The Influence of Children on Family

Vacation Decision-Making

Linh Vu
Certificate in International Hotel and Tourism Operations
HTMi, Switzerland
Introduction

In recent years, the segment of family vacation has been increasing. According to

Tiago et al, (2013), in 2012 this sector accounted for almost 30% of US tourists.

In such vacations, the individual deciding on the time and destination is

extremely important. In a family, parents are the main decision maker. Wang et

al, (2003) cited by Jenkins (1978), Filiatrault & Ritchie (1980), Nichols &

Snepenger (1988), Fodness (1992) that there are three main kinds of family

decisions making which are husband principal, wife principal and decision of

both husband and wife. The holiday options usually are made by both father and

mother, Wang et al (2003) quoted by Sharpand Mott (1956), Cunningham &

Green (1974). In addition to decisions from parents, the children's opinion

should also be considered. There are two reasons why children’s role in decision-

making is becoming noticeably interesting (Nickerson and Jurowski, 2000).

Firstly, population and sociological statistics in USA have shown that children’s

impact on purchase decisions is rising, as Nickerson (2000) et al noted from

McNeal (1992). Secondly, as parents are occupied by work year-around, they

would like to spend holidays to rebuild family relationships and encourage their

children to take part in decision-making (Nickerson and Jurowski, 2000).

According to Foxman (1989), 60 percent of the families announced that youths

are having impacts on travel decision. This paper will figure out how children

influence their parents’ vacation choice and why parents allow this. Beside that,

it will also analyze the decision-making and the effect of adolescent on purchase

choice in family.
Family Decision-making Process

Decision-making is something that we have to face few times per day in our life.

It can be made by an individual or a group of people. Scanzoni and Polonko

(1980) illustrated decision-making as a phrase used to depict a process of family

making options and specific discriminations then finally concluding. The most

important condition of this process is the participant and agreement of more

than one member in the family. To define the way a family making purchases

choices and how it effects the procuring comportment of family’s memberships

in the future, Tiago et al (2013) elaborated a development of literature

prominence in a family decision-making process.

Figure 1: The Family Decision making process (Tiago et al., 2013)

Tiago et al (2013) pointed out four gradations. In 1970’s, they detected that

usually the male are the main person who decides everything in a family apart

from matrilineal families. The second in 1980’s shows that there are conflicts

between husband and wife during an expertise and how they solve the

disagreement (Corfman & Lehmann, 1987). Tiago et al (2013) referred to

Kirchler (1995) that in 1990’s, the spouses had discussion about using tactics to

influence and then having joint decision.

As time goes by, the equality in family is increases and with the development of

technology, Tiago et al (2013) assumed in 2000’s, a new pattern in family may

appears as well as the ‘click-buying’ decision of teenager. According these

authors, the family’s decision-making is base on the family relationship between

parents and children.

Figure 2: Conceptual model (Tiago et al., 2013)

The authors have two questions aroused during the research, which are: do

families permit juveniles having power and control over their spending

concerning vacation and do they use the similar methods with a purpose of

influencing family purchase determination in the circumstance of holidays or

daily life products. These two problems can be completely answer by the model.

In addition, base on figure 2, the parent-teen relationship can influence family

purchase decision; therefore there are two hypotheses.

H1: If the relationship between parents and children are good, the children will

listen to their father and mother or the parents may consider their child’s opinions

on purchase choices.

H2: If parents and teenagers have bad relationship, parents will impose every

decision.

Adolescent’s influence on family decision-making

As reported by Hall et al (1995) cited by Sellers (1989), children’s

comprehension about their influences is increasing and plays a large role in

family decision-making over the past two decades. Opinions given by children

receive more attention. As well as child’s role in a family is growing (Foxman et

al, 1989). Watne et al (2011) pointed out that Ekstrom, Tansuhaj, and Foxman

(1987) reasoned that following current societal changes, the family’s

demographic profile has lead to alterations in the children's relative effect in a

family selection making. Following studies in several countries, as times change,

the role of younger generation also change; teenagers now can easily take better

information than before and contribute an important part in family decision-

making (Tiago et al, 2013). These authors also identify that over the last four

decades, the structures of a family have undergone reformations all over the

world, especially in first world countries. Therefore, children have become more

independent in society.
Figure 3: Traditional family versus New family (Tiago et al, 2013)

According to figure 3, the “New” family with horizontal, fused relationships and

isolation is making children create more decisions autonomously and they have

to be more independent and responsible with their decisions. In purchasing

behavior, one basic feature, which needs to be considered, is gender. Flurry

(2007) noted that the decisions are more influential by daughters than sons.

