The effect of family holiday functioning on holiday and life satisfaction

The tourism sector offers different opportunities to family members who cannot spare enough time to each other due to the hustle and bustle of daily life. One of them is family vacation. This study examines the effects of family vacation functioning on vacation and life satisfaction. There search part of the study was arranged in accordance with the relational survey model. The universe of the research consists of domestic tourists, who have at least one parent and at least one child in the 0-18 age range in Turkey. The developed questionnaire was applied face-to-face and online between 01.07.2022 and 30.09.2022, and data was collected from 353 people. 11 observations with multiple slings were excluded from the data set, and the univariate normal distribution was examined over the data of 325 questionnaires. According to the hypotheses tested through the structural model, family vacation functioning positively influences vacation satisfaction (β:0.70) and life satisfaction (β:0.21). While family vacation explains 48% of the variation in vacation satisfaction, it explains 15% of the variation in life satisfaction. On the other hand, it is found that vacation satisfaction has a positive effect on life satisfaction (β:0.25). Families were classified into two clusters according to the levels of cohesion and adaptation, which are the two main dimensions of family vacation functioning. Vacation satisfaction and life satisfaction are found to be higher in families with high levels of cohesion than in families with relatively low levels of cohesion. Similarly, it was determined that vacation and life satisfaction were higher in families with high family adaptation than in families with relatively low family adaptation. Family vacation functioning affects vacation satisfaction relatively more in families with children in the 7-12 age group compared to families with children in the 1-6 and 13-18 age groups. Similarly, considering the age of the oldest child, the effect of family holiday on holiday satisfaction is lower for families with children aged 1-6 (β:0.391) compared to families with children aged 7-12 (β:0.504) and 13-18 (β:0.476). Interestingly, the effect of family vacation functioning on vacation satisfaction disappears when the age of the oldest child exceeds 19 years. The study reaffirms the functionality of family vacations and points to the importance of family vacations from a social point of view by revealing that they positively affect vacation and life satisfaction. Therefore, it can be said that parents should take this situation into consideration. The research also implies that the public administration should develop policies to encourage family vacations. On the business basis, it can be stated that facilities, convenience and services should be designed especially considering families with young children.