Family Travel Forum - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Family Travel Forum is an Internet community

Community

The term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...

for frequent travelers, focusing on families with children. Of the registered members in the community, 75% are women with children.

The American media company Family Travel Forum Inc. which owns the Forum publishes both print and online travel

Travel

Travel is the movement of people or objects between relatively distant geographical locations. 'Travel' can also include relatively short stays between successive movements.-Etymology:...

guides where travel experts and registered members may post trip ideas and advice. The travel website

Travel website

A travel website is a website on the world wide web, that is dedicated to travel. The site may be focused on travel reviews, the booking of travel, or a combination of both. Approximately seventy million consumers researched travel plans online in July 2006...

FamilyTravelForum.com includes reviews and information on vacation

Vacation

A vacation or holiday is a specific trip or journey, usually for the purpose of recreation or tourism. People often take a vacation during specific holiday observances, or for specific festivals or celebrations...

destinations for families with children of various ages; the site received Travel Weekly's 2009 Magellan Award for Excellence in Online Travel Guides.

History of Family Travel

Kemmons Wilson

Charles Kemmons Wilson was the founder of the Holiday Inn chain of hotels.-Personal life:He was born in Osceola, Arkansas, the only child of Kemmons and Ruby "Doll" Wilson. His father was an insurance salesman who died when Kemmons was nine months old...

, who founded the Holiday Inn

Holiday Inn

Holiday Inn is a brand of hotels, formally a economy motel chain, forming part of the British InterContinental Hotels Group . It is one of the world's largest hotel chains with 238,440 bedrooms and 1,301 hotels globally. There are currently 5 hotels in the pipeline...

brand in 1952, is credited with starting "family travel" as a hotel

Hotel

A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...

concept after a road trip

Road trip

A road trip is any journey taken on roads, regardless of stops en route. Typically, road trips are long distances traveled by automobile.-Pre-automobile road trips:...

in which his five kids were charged $2 per head per night by motels. The Holiday Inn pioneered policies such as kids sleep free, free parking, ice machines, phone in the room and other perks that are now taken for granted by travelers

Since airfare was so expensive and gas was cheap, roadside motels prospered and today, more than 80% of American family vacations are still by car. However, as far back as 1950, Delta Air Lines

Delta Air Lines

Delta Air Lines, Inc. is a major airline based in the United States and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The airline operates an extensive domestic and international network serving all continents except Antarctica. Delta and its subsidiaries operate over 4,000 flights every day...

sold a "Family Plan" that allowed children under 2 years to fly free with parents. The same year, American Airlines

American Airlines

American Airlines, Inc. is the world's fourth-largest airline in passenger miles transported and operating revenues. American Airlines is a subsidiary of the AMR Corporation and is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas adjacent to its largest hub at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport...

and Northeast Airlines

Northeast Airlines

Northeast Airlines was an American airline based in Boston, Massachusetts. They began as Boston-Maine Airways, which was founded as a Pan Am contract carrier on July 20, 1931, by the Boston and Maine Railroad and Maine Central Railroad offering service from Boston to Bangor via Portland...

allowed mothers and children to pay half fare when traveling with dad mid-week, while TWA

Twa

The Twa are any of several hunting peoples of Africa who live interdependently with agricultural Bantu populations, and generally hold a socially subordinate position: They provide the farming population with game in exchange for agricultural products....

advertised that their air hostesses were trained to help moms with their babies, who flew free of charge.

According to IATA, since 1956 standardized children and infant fares for international travel have meant that one infant less than two years of age not occupying a seat pays 10% of the adult fare as a "lap child." Children under 12 years in their own seat paid a "child's fare" that started at 50% of the adult fare in 1956, and had grown to between 67% to 100% of the full adult fare by 2003.

Today, the U.S. Travel Association defines “family travel” to include many types of traveling parties, including married couples traveling together, spouses traveling with children, grandparents traveling with grandchildren, single parents with children, reunion-goers, siblings with relatives and more. According to the Ypartnership’s National Leisure Travel Monitor, the percentage of adults traveling with their own children has increased from 26% in 2000 to 38% in 2008.

The market for family travel services has continued to grow. The 2010 Portrait of American Travelers revealed that nearly 50% of leisure travelers had taken one trip with children in the past 12 months, and that 41% had taken an average of 2.5 trips. Member of Generation X

Generation X

Generation X, commonly abbreviated to Gen X, is the generation born after the Western post–World War II baby boom ended. While there is no universally agreed upon time frame, the term generally includes people born from the early 1960's through the early 1980's, usually no later than 1981 or...

(born between 1965 and 1978) are twice as likely to travel with children as any other demographic. About 28% of leisure travelers are grandparents and, of them, 32% have taken one or more trips with children in the past 12 months. More than 89% of these travelers have researched their vacations online and more than 87% have booked them online.

Family Travel Forum started publishing travel advice in 1996. The FTF consulting division has worked with Fairmont Hotels, Chrysler

Chrysler

Chrysler Group LLC is a multinational automaker headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, USA. Chrysler was first organized as the Chrysler Corporation in 1925....

, Forbes

Forbes

Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...

, and the Finland Ministry of Tourism. FTF has licensed content to various companies including, among others, hotel, parenting and travel websites such as Travelocity

Travelocity

Travelocity is an online travel agency and wholly owned subsidiary of Sabre Holdings Corporation, which was a publicly traded company until taken private by Silver Lake Partners and Texas Pacific Group in March 2007...

, Discovery Channel

Discovery Channel

Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...

, and Disney Family.com.

Awards and Recognition

Travel Weekly Magellan Award, Online Travel Guides (2008, 2009)

Recommended in The 4-Hour Workweek

The 4-Hour Workweek

The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich is a semi-autobiographical self-help book written by Timothy Ferriss, an American writer, educational activist, and entrepreneur....

by Tim Ferriss (2009)

Web Marketing Association Webaward (2005)

National Parenting Center Seal of Approval (2000, 2003, 2005)

Forbes Best of the Web (2001, 2002, 2003)

Conde Nast Traveler "50 Essential Web Sites" (2000)

History of Family Travel

Awards and Recognition

External links

Further reading