However, Martense et al (2008) cited by Hansen & Halling (2002, p. 225) did not

find any variation about girls’ and boys’ buying impact on groceries, beverages

and candy; they just found the differences about the products which are targeted

to either girls or boys. Therefore, Anne et al (2008, p. 15) hypothesized that:

“The impact of the child’s gender will vary depending on the product category.

Boys will have significantly more influence than girls on technical products such

as TVs, cars, mobile phones and computer facilities.”

The influence of children on family vacation choices

Jenkins (1979) researched about the impact of adolescent in family decision

choices involving vacation plan recommend that children have impacts on

vacation making choices; but mainly to collect the information and the total of

money need to spend. Other journal has advised that the teenager also have

impact over where and when to go (Belch, Belch, & Ceresino, 1985). Cullingford

(1999) discovered that kids as young as seven years can make a clear

discernment about those places where they want to travel and those not.

Moreover, the roles of the option maker in a family have been changed

dramatically because of internet’s affects (Belch, Krentler, & Willis-Flurry, 2005).

Therefore, in a high technology society where vacations are usually purchased

online, teenagers may have higher potential of impact on their parents’ vacation

decision (Watne et al, 2011).

How children impact on parent’s vacation option

Figure 4: Tactics frequencies and yielding (Tiago et al, 2013)

As we can see in figure 4, children may use a lot of tactics to influence their

parents’ choices and achieve certain effectiveness. Tiago et al 2013 stated that

there are strategies adopted by three main age groups (10-12; 13-15; 16-18

years old) related to tourism. The first group, which is children from 10-12 years

old usually use basic emotional tactics; for example: begging, crying, persistence.

Parents deferred gratifications their children when they do these things because

parents always love their child and don’t want to make them sad. Children from

13-15 years old tend to use guilty and deals strategy; then they will find a way to

negotiate with their parents and lead to a ‘guilt trip’.

Finally, children from 16-18 years old illustrate higher negotiation by providing

logical and practical agreements convince their parents.

Conclusion

Carr (2006) cited from Seaton 1992 and Kang et al., 2003 that in a tourism’

situation, the representation of family involving children is one of the most

enormous markets operators and holiday service suppliers. Aside from,

research of Cooper et al., 1998; Swarbrooke & Horner, 1999; Shaw & Williams,

1994 suggested by Carr (2006) shows that the holiday now plays a significant

part of family life because of the rising amount of relaxation time and disposable

salary accessible to families. Furthermore, a total of factors, including the better

affluence of a family, teenager’s higher purchasers socialization lead to the

growing independence gave to adolescent (Hall et al., 1995). Jenkins (1979) also

concluded that the higher the family income is, the more influence children have

due to the impacts of changing in family structure. Moreover, according to Sellers

(1989), in over the past two decades, children had a greater awareness in the

family decision-making as well as significantly increasing influence of children in

making decision in a family. Finally, base on the research of Tiago et al., 2013,

children use different strategies to affect family consumption both simple and

complex products, such as tourism products. Blichfeldt, et al., 2010 showed that

the tactics which children use present have higher effectiveness and their results

also affirm that the impact of adolescents on travel options differentiate with the

strategies they adopted.

Recommendation

Recently, “new” family as consumers with limited member households,

individual values and social family ties as well as internet’s impacts have been

made children’s awareness become better than before in traditional family.

Therefore, teens are more self-conscious and use to decision process. Young

people are also taking on more decision-making responsibility and

autonomously. Moreover, with the changing and development in the new era,

children intend to make tactics to influence their parents with different levels

that lead to various results. In addition, as family vacation is more popular and

family tourism is more develop, parents tend to encourage their child attend

family’s activities and also let them make some decisions. Thus, teaching children

become more independent, decisive and responsible with their decisions. Hence,

in the future, adolescent may have more decision in family and parents will

seriously listen and consider child’s opinions.

