Abstract
Background:Children have an important role in the decision making process about travels. However, research about children in tourism is still lacking. Although scholars have investigated memories of trips, imagination and expectations on visiting new places that have not yet been explored.Objective:To explore children’s narratives about visiting an unknown city.Methods:Fifty-nine third grade 7-to-8-year-old children took part in the study. Children were asked to write a story on the visit to an unknown city starting from a given stem.Results:Two types of stories emerged from children’s narrations: likelihood and non-likelihood stories. The latter were characterized by the presence of complicating actions and resolutions, villain characters, fight and achievement and were rich in typical elements of fairy tale story. Likelihood stories were characterized by the presence of play and exploration activities, parents characters and the return to home. These type of stories mainly lack complicating action, resolutions and verbal interactions. Finally, these narrations do not show dramatic features as fantasy stories. The lexical analysis of emotions revealed that non-likelihood stories show more negative affective words than likelihood ones.Conclusion:Results make an important contribution to research on children’s narratives about travel, highlighting children’s imagination and expectations on the travel experience and providing an analysis of their representations.
Highlights
Tourism and the role of children in tourist choices and experiences is a recent field of research
Various studies suggest the importance of the role of children in the decision of tourist destinations, children are almost absent in the psychological research on tourism [5, 6]
The few studies conducted are mainly focused on memories about trips and or tourist visits with parents and school [7, 8] and have considered the role tourism has in learning activities
Summary
Tourism and the role of children in tourist choices and experiences is a recent field of research. The scientific literature has investigated tourism usually by means of a single individual’s experience or travel groups, some authors [1] have started to consider a new dimension: family. Various studies suggest the importance of the role of children in the decision of tourist destinations, children are almost absent in the psychological research on tourism [5, 6]. The few studies conducted are mainly focused on memories about trips and or tourist visits with parents and school [7, 8] and have considered the role tourism has in learning activities. Scholars have investigated memories of trips, imagination and expectations on visiting new places that have not yet been explored
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