Taking your children on holiday abroad has started becoming a popular summer vacation activity for many parents.
According to the ROC Tourism Bureau 16,006 persons aged 12 or under travelled abroad in 1987. The 1988 figure was 20% higher, at 19,181. But in 1989 this jumped to 50,910--a staggering increase of 2.6 times in the course of one year!
The number of people taking part in family travel groups organized by the Kingcar Educational Foundation has grown in the past four years from over 100 to 1,500 last year. "This year we expect to cater to 1,600 or even 1,800 travellers," the foundation's executive director, Sun Ch'ing-kuo, confidently affirms.
Wu Shou-ch'ien, deputy general manager of the K'ang-fu travel service, also confirms that taking your children on trips abroad is becoming a trend. In many cases the whole family goes along.
Many travel agencies advertise summer tours for parents and children because, as one travel manager points out, "that way you only need to hook one traveller and you've got at least two new members for the tour group. So you make up a tour group much faster than normal."
Travelling abroad used to be a great luxury, and even after restrictions on outbound tourism were eased it tended to be only older people with time and money to spare who took foreign tours. In recent years all this has changed. Travellers going abroad are getting younger, and whole families are going on tours together. They will spend at least NT$100,000 on such a trip, ranging up to two or three times that amount. Do the Taiwanese really have so much money to throw around?
Rising incomes are indeed an important factor, but perhaps the main reason is that people's ideas on the way they spend their money are changing.
With commercial interests uppermost, travel agencies sell family tours hard as the summer season approaches. The top tour destination used to be Japan, but this year family tours are also being offered to America's east and west coasts, Europe and even mainland China.
The family tour market is not only attracting the attention of travel agents. Publishing companies, foundations and educational groups connected with children are also putting out feelers to organize foreign tours.
Most of these tours are billed as "journeys of the mind" to distinguish them from travel agent itineraries. Sometimes they are even more closely identified as science & technology tours, nature tours or antiquity tours. Visits to famous museums are now an important part of American tour itineraries, and excursions to the casino city of Las Vegas have been scrapped.
Faced with this dazzling array of "products," parents now have more choices from which to pick the itinerary best suited to their individual circumstances.
"Keep your first trip abroad down to one week, and don't journey too far afield," advises Sun Ch'ing-kuo.
On your first foreign trip everything is new and fresh. But by the same token you can never anticipate whether your children are going to be travel-sick, how they'll take to a strange diet, or how well they will sleep. A child who feels uncomfortable tends to cry and fuss the whole time, spoiling the trip for you and being a nuisance to other people too.
Preparing your child in advance for the trip can make it a more rewarding experience educationally. Suggests Ling Ch'en, "Get out an atlas beforehand and explain to the children where you're going. Tell them something about the habits and customs of the country to make it more interesting."
Furthering parent-child relationships is a major goal of family travel. But there's no absolute guarantee this result will be achieved. Children abroad are constantly stimulated in new ways and may get upset more easily due to tiredness on the journey. With younger children especially, parents must take proper care of them or there will be trouble.
Lack of sleep often leads to children getting out of hard. Lo Chun-ling, lecturer in occupational therapy at Taiwan University Hospital, suggests that parents should sacrifice their evening activities on holiday so as to allow their children to get a good night's sleep. The younger the child, the more they will fuss because of sleeplessness. If parents scold or hit the child for complaining of tiredness it just makes the situation worse.
With all the exciting new stimuli encountered abroad, parents may feel torn between letting their children have whatever they want and reining them in.
"Going abroad you experience many things for the first time. Adults feel like spending freely and having a good time, and so do children. So before deciding on whether to let your child have what they want, you should ease up a little bit while sticking to your basic norms of conduct. Don't worry that they will lose all self-control when you get back home." As Lo Chun-ling sees it, "The worst thing you can do is to measure children's demands by your standards back home. If they see a new toy they will make a fuss to have it. A child won't stop fussing because you tell them they already have too many toys, and if you eventually give in to them it may encourage the child to use temper tantrums to browbeat their parents.
"Another approach is to give your child some pocket money to spend as they wish. This way children can learn about different currencies and will be forced to decide between their own spending priorities. Once they have power to decide, they won't make excessive demands."
Children differ a great deal from one another. With this new trend towards foreign travel, parents should perhaps stop to think what their own children's needs really are. Carefully planning how much to spend or educating your children at different stages of development can help you make better choices. After all, nothing could be more counterproductive than setting out on holiday with high hopes and coming home again disappointed."
[Picture Caption]
The dazzling "treasures" Hsieh Chi-an and his brother have collected on their travels fill several volumes.
(Left) Hsieh Hsin-i took his family of four to Oudtshoorn, South Africa, to visit one of the African game parks the children have so long wanted to see. Everyone beams with joy at holding an enormous ostrich egg.(photo courtesy of Hsieh Hsin-i)
CKS International Airport is crowded with families going abroad during t he summer vacation.(photo by Vincent Chang)
(Left) A family tour group in Europe posing for a group photo at the Madurodam miniature village, Holland.(photo courtesy of Hsieh Hsin-i)
Family holidays abroad are more common among westerners than orientals.
(Left) After this years "Van Gogh fever," how many more children are interested in this artist?
The dazzling "treasures" Hsieh Chi-an and his brother have collected on their travels fill several volumes.
（Left） A family tour group in Europe posing for a group photo at the Madurodam miniature village, Holland.（photo courtesy of Hsieh Hsin-i）
CKS International Airport is crowded with families going abroad during t he summer vacation.（photo by Vincent Chang）
（Left） After this years "Van Gogh fever," how many more children are interested in this artist?
@List.jpg?w=522&h=410&mode=crop&format=webp&quality=80)
@List.jpg?w=522&h=410&mode=crop&format=webp&quality=80)