Iranian children's memorable rural tourism experiences

Abstract

Family traveling, especially to rural areas, may lead to appealing fun experiences for children and make them memorable. Memorable experiences of children from various aspects can be useful for policy makers and planners of destinations, parents and children. The effectiveness of travels and children's learning from traveling are among the most significant concerns of parents and tourism activists. So, identifying and understanding children's memorable experiences of traveling to rural areas of Iran that has various local cultures can influence filling such gaps as future destination planning, developing child-friendly rural destinations, family traveling, designing child-oriented tourism programs, and future generation's being loyal to local destinations. This study aimed to identify Iranian children’ memorable rural tourism experiences. The sample includes 37 children from ages 6 to 12. Interpretive phenomenology was used to conduct the study with the help of interviews and the analysis of the content of children's paintings. This study shows that children pay attention like adults to such elements as people, space, activities, objects, and social relations during their travel. Moreover, the conducted interviews resulted in 45 key notions categorized into 6 basic axes of memorable experiences: being exciting, being informative, being novel and unique, being gratifying, being socially involved, and negative experiences. This study provides insights on identifying and understanding the issues affecting the creation of memorable tourism experiences for children that travel to rural areas. The issues would help parents in taking child-oriented tourism travels, planners in designing child-friendly tourism destinations, and tourism service providers in delivering child friendly offerings.