Family travel is booming. But at the same time, it’s becoming more complicated to book.
Travel advisors say that while the segment is hitting new highs in growth and spend, complexity is also on the rise, with challenges ranging from families booking more close in to difficulty finding appropriate accommodations for larger parties.
These trends were part of a wide-ranging discussion on family travel held during a roundtable Signature Travel Network held with Travel Weekly during the consortium’s 2025 conference at the Venetian Resort here in November. Attendees included Signature travel advisors as well as suppliers and destination representatives in town for the conference.
Family travel has long been a popular focus for advisors: Travel Weekly’s most recent Travel Industry Survey found that it was the top specialization among respondents, with 88% ranking family travel in their top five. Family beat out luxury travel (73%) and adventure travel (62%) and far surpassed the No. 4 specialization, wellness/spa (36%).
And the segment continues to grow. The Family Travel Association’s 10th annual survey, released in October, found that 92% of parents polled had plans to travel with their children in the next year. That intention has jumped significantly since before the pandemic: The same survey in 2019 found that only 70% of parents were “likely” or “very likely” to travel with their children over the next three years. Further, 57% of parents in the most recent survey are planning multigenerational travel with grandparents and children.
Timing Creates Challenges
But over the past year, that growth came with a challenge being shared with the industry at large: the shift toward close-in bookings.
Despite this being a widespread trend in 2025, it was unexpected from families, who are often limited to certain travel periods based on school schedules.
“They’re booking weeks out and spending tens of thousands of dollars,” said Amy Westerman, the Mount Pleasant, S.C.-based owner of Curated Travel Collection, home to 350 independent contractors. “We don’t have a lot of budget-conscious [clients], per se, but they’re looking very close in.”
Ashley Switzer, vice president of sales for Sojourney Travel in Social Circle, Ga., said she has noticed a similar phenomenon, with more families booking closer to the travel date than she saw several years ago.
Close-in bookings present several challenges. Ideally, family and multigenerational bookings should be made as far out as possible to accommodate the varied room category requests and connections they will need, said David Tobin, owner of U.K. and Ireland destination specialist Dream Escape.
“They want to stay in a castle … they want to do all these things — yet they’re coming in late,” Tobin said. “And they’re saying, ‘We’ve got the money,’ but [hotels] don’t have the space.”
Westerman said Europe in particular has been challenging for her agency to book, especially when clients want to reserve six weeks out. Her advisors have been looking for less-crowded destinations to accommodate those requests.
Dynamic hotel pricing is yet another challenge, Tobin said, especially if multiple family units are traveling together. Once a price is quoted, it can take time to get an answer from everyone, and by then the price may have changed.
Richard Sims, director of strategic national accounts for Norwegian Cruise Line, had an unsurprising recommendation for advisors looking to avoid those complications: a cruise. NCL has a number of connecting cabins in various categories, he said. With 20 ships in its fleet, odds are good that the line can accommodate close-in requests for connecting rooms.
However, Sims warned, suites and space in the Haven — NCL’s ship-within-a-ship luxury space — tend to sell out quickly.
“You’ve got to book in advance if you want that as a family,” he said.
Suppliers and destinations overall agreed that more price-sensitive families can benefit from the time of year they choose to travel.
Piotr Truty, global account director for luxury leisure at Kempinski Hotels, said the brand’s hotels in Germany are pretty much at 100% occupancy from Thursdays through Sundays for Christmas markets. During the week, though, there’s plenty of availability.
And for Passover in Tel Aviv this year, Kempinski is sold out.
“When people want something on a specific date, they may go out of their way to go book it far ahead,” he said, or try to book closer in and say, “‘No matter what the price is, get me into there now.’”
Jennifer Murphy, associate director of leisure and luxury sales for Omni Hotels and Resorts, said the brand also sees a lot of short-term bookings, largely because many of its properties are located in easy-to-get-to drive markets. But it can be challenging to find space — and connecting rooms or suites — when many children are out of school, like during winter break or teacher conferences.
Last year, Omni instituted guaranteed connecting rooms “because we know how important that is,” she said.
Josh Hepp, vice president of strategic accounts for TTC Tour Brands, said off-season travel is becoming more prevalent as families increasingly look for trips just outside of summer or spring breaks from schools.
