Extended-family travel takes off
By Adam Geller
Associated Press
The first time her family embarked on a long trip, Leslie Melson recalls, she was a testy 13-year-old crammed into the back seat of a station wagon with three younger brothers she could just barely tolerate.
Donna McWilliam • Associated Press
"You want to talk about not getting along," Melson says, laughing. "They were awful."
Members of the Melson and Long families of Dallas from left: front row, John Melson, William Long, Leslie Melson; second row, Jed Melson, Jim Melson, Ann Melson, Ellen Melson; third row, David Long, Terri Long and Ryan Long. The family members and rented a luxury coach to tour the Canadian Rockies and Northwest United States.
But a lot changes in 35 years. So this past July, Melson, her parents, her brothers and their families — 20 people from five years old to 76 — chartered a luxury coach and spent two weeks exploring the Canadian Rockies and Northwest United States. Along the way, she says, they rediscovered each other.
More Americans are embarking on such multigenerational or multifamily journeys, a trend in vacationing that has captured the attention and marketing efforts of the travel industry.
The number of people taking or planning group vacations is on the rise, particularly since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, travel analysts say.
About 38 percent of travelers took at least one trip last year that included three or more family generations, according to a survey by the Travel Industry Association, a trade group. Such intergenerational travel has increased steadily since 2000.
"Multigenerational travel is one of the more powerful phenomenon that we're seeing today in the travel industry," said Allen Kay, a spokesman for the TIA, which surveyed about 1,300 travelers last October. "The baby boomers love to hit the road, and they love to take their adult children and grandchildren with them."
In a separate survey last fall, 77 percent of travelers said they had taken a trip with extended family, other families or friends during the past five years. A quarter of those who had taken such trips said their groups included eight or more people.
"I think in times of turmoil, essentially people turn to family for comfort and solace and that now is really manifested in their travel behavior," said Peter Yesawich of Yesawich, Pepperdine, Brown & Russell, an Orlando, Fla., tourism consulting firm that conducted the survey of 1,700 travelers.
Yesawich says travel in large groups is a strong contrast with the trends through most of the 1990s. Many people, focused more on making money than on family, saw travel as a chance to unplug from a hectic lifestyle — usually as a couple or alone, without the kids or anyone else, he said.
But he and others in the industry say they started to notice a change late in the 1990s.
Executives at The Walt Disney Co. took notice of the change soon after the company launched its cruise line in 1998, said Linda Warren, executive vice president of brand management for the company's parks and resorts. The business was aimed at family travelers, but the company was surprised by the number of customers calling its reservations center who asked to book seven or eight rooms together.
Of travelers surveyed by Yesawich's firm, 69 percent now cite spending time with family as very or extremely important in planning a vacation, up from 57 percent in 2000.
Melson, who lives in Dallas, says her family's trips together have offered a chance to see spectacular places. In 2001, they followed a circuit through several national parks in the western United States, retracing the journey she and her siblings made as children. This year, they worked their way from Canada's Banff National Park to Seattle.
Melson said the trips offered chances to spend time with each other that a day or two together would never have allowed.
"My dad was able to tell the kids, without interruption, about his growing up on a horse farm in Kentucky and ... it was a stolen moment," she said. "It was just magic for that to happen."
Andrea Martone of Port Washington, N.Y., offers a similar account of the cruise she took with nine family members this fall. Besides her husband and children, her brother, her mother, and her husband's mother joined the group.
There were some arguments, and everybody had to make adjustments — compromising on dinner reservation times, or whether to sit in the smoking or nonsmoking lounge. But the ship offered plenty of space for people to spend time on their own when they wished. And in such a relaxed environment, people were quickly able to put their disagreements aside and relish the time together, she said.
Such multigenerational or multifamily trips create challenges for both the travel business and for travelers.
Disney has responded by creating packages, marketed as Magical Gatherings and Grand Gatherings, booked by specially designated reservations staff. The agents work first to find and lock in blocks of rooms, then settle with travelers on details. Dinner reservations at theme park restaurants, for example, may be made up to 60 days in advance, she said.
Extra time is essential in putting together such a trip, said Melson's brother, Steve Long, in charge of the planning for both of the family's journeys, each of which took well over a year to put together. Many hotels and lodges remain uncertain over how to deal with parties that are larger than a single family but smaller than a tour group, he said.
"They don't know how to handle a group, six or eight rooms together. You get referred to group sales, but groups sales say you're not big enough," said Long.
But his sister says all the efforts were worth it. "You need to do this if you have an extended family," she says. "You need to seize the moment."
