Contrary to prior research, this study investigates the darker side of the parents-children holiday to examine travel conflicts in family trips with 18 to 30-year-old adult children and their causes in adult children's eyes. Three-step analysis of interviews and netnography reveal five types of parent-adult children conflicts in pre-and during-travel stage, namely, travel choice and consumption, travel involvement level, schedule, and unreasonable parental behavior. These conflicts are caused by intergenerational differences and personal characteristics. The findings enrich our understandings of the needs and wants of different generational family travelers which can support businesses to design family travel products better.

In light of the prevalence of travel conflict between young adult children and their parents, it is critical to examine how conflict can be effectively resolved. A mixed-methods approach was adopted in this study, which used interviews and three experiments to examine how young adult children resolve conflict with their parents and what factors affect their conflict resolution. The results have the following implications. 1) Two main styles of conflict resolution are used by young adult children, namely 'doing what I want' (i.e., self-assertion, persuasion) and 'doing as parents expect' (i.e., self-sacrifice, compliance). 2) The conflict attribution of young adult children affects their selection of resolution styles. 3) The main effect of conflict attribution of young adult children on their resolution styles is mediated by their perspective taking and moderated by their decision-making power. This paper provides guidance to practitioners on how to manage conflicts in family travel decision-making.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract