Parent and Children Family Travel Focus Groups
Executive Summary

The Department recently conducted six focus groups with families in Chicago, the Twin Cities and Madison to gain better insight into the roles that parents and children play in vacation planning. The groups consisted of 35- to 45-year-old parents with a minimum household income of $40,000 and their children, ages 9-12. The parent and child groups met separately. Here's an overview of the findings:

Both groups indicated that word-of-mouth recommendations strongly influence their travel choices. Parents look to friends and co-workers and children talk to friends about exciting places and pester their parents to take them there.

Children have strong influence but little decision-making power over where their families go on vacations. Parents shape travel plans around children's interests and tolerances.

At their destination, children have more influence on what activities the family does. Parents strike compromises that will satisfy everyone, including their youngest and oldest children.

When asked about the attributes that make for a good family vacation, indoor pools were mentioned by both groups more often than any other activity, characteristic or experience. Indoor pools were praised for solving bad-weather problems and not costing extra. A good indoor pool is large, isn't crowded and has a deep end with a diving board and ideally, exciting waterslides.

Among the attractions that rated high with children were indoor and outdoor water parks, video arcades, go-carts and bigger (more thrilling) amusement park rides. Parents don't take as much pleasure in these activities but go along for their children's sake.

Adults' and children's interests were similar for outdoor activities. Both said that they enjoyed hiking, biking, fishing, canoeing, camping, tubing, rafting, downhill and cross-country skiing and snowmobiling.

Having access to cable or satellite television and video games in their hotel room was quite popular with children. Parents also look for indoor activities within a community, such as museums and shopping.

Children were interested in faster-paced vacations than adults, who emphasized the need for a mix of active and restful activities. The key seems to be to promote a balance of activities.

When asked to describe how they felt after a good family vacation, parents used adjectives including relaxed, refreshed, satisfied, rejuvenated and invigorated.

When presented with travel-related photography, adults tended to like images of beautiful scenery, cultural activities and people having a good time doing an activity. Children gravitated toward images of people engaging in activities that they themselves like to do. Summer scenes of water play, such as tubing and rafting, were extremely popular among both groups. Winter images rated lower, except that snowboarding photos were very popular with children.

Regarding Internet use, adults indicated that they did find the Web a valuable tool. Web pages should include maps, mileage and drive time from major cities. Price range keys are another feature that they preferred. Toll-free numbers need to be displayed prominently so that users could speak with an individual.