Chinese family tourism: Interactive behavior during tours

This paper aims to comprehensively study the interactive behavior of Chinese family tourism, including interactions inside and outside of the family unit. It conducts in-depth interviews with 24 Chinese travelling families. Then, the key event method has been employed to extract the structural dimensions of family tourism interaction. Results show that the interactive behavior of Chinese family tourism includes four dimensions, which are family interaction, service interaction, social interaction and conflicts. There are rich connotations within family tourism interaction. First, the interaction between family members during tours forms a type of ritual activity at a tourist destination. Second, the interactions inside and outside family tourism facilitate self-construction and social construction for individuals. Third, family tourism interaction is a process in which family tourists participate in the co-creation of tourism experience value. This paper bridges a research gap relating family tourism by considering the Chinese cultural context, and provides the basis for designing the scale of interactive behavior.