Group processes in vacation decision-making

This paper presents the major findings emerging from a qualitative interpretive study of group processes in vacation decision-making. The actual vacation decision-making process of 19 groups (11 families, five couples and three groups of friends) has been followed for a whole year. We show that group decisions are not as “easy’ as individual ones because of divergent personal constraints and the interpersonal dimension of most vacation decisions and activities. More specific aspects related to the cohesiveness, distribution of roles and level of congruence within the group are discussed as well. Findings are contrasted for families that are well documented in the literature, and groups of friends that have so far been neglected.