Family Holidays—Vacation or Obli-cation?

Abstract

The most common stated reason for taking a holiday has been found to be ‘to reduce stress’. However, for families, particularly those with young children, holidays may create rather than reduce stress. Often the source of stress is derived from accommodation in destinations not having adequate facilities. Using online questionnaires that allowed in-depth open-ended responses, the findings from 71 respondents within Australia's State of Victoria in 2011 revealed that in many cases, accommodation facilities that purported to be suited to the family failed to deliver, and created stress. Often this was caused by not providing inexpensive basic provisions. Typical examples included insufficient cutlery and crockery, or poor laundry facilities. Such deficiencies either added to parents' workload or made basic tasks more difficult, which was not conducive to relaxing. In many cases, the family holiday resulted in an increase in unpleasant tasks and irritations, and was therefore not a relaxing and enjoyable experience. In fact, for 35.2% of respondents, their stress levels were either unchanged (19.7%) or had increased (15.5%) after going on their last family holiday. Family holidays then provided less of an escape from the everyday.