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environment, in that parents are more deliberate, whereas children's desires
are more immediate. Fun for the children reflects their self-interest and
is fundamentally perceived as interactive. Holidays for children are also
perceived as opportunities to (re)affirm social relationships with peers,
providing them with their own time away from the family. This stresses
the fact that holiday experiences for children have a stronger social and per-
sonalised dimension than is acknowledged from a solely adult perspective.
While family holidays provide opportunities for increased family interac-
tions it also highlights the individual needs of children for time away from
parental restrictions in the company of peers.
Giving a voice to the family group allowed insights into internal group
dynamics and highlighted potential social tensions and conflicts that can
arise on holiday. This differs from the ideal image of the happy family on
holiday within the media and society at large (Carr, 2011) and introduces
notions of negative family holiday experiences, which are largely unreported
in the academic literature. The findings revealed that conflicts could arise
during holidays because family members were less insulated from internal
dynamics than they were at home. For example, more time is spent in shared
spaces such as car journeys, which become enforced family times, and there
are more opportunities for experiences that involve a level of risk or danger.
This highlights the fact that family holidays offer the only occasion for
the whole family to be closely together for an extended time in an alien en-
vironment and without the distractions of other commitments, which can
reveal gender and generational differences in interests and needs. Examining
the experiences of all family members on holiday through a whole-family
methodology then provides a social lens (Lashley
et al
., 2007) into family life
outside the home. This chapter therefore demonstrates the wider contribu-
tion that tourism research can make to the social enquiry into fatherhood,
childhood and contemporary family life dynamics.
References
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White (eds),
Women's Leisure Experiences: Ages, Stages and Roles
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Blichfeldt, B.S. (2006)
A Nice Vacation
(IME Report 8/06). Esbjerg: University of Southern
Denmark. Retrieved from http://static.sdu.dk/mediafiles//Files/Om_SDU/Institut-
ter/Miljo/ime/rep/blichfeldt8.pdf.
Carr, N. (2011)
Children's and Families' Holiday Experiences
. London: Routledge.
Charmaz, K. (2000) Grounded theory: objectivist and constructivist methods. In N.K.
Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln (eds),
Handbook of Qualitative Research
(2nd edition) (pp.
509-535). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Crompton, J.L. (1979) Motivations for pleasure vacation.
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, 6(4),
408-424.
Cullingford, C. (1995) Children's attitudes to holidays overseas.
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