School-aged children‘s requirements for leisure (tourist trips and excursions) organization

SUMMARY of Viktorija Beleckaja Master‘s thesis ‗School-aged children‘s requirements for leisure (tourist trips and excursions) organization‘ Keywords: children leisure, tourist trip, excursion. Object of research: children‘s leisure requirements (for tourist trips and excursions). Problem (research) question: Are school-aged children‘s requirements for their leisure (tourist trips and excursions) organization fulfilled? Aim of research: to find out what are the school-aged children‘s requirements for leisure (tourism trips and excursions) organization. While writing the thesis there were 4 tasks, which helped to reveal the definition and characteristics of leisure itself; analyze the opportunities of school-aged children‘s leisure on tourist trips and excursions; find out peculiarities of school-aged children‘s leisure organization. Research approach: the quantitative research in Kaunas J. Grušas School has been done during 2010 February. The school was chosen using convenience sampling method. Questionnaire method was used – respondents received forms with 11 questions. Aim of this survey was to find out schoolchildren‘s expectations of tourist trips and excursions. The survey was antonymic. One of each 5-12 grade class‘s schoolchildren were involved in the research. There were 185 respondents in total. Conclusions: literature about leisure analysis showed up that leisure is free of work time, when one can rest, seek relaxation, improve and develop personality etc. There are many different leisure activities including tourist trips and excursions. Tourism agencies are offering pleasure, sightseeing, sport journeys and excursions over Lithuania and abroad, various summer camps for recreation and or to deepen your knowledge, thematic and educational excursions. The study results revealed that, despite of the many different leisure opportunities, they are oriented to schoolmasters and parents, but not to personal children‘s requirements and expectations. Talking of school-aged children leisure organization at school, there is still disregard of children themselves and their individuality, requirements, expectations and development of their personal characteristics. School-aged children leisure organization in tourist trips and excursions is collaborative work of parents, schoolmasters and tourism agencies, which success confirms satisfaction of children‘s expectations