Family, Children, and Tourism in China

Mimi Li, Xinran Lehto, Mimi Li, Xinran Lehto

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781032153964
• eBook ISBN: 9781000522372
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Industria dell'ospitalità e del turismo
• Index: Business

This edited volume explores various issues in family tourism studies and complements the dramatic development of this market segment in China. The book concentrates on family and children tourism, and through its chapters, hopes to enrich the landscape of family tourism in academia.

The family market in tourism has received increasing attention over past decades. Yet academic endeavors in this area remain somewhat lacking in depth and scope. In addition to imbalanced contributions from authors of diverse backgrounds, the extant literature suffers from insufficient inclusion of children. Relevant studies are largely limited to conventional tourism destinations such as beaches and cultural attractions. In response to growing academic interest in family tourism, this book is a compilation of eight chapters that attempt to push the scope and boundaries of existing research on family tourism.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of China Tourism Research.

The Grand Tour in the Twenty-first Century: Perspectives of Chinese Adolescents and Their Parents

Zhuowei (Joy) Huang and Qian Li

ABSTRACT

This study investigates Chinese adolescents’ overseas study tours from the perspectives of both Chinese adolescents and their parents. Fifty in-depth interviews were conducted and analyzed with 30 adolescents and 20 parents. Data analysis results suggest three primary types of activities in an overseas study tour: sightseeing tours, schooling programs and socializing with the locals. A variety of reasons for overseas study tours from the perspectives of Chinese adolescents (a taste of college education in foreign countries, global perspectives, socialization, independence, novelty and fun) and their parents (child’s future plans, child’s social development, the lost college dream) are identified. The key findings of this study pinpoint a number of important social, economic, cultural forces in today’s China society that shape and are reflected in Chinese adolescents’ and their parents’ perspectives on overseas study tours, including globalization, China’s modernization, China’s contemporary single-child family structure and Chinese traditional cultural values.

二十一世纪之‘游学大旅行’：中国青少年和父母的游学观点调查

摘要

本研究调查了中国青少年和家长对出国游学旅行的观点。作者对五十名参与者进行了深度访谈，包括30名学生和20名家长。数据分析揭示了游学旅行的三项主要活动：观光旅行、学校教育项目以及与当地人的社交活动。中国青少年参与出国游学旅行包括多方面的原因：体验国外大学教育、建立全球化视野、社交、培养独立性以及新奇与乐趣。中国家长支持孩子出国游学的原因包括：未来教育计划、培养社会能力、寻找失落的大学梦。本研究通过分析中国学生和家长对出国游学旅行的观点映射出当代中国社会的特点，尤其是全球化、中国社会现代化、中国独生子女家庭结构以及中国传统文化之间的碰撞和融合。

Introduction

Traveling abroad for short-term educational and leisure programs (hereafter ‘overseas study tours’) has become popular in recent years among Chinese adolescents (14–18 years old) from middle-class families. Similar to the Grand Tour in Europe, these adolescents travel to developed countries (e.g. the United States, United Kingdom, etc.) for educational and leisure experiences. It has been reported that over 300,000 Chinese students attended overseas study tours in 2013 (Nan, 2014). Generally speaking, such a tour takes about 2–4 weeks and costs RMB 30,000 to RMB 50,000 (up to $5,000 to $8,300). The majority of them are operationalized by travel agencies and high schools. They travel in groups without their parents’ company. Owing to the increasing number of Chinese college students seeking overseas study opportunities in recent years, overseas study tours, perceived as ‘mini overseas study’, have grown as fast as 30% per year regardless of the constantly increasing price of the tours (Qu, 2013). In the summer of 2015, over 500,000 Chinese adolescents attended such overseas study tours (Zheng, 2015).

While the parents of Chinese adolescents do not physically attend the overseas study tour, they play an important role in the whole decision-making process. Reasons and perspectives regarding the tour, similar or different, can be found from the two generations. Some similarities are expected due to the significant influences of parents on adolescents’ opinions (Carlson & Grossbart, 1988; Moschis, 1985). Such influences are even more significant in Chinese families ruled by Confucian ideology that emphasizes the parents’ authority and the child’s obedience (Chao, 1996). Today’s Chinese parents of adolescents are more concerned about their children and tend to exert more influences than previous generations. This is because China’s single-child policy since 1979 to 2016 resulted in large numbers of families with only one child (Chan & McNeal, 2003).

