Edutainment the new reason to travel for Mumbai’s young

When it came to vacationing abroad in times of limited family holiday options, children would invariably find themselves in Disneyland. But that is changing fast; in the pursuit of buying a more meaningful experience for their kids, well-travelled Mumbaikars are looking for destinations that offer
edutainment rather than just entertainment.

When Ishmeet Singh, father of Ishaan, 10, and Ishita, 7, and his wife were planning a holiday in the US, Singh ensured that their itinerary packed in activities that would offer experiential learning to the children. So, their vacation featured a trip to the Children’s Science Museum in San Francisco, a junior treasure hunt and a workshop on making leaf flutes in Hawaii. “Ishita excitedly absorbed scientific concepts like oscillation, the power of locomotion and transfer of energy at the museum, which are difficult for a 7-year-old to grasp from a textbook,” says Singh.

An industry source puts the rise in edutainment trips at about 5-7%, up from 3% last year. Helped by cheap flight rates and lucrative tour packages dished out by travel companies, parents are willingly lapping up the possibilities. “Parents today want their children to be exposed to other cultures. Academics are not the only way forward; everyone wants to fit in nicely in the global village,” says Karan Anand, head, relationships and supplier management, Cox & Kings Ltd.

Abhinav Aggarwal, a father of two says the trend is definitely catching on. As a parent, he says, he would want his kids to be well-balanced and well-groomed, “not above or below anything.”

“As a family we like to go to places that are interesting for the children, and not just mindless fun.”  On their trip to Hong Kong last year, the highlight was “a Chinese ship used for opium trade.”

An earlier trip to the Tower of London — that houses the Kohinoor diamond — meant that Aggarwal got a chance to educate his children about the Mughal Empire and the history of the East India Company. “We all are history buffs,” he says, adding the family has already exhausted historic destinations in India.

It’s not just families who are availing such packages; some A-list schools also partner with travel firms to organise international educational trips for their students. Outlearn, a special Kuoni venture for kids aged 8 to 14 years, is one such programme.

Aimed at bringing classroom learning alive, through these trips marine biology in Singapore, for instance, is translated into an exciting underwater experience, and the world of science and astrophysics becomes a wonderland with workshops on robotics and jet propulsion in NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre, US.

These trips are also a way for parents to familiarise their teenage children aspiring to study abroad with the preferred destinations, like Singapore, Australia and countries in Europe. Interestingly, these pleasure-cum-status-check-trips are not just a feature with affluent. “Edutainment trips were prevalent in the SEC A and SEC A+ till a while back. This season we noticed a large number of students from the middle-class opting for them,” says a Thomas Cook spokesperson, not willing to be named.