The travel theme is deeply connected to stories and narrations and children already master this kind of language at an early age. The child's improvement in narrative skills is “not simply a mental achievement, but an achievement of social practice that lends stability to a child's social life”. Like Jerome Bruner emphasized in his studies on narrative Psychology, “the central concept of a human psychology is meaning, and the process and transactions involved in the construction of meaning”.
Generally, people use narration as a tool for making meaning and to give a sense to their own experience. Some narrative genres have the structure of a journey and through the act of narration, travelling acquires a starting phase, high points, troubles and finally a resolution (going back home). Above all, travelling is strictly linked to narration. Travelling is considered as an instrument to learn about the environment and to give the world a personal meaning. The theme of travel is deeply linked to other typical childhood themes, such as curiosity, discovery and adventure. The need for studies investigating how children interpret travel experiences becomes obvious. The few studies conducted are mainly focused on memories about trips and or tourist visits with parents and school and have considered the role tourism has in learning activities. Although various studies suggest the importance of the role of children in the decision of tourist destinations, children are almost absent in the psychological research on tourism. Therefore, a tourist experience may have a cohesive function for the family. Given the fact that tourist activities are performed during leisure time, it's important to underline that empirical studies show that holidays contribute to positive familiar functioning as well as to the communication and cohesion amongst family members. Research on marketing and consumer behaviour defined children as active and expert tourist consumers, able to substantially influence the process of their parents’ decisions. This change might be attributed to the parents’ and teachers’ rising requests for tourist services for children. Although the scientific literature has investigated tourism usually by means of a single individual’s experience or travel groups, some authors have started to consider a new dimension: family. Family tourism and the role of children in tourist choices and experiences is a recent field of research.
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