On the other hand, the globalization and China’s opening-up policy since 1979 have brought dramatic changes to this country on economic, social and cultural aspects. In the last three decades, China has gradually transformed itself from a mandatory planning economy to a modern market economy (Logan, 2011). The fast economic growth and China’s increasing integration into the world introduced new and different beliefs, values, cultures and perspectives to Chinese people’s lives and their ways of thinking and doing things. Comparing with the time before 1979 when the country suffered the Cultural Revolution and Chinese people had extremely limited mobilities and accessibility to educational resources, today’s Chinese have tons of opportunities to travel abroad, interact with diverse cultures, and to have access to educational resources.

Under this backdrop, tourism has been booming in China, domestically and internationally. Despite of an economic activity, the social leveraging power of tourism has emerged in China. As a constitutive proportion of many people’s lives, the immersive integration of tourism into China’s society has made it reflect the economic, political, social, and cultural development process (Hannam, Butler, & Paris, 2013). It is ‘not only an outcome of change, but a catalyst for further change’ in China (Ryan & Huang, 2013, p. xix). Therefore, the ‘what, how, why’ questions about Chinese people travel should not be limited within the tourism setting, but also be investigated in the broad social context. Yet, the fact that tourism can reflect the economic, social and cultural forces in society has been largely overlooked in tourism research. The current study is conducted to fill up this research gap by using Chinese adolescents’ overseas study tours to elaborate the interactions between tourism and economic, social and cultural forces in Chinese society. In particular, four questions will be answered in this study.

(1) What are the primary activities of Chinese adolescents’ overseas study tours?

(2) Why do Chinese adolescents participate in overseas study tours?

(3) Why do parents support their children (Chinese adolescents) in overseas study tours?

(4) How do economic, social and cultural forces in Chinese society intertwine and influence Chinese adolescents’ and their parents’ perspectives on and behaviors in an overseas study tour?

Considering that parents exert considerable influences on Chinese adolescents with regard to their opinions, attitudes and behaviors, this study aims to answer the above-mentioned question, and include the perspectives of both parents and children.

Literature review

Overseas travel for education

Globalization has profoundly influenced education all over the world. In the past several decades, a growing number of colleges have developed overseas educational programs to equip students with the knowledge and skills to meet the needs of national and international markets (Pickert, 1992). Overseas educational programs offer students the opportunity to integrate educational experiences into real-world exposure by crossing geographical borders, which has been reflected in tourism research since the early 1990s (e.g. Bosselman, Fernsten, Manning, & Kisseleff, 1989; Dukes, Lockwood, Oliver, Pezalla, & Wilker, 1994; Pizam, Jafari, & Milman, 1991; Thibadoux & Helms, 1989). The review of literature indicates two primary forms of overseas educational programs: study abroad and intern abroad.

Study-abroad programs have proliferated, especially among colleges in the United States and other developed countries since the 1990s (Lee, 2012). These programs vary by duration, activities and organizers. The duration of study abroad programs ranges from short-term field trips (1 to 8 weeks) to semester-long exchange programs (15 to 30 weeks) (Behnke, Seo, & Miller, 2014). Short-term field trips are usually developed by the home college as a combination of a domestic course and a study tour in a foreign country. The study tour is often led by a faculty member who accompanies the students to the destination country and guides the study tour. Students are supervised to conduct academic assignments via the study tour, and afterwards can receive academic credits toward their major (Houser, Brannstrom, Quiring, & Lemmons, 2011). Students have to pay a program fee to attend the short-term field trips. The long-term study-abroad programs are primarily exchange programs, which are usually co-organized by the home college and a host college in another country. It is an unescorted form of study abroad (i.e. no faculty accompanying students). Students normally spend a semester or a whole academic year at a foreign college for academic study. Participating in classes at the host college will be approved for credits by the home college. Students need to pay the tuition fee of the home college to attend exchange programs.

In addition to study-abroad programs, intern-abroad is another important form of overseas educational travel. It bridges the gap betwe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction: 40 Years of Family Tourism Research-Bibliometric Analysis and Remaining Issues
• 1 The Grand Tour in the Twenty-first Century: Perspectives of Chinese Adolescents and Their Parents
• 2 Exploring the Influence of Family Holiday Travel on the Subjective Well-being of Chinese Adolescents
• 3 The Constructions of Family Holidays in Young Middle-class Malaysian Chinese Children
• 4 Spatial Memory Bias in Children Tourists
• 5 What do Parents Look for in an Overseas Youth Summer Camp? Perspectives of Chinese Parents
• 6 Vacation Travel, Marital Satisfaction, and Subjective Wellbeing: A Chinese Perspective
• 7 Is Airbnb a Good Choice for Family Travel?
• Index