Family Holidays—Vacation or Obli-cation?

Purpose-Surprise family vacations have become increasingly prevalent in today's digitally mediated consumer culture. Drawing on a performance based view of tourism, this article explores the performance practices and embodied experiences by which young consumers are the recipients of last-minute surprise vacations. Methodology-YouTube offers a space for examining surprise family vacations, as captured in real-time by consumers. The visual elements and verbal discourses of 139 surprise family vacation reveal videos were analyzed using a hermeneutical approach. Findings-Findings suggest surprise family vacations are characterized by three performance practices in which embodied tensions arise between normative expectations and unanticipated experiences: executing the reveal (scripted act versus improvised act), announcing the destination (absolute ideal versus relative ideal), and reacting to the surprise (initial acceptance versus initial rejection). Research implications-By exploring a phenomenon in which children's anticipation for a vacation is largely absent or limited, surprise family vacations reveal culturally idealized norms and performative practices in family tourism. Positioning a family vacation as an offering or When Kids are the Last to Know: Embodied Tensions in Surprising Children with Family Vacations Anticipation is part of the joy of a family vacation. You tell the kids, you plan the trip, you talk about how much you're looking forward to it. But there's another way to travel: Plan the whole thing in secret, then spring it on the kids once you're in the car and on the road. These five tips are all but guaranteed to give you the gift of shrieks of joy the minute the kids discover they are going on a surprise vacation! (Topinka, 2015) Social media is flooded with videos of crying, screaming, often perplexed children who have just been surprised with a family vacation. These feel-good, entertaining videos are commonplace today. With nearly 16 million views on YouTube, the most popular and famous 'vacation reveal' video is "Lily's Disneyland Surprise….AGAIN!" (Hastings, 2013). The video features two young girls, Lily (age 8) and Chloe (age 2), in the backseat of their family car on the way to Lily's school one morning. Their father drives as their mother films the two girls from the passenger's seat. Lily laments about having to go to school, when suddenly-they pass her school. They pull over to the side of the road, and surprise: the girls' mom reveals they are skipping school and going on a three-day vacation to Disneyland. Lily cries tears of joy as her younger sister, Chloe, remains skeptical (see Figure 1). Lily cries tears of joy as her younger sister, Chloe, remains skeptical (www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGhuLkjl4iI). Lily and Chloe's divergent reactions illustrate children's nuanced experiences as they unexpectedly and instantly become participants in family tourism. Surprise family vacations are not a new phenomenon-they predate social media and online consumer culture; however, surprise vacati...

This paper situates current knowledge on family tourism with pointers to the future by drawing on multidisciplinary contributions to a recent consolidative book. Research in family tourism is limited, fragmented and individualized, thus not accounting for the diversity of family forms, sociality of family groups and multidimensionality of family experiences. Integration of thinking about and understanding the changing nature of families in tourism is needed. The key concepts of change are captured through a cognitive mapping perspective. This research process allows an exploration and systemic tool for constructivism interpretation. The cognitive model resulted in nine main themes that represent emerging and changing trends in family tourism. The key purpose here is the identification of the slow moving changes and trends that are occurring in family tourism based upon cognitive modelling of current research and their significance for predicting the future. This demonstrates connectivity between concepts providing a more holistic and critical interpretation of the future of families and tourism.

This paper focuses on neglected social hospitality dimensions of food and accommodation on family holidays. Holidays signify concentrated periods of family time allowing for more shared food experiences but also necessitating more confined living spaces compared to home. A whole-family methodology was used as a critical and holistic approach to understanding the holiday experiences of 10 families. Positive and negative memories of hospitality encounters for different family members are illustrated through the emotive concepts of commensality and spatiality highlighting their embodied, visible and interactive aspects. Family meals take on symbolic and publicly celebrated characteristics whereas shared accommodation space is privately contested. The theoretical implications of the antithetical nature of family hospitality dimensions are further discussed and the family tourism research agenda further developed.