References

Belch, M. A., Krentler, K. A., & Willis-Flurry, L. A. (2005) Teen Internet mavens:
influence in family decision making. Journal of Business Research, 58 (5), 569-
575. Available from:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014829630300198X
[Accessed 28 October 2014].

Blichfeldt, B.S., Pedersen, B., Johansen, A. & Hansen, L. (2010) Tween Tourists:
Children and Decision-Making. Journal of Tourism Consumption and Practice, 2
no.1, 1-24. Available from:
http://www.tourismconsumption.org/jtcpv2n12010stilling.pdf [Accessed 28
October 2014].

Borges Tiago, M.T. & Borges Tiago, F.G. (2013) The influence of teenagers on a
family’s vacation choices. Tourism & Management Studies, 9 (1), 28-34.
Available from:
https://repositorio.uac.pt/bitstream/10400.3/2966/1/Tiago%26Tiago%20201
3.pdf [Accessed 8 October 2014].

Carr, N. (2006) A Comparison of Adolescents' and Parents' Holiday Motivations

and Desires. Tourism and Hospitality Research, 6 no. 2, 129-142.
Available from: http://thr.sagepub.com/content/6/2/129.full.pdf+html
[Accessed 11 October 2014].

Cullingford, C. (1999) Children’s attitudes to holidays overseas. Tourism

Management (1995), 16 (2), 121-127. Available from:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0261517794000223
[Accessed 10 October 2014].

Corfman, K., & Lehmann, D. (1987) Models of cooperative group decision-making

and relative influence: An experimental investigation of family purchase
decisions. Journal of Consumer Research, 14, 1- 13. Available from:
http://heatherlench.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/corfman-lehmann.pdf
[Accessed 28 October 2014].

Foxman, E. R., Tansuhaj, P. S., and Ekstrom, K. M. (1989) Family Members'

Perceptions of Adolescents' Influence in Family Decision Making, Journal of
Consumer Research, (15), pp 482-491.

Flurry, L. A. (2007), Children's influence in family decision-making: Examining

the impact of the changing American family, Journal of Business Research, 60 (4),
No 60, pp 322-330. Available from:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296306002062
[Accessed 15 October 2014].
Hall, J., Shaw, M., Johnson, M. & Oppenheim, P. (1995) Influence of Children on
Family Consumer Decision Making. European Advances in Consumer Research, 2,
45-53.
Available from: http://www.acrwebsite.org/search/view-conference-
proceedings.aspx?Id=11648 [Accessed 15 November 2014].

Jenkins, R. L. (1979) The Influence of Children in Family Decision-Making:

Parents' Perceptions. Advances in Consumer Research, 6, 413-418.
Available from: http://www.acrwebsite.org/search/view-conference-
proceedings.aspx?Id=9587 [Accessed 10 November 2014].

Martensen, A. & Grønholdt, L. (2008) Children’s influence on family decision

making. Innovative Marketing, 4 (4), 14-22.
Available from:
http://businessperspectives.org/journals_free/im/2008/im_en_2008_04_Marte
nsen.pdf [Accessed 11 October 2014].

Nickerson, N.P & Jurowski, C. (2000) The influence of children on vacation travel
patterns. Journal of vacation marketing, 7 no. 1, 19-30.
Available from: http://jvm.sagepub.com/content/7/1/19.full.pdf+html
[Accessed 11 October 2014].
Scanzoni, J. & K. Polonko (1980) A conceptual approach to explicit marital
negotiation. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 42 no.1, 31-44. Available from:
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/351931?uid=3737760&uid=2&uid=4&
sid=21104701952211 [Accessed 20 October 2014].

Wang, K.C., Hsieh, A.T., Yeh, Y.C. & Tsai, C.W. (2004) Who is the decision-maker:
the parents of the child in group package tours? Tourism Management, 25 (2),
183-194. Available from:
http://web.ntnu.edu.tw/~gordonwang/Who%20is%20the%20decision%20ma
ker.pdf [Accessed 20 October 2014].

Watne, T. & Winchester, T. (2011) Family holiday decision-making: the knowledge

and influence of adolescent children and parents. Available from:
http://www.academia.edu/1324896/Family_holiday_decision_making_the_kno
wledge_and_influence_of_adolescent_children_and_parents [Accessed 15 October
2014].