Children's representation about travel: A comparison between what children remember and what children desire

In literature about children and tourism, there are studies that have mostly investigated memories of past experiences, especially real trips that children have made with school. However, there is little research about ideal trips, which reflect children's wishes and desires about the journeys that they would like to take. In this study, we looked at two different, but complementary aspects of memory, that are the reminiscences of past experiences (retrospective memory) and the ideal expectations about their future (prospective memory). The aim of this study is to explore representations children have of a trip, analysing the differences between the two types of written narration (real trip vs. ideal trip). Our interest is to deepen linguistic features of these representations, starting from the idea that children at this age are able to express both memories and expectations through language. It is supposed that the narration of real trips draws directly on children's repertoire of autobiographical memories. As for the ideal trip, it is expected that imaginative and fantasy components play a vital role in determining children's representation in travel.