lagging behind
other social research but also that children are marginalised in tourism
studies and fathers are largely invisible, apart from their joint parenting
voice (with no gender consideration), or when they are used as a point of
comparison for mothers' perspectives.
To address this, the purpose of this study on family holiday experiences
was to understand the perspectives of all family members, including both
mothers and fathers, and from their individual and interactive family group
perspectives. The study focused on domestic tourism in New Zealand, which
accounts for over half of all national tourism earnings; families account
for a major part of this market. With the aim of finding out more about
family holiday behaviour in New Zealand, a parental survey was distributed
through five primary schools in the Wellington region (Schänzel, 2008). The
survey also recruited 10 families as research participants in a whole-family
study, which is the focus of this chapter.