Analysis of progeny–parents family travel process from perspective filial piety: driving factors, intergenerational interaction and tourism evaluation

Purpose This paper attempts to explore why adult progeny initiate progeny–parents family travel, how two generations interact and deal with intergenerational conflicts during travel and how they evaluate their travel experiences from the perspective of filial piety. Design/methodology/approach Based on in-depth interviews with both parents and their adult progeny, it is found that “repayment” or “compensation” of filial piety is the most important driving force to family travel with parents, and in many cases an adult child exhibits “overspending” by showing filial obedience. On the other hand, parents occasionally utilize filial piety as cultural resources to fulfill their personal goals and to evaluate their interactions with adult children. Finally, the authors offer an exploratory explanation to why filial generation has a relatively low evaluation while parent generation has a higher evaluation of family trip. Findings The authors suggest that future study in this particular area should attach much more importance to the “filial piety tool boxes” paradigm, which is in parallel with the paradigm of “concept (values) affecting behavior”. Originality/value The contribution of this study is to investigate the family travel process of “taking the elderly people to travel” from the perspective of interaction and filial piety.