Making memories: an empirical study of children's enduring loyalty to holiday places

Children are silent agents in tourism, although they are intelligent and skilled enough to be part of the research agenda. In the past, children were ignored as passive, unreliable and incompetent informants, but this view has now faded. There are three principal reasons for including children in tourism research. As active and talented individuals, they are a genuine part of the overall tourism market. Their needs and well-being matter to multiple stakeholders. In the context of influencing family travel, their position as active social figures can, directly and indirectly, affect their parents' purchasing behavior. Further, children’s future holidays may be affected by their current experiences. At the theoretical level, this chapter adds a further small step to bridge the gap between child and adult studies in tourism. Children's perceptions and experiences are still not studied extensively in tourism research and the work on motivation and benefits is especially scarce. Importantly, the approach employed here uses the existing Travel Career Pattern approach as a broad motivational appraisal system that enables the work to be connected to adult motivation research. At the methodological level, this study shows that the active involvement of children in the research process has significant benefits. At the practical level, this study can help government policy and planning in the field of tourism. The silence about children is not limited to participation in research, it is also evident in the development of policies