And while TTC has also seen an uptick in close-in bookings, the average booking window still stands at eight to 12 months out, Hepp said. For those who do book close in, he added, TTC tour brands aren’t as impacted by limited hotel space because they have contracts in place with the hotels.
Experiences that create memories
Regardless of the group’s makeup and spending ability, attendees agreed that experiences are key for family travelers.
“We are seeing that experiences matter over budgets,” said Murphy.
Trafalgar Tours has been expanding its family program and building experiences with intent, Hepp said.
“People want to experience something together, whether it’s a gondola school in Rome or cooking class in Costa Rica,” he said. “They’re building things together.”
Another TTC brand, Costsaver, has been attracting many multigenerational families, Hepp added. They are most interested in free time, when members of the traveling party can experience things on their own during the day, then come together and share those experiences over dinner. TTC has also seen increased demand for custom group programs for families.
Guests are staying longer, so they don’t have to rush experiences, according to Truty. And in another boon to advisors, they are skewing toward higher room categories. They are interested in immersing themselves in destinations where they can create family memories, he said.
“I think that’s more valuable now than it’s ever been following what Covid did, where it took that element of time away from us,” he said.
That’s also true at sea. NCL’s Sims said customer surveys coming out of the pandemic were loud and clear: Travelers wanted more destinations.
As a result, the cruise line is spending more time in ports and fewer days at sea, Sims said. NCL has also created more family-focused shore excursions.
Some advisors and suppliers have noted that the desire for family experiences has led to a shift away from kids clubs at sea and at resort properties.
“It’s more about what they can all do together, experiential,” Westerman said.
In fact, her agency has seen a huge increase in its DMC business, she said, for both land vacations and to plan private tours when cruising clients are in ports.
Donna Douglas, assistant director of sales for the Bermuda Tourism Authority, also cited a shift away from kids clubs toward experiences that keep families together. And while hotel stays on the island remain popular, multigenerational travelers are also looking to rent five- and six-bedroom homes to keep everyone under the same roof.
Bermuda is among the destinations benefitting as more families set their sights overseas.
Douglas said there has been an uptick in multigenerational travel to the island.
Germany is seeing more interest from families in general and specifically those who are luxury travelers looking for five- and nearly five-star hotels, said George Vella, head of sales for North America for the German National Tourist Office.
Emma Eddington, trade and marketing coordinator for Tourism and Events Queensland, Australia, said the family travel segment from the U.S. market to Queensland was up 14% year over year as of July 2025. And it’s a lucrative segment, Eddington said: While Queensland can’t tease out family travel spend, U.S. visitors overall are spending a record amount when they visit the state in the northeast part of the continent.
Those destinations might want to thank the younger generation for being chosen: According to the Family Travel Association survey, the majority of families let children assist with vacation planning, a trend that advisors and suppliers are also seeing.
If clients’ children are 10 or older, Westerman said, her agency does a kids consultation after talking with the adults. She finds they often have their own agendas, thanks to seeing destination-related content on Instagram or YouTube.
Sojourney Travel’s Switzer has noticed the same thing.
Parents, she said, “really are totally taking all of their kids’ perspectives and their opinions and all that good stuff.”
A few months ago, Vella got a call from a travel advisor who had a family of six headed to Germany. The children wanted to incorporate cycling into the trip. The German National Tourist Office connected the advisor with a DMC that facilitated everything.
“She said the family loved it,” Vella said, adding that they told their advisor they otherwise would not have considered that kind of an addition. “It was thanks to the kids themselves that were imposing on their family that they had to incorporate cycling. They are definitely part of the decision.”
In response to the level of influence children now have, NCL has imagery and social media marketing that is targeted toward younger generations, Sims said. It highlights ship features they would find attractive, like the cruise line’s racetracks at sea. He then referenced the 1983 film “National Lampoon’s Vacation” when patriarch Clark Griswold packs his family up for a cross-country theme park trip.
“It’s come a long way since the roadtrip to Wally World, where Clark had every detail [lined up],” Sims said. “The house of mud, the biggest ball of twine, the whole thing. It’s definitely changed.”
