Kids on board: methodological challenges, concerns and clarifications when including young children's voices in tourism research

Abstract

A knowledge gap exists concerning the dearth of children's voices in tourism research. One of the main reasons for this is attributed to the methodological challenges that confront researchers when interacting with child respondents. Based on a recent study conducted with young children between the ages of 5 and 6 years, this article discusses five methodological issues to contemplate prior to conducting research with children. This article raises important considerations for children's developmental phase, the use of appropriate props and prompts during data collection, and the positionality and pre-requisites of the researcher when designing methodologies for research with children.