Children - Centered Business Models in Tourism

Abstract

Since 2016, a number of research activities on topics such as children’s tourism in Kazakhstan, family tourism in Dubai and children’s tourism in Dubai were conducted by the authors. During previous research and based on personal experience in Almaty and Dubai, the authors realized that in these cities, and most probably in these countries, the business model of children camps is different. In addition, the authors identified a diverse understanding of children’s tourism. The aim of this research is to explain children’s tourism, to identify children’s tourism products and the business models value. This research is done by analyzing secondary data, collected from diverse sources in Russian and English languages, which are giving the possibility to analyze the situation from different perspectives and to compare children-centered business models in tourism. One of the most widespread types of tourism is youth tourism, including schoolchildren, aged 7 to 17 years, who travel under supervision with different goals and objectives. Russian scientists believe that in the future, youth tourism has the potential to become one of the priority directions of tourism development. The economic advantages of this type of tourism can be identified as follows: schoolchildren and students travel usually happens in organized groups, rhythmically repetitive trips from year to year which facilitates business planning. The limitations of this research are that children’s tourism is not well explained in English scientific literature, as children’s tourism is usually understood as a part of family tourism in the English speaking society. The study of children in tourism is a relatively new endeavor in tourism studies. Usually, tourism research on children mainly focuses on children exploitation or on other negative effects of tourism on the social environment.