6 days ago
Over-the-top kids' clubs are creating an entitled generation of travellers
This summer my eight-year-old son will be installed in a kids' club at a resort on Santorini learning how to animate a robot arm as I sip a tropical negroni (pineapple-infused rum!) at an Aegean-side beach bar.
Typical of its type, Andronis Arcadia's luxury kids' club offers Lego Education robotics workshops in a dedicated Lego lab; 'yoga for the young', 'mini spa experiences tailored for little people' and expert-led cultural and nature excursions around the chic Greek island. It assures worried parents like me that the ARCADemy follows a Steam-based educational philosophy 'encouraging innovation, imagination and the development of soft skills'.
Contrast this with my childhood experience of being deposited in a kids' club on Costa Daurada in Spain in the 1980s. Of this I recall a long walk in midday sun to collect the shells of dead snails ('Caracol muerto! Caracol muerto!'), and that my brother, Adam, had a sugar crash after consuming too many syrupy grenadine drinks and tried to pull a limb off my baby doll toy Samantha.
In truth, resort kids' clubs have been on an upward trajectory since the 2000s, because 'conscious' parenting has become the norm, safeguarding standards have improved and resorts have stretched to ever greater lengths to hook the affluent middle-class family traveller.
'Luxury kids' clubs are all part of resorts adding experiential services to stand apart,' says Noel Josephides, the head of Sunvil Travel, who says he 'remains unconvinced' about such elite services' appeal. 'It's unclear whether they do drive family footfall, or whether they just increase the overall cost of package rates where they are offered,' he says.
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Dr Jo Mueller, a clinical psychologist and parenting expert, has mixed feelings too. While structured and educational offerings may benefit children with special educational needs, 'free play and relaxation' that holidays offer 'are also essential for child mental health and learning'. It is also good to be bored. That said, Mueller adds, child-free time can 'contribute to parental mental good health and create a virtuous circle [of family well-being]'.
The all-inclusive provider Club Med was a pioneer in kids' clubs and launched its first in 1967. Nicolas Bresch, its UK managing director, says the original iteration of Mini Club Med was to give 'parents a proper moment to relax' (AKA get on the Babycham and do the twist). However, trends have shifted through the decades. In the 1980s Club Med installed the first flying trapeze at Club Med Eleuthera, paving the way for the sporty 1990s. These days, parents are after 'personalised, socially conscious and tech-savvy experiences for their children', with the brand's baby-to-teen offerings including a circus school by Cirque du Soleil and collaborations with elite sports academies.
This summer ambitious parents can send their offspring off on everything from reef snorkelling with a marine biologist (at the new Teens Hut at Seaside Finolhu Baa atoll in the Maldives) to an expert-led archaelogy dig at a Minoan excavation site on Crete.
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Smaller and one-child families like mine are partly behind the rising spend on individual kids' holiday experiences, according to the economic theorist Ali Shourideh. We are able to invest more in our lone offspring or 'resource concentrate'. The cost of summer camps — middle-class parents spend an average of £1,000 a month — puts it in perspective. Of course, this doting carries risks: are we creating an entitled generation who expect their niche whims to be catered for at home and abroad? Is there anything wrong, after all, with a can of pop and a few desultory board games?
This summer isn't my son Leo's first rodeo. In 2024 we spent a spring weekend at Château Capitoul, a vineyard hotel in Languedoc. Here Leo took a junior wine buff's class: quaffing merlot and grenache-blanc grape juice with his pinkie stuck out and concluding that merlot 'tastes a bit like socks'. This year's cohort there will enjoy a viticultural school amid the vineyards of La Clape (which is as middle-class aspirational as it gets). So would Leo rather be drinking syrupy sodas and collecting snail shells in the sun than swotting up on his coding and construction this summer? 'Robots please,' he says, without pause. 'But can I have the pop too?'
What experiences have you had with kids' clubs? Please let us know in the comments
