The New Summer Break - target marketing children's activities during summer vacations; United States - Statistical Data Included

American Demographics, August 1, 2001

With "service" requirements now standard at many high schools, teenagers can also choose from a number of altruistic summer programs. Civic-minded teens can maintain wilderness trails for the Appalachian Mountain Club in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. For $125 a week, they lift boulders, build bog bridges and sleep in tents. "They get dirty, but they come back year after year," says coordinator Allison Nelson. Another program, cosponsored by the Student & Youth Travel Association (SYTA) and Project America, brings teenagers to volunteer at a homeless shelter in St. Louis and help renovate dilapidated houses in Greensboro, N.C. "Service-oriented travel is becoming a minor boomlet," says SYTA's Executive Director Michael Palmer from his offices in Lake Orion, Mich. "And it's certain to get bigger in the future."

Diverse and Discerning Consumers

The transformation of summer break reaches across ethnic and socioeconomic boundaries. Asian American youth are even more programmed during summer vacation than other students, reports Saul Gitlin, vice president for strategic marketing services at Kang & Lee Advertising. Many attend academic classes or schedule time with tutors. Part of the reason is a cultural emphasis on educational achievement: According to the March 2000 Current Population Survey, 40 percent of Asian Americans held a bachelor's degree or higher, compared with 23 percent of the general population. "The emphasis on educational attainment cuts across all socioeconomic levels among Asian Americans," says Gitlin. "The kids will try to catch up if they're recent immigrants, or get ahead if they've been here a while."

But Asian American teens also seek out classes designed to help them preserve their cultural traditions - routinely doing so in their family's country of origin. Travel rates are high for Asian Americans: some 42 percent take foreign and domestic trips each month - a third higher than all U.S. households. It's so common for young people to return to their family's native land that Kang & Lee recently produced a commercial for AT & T long-distance services highlighting this trend in the Korean American community. In the spot, a Korean teen on one such trip calls home to wish his mother happy birthday in Korean. He concludes by saying he plans to speak to her in her native language when he returns stateside. "It was a powerful message to Asian families," says Gitlin.

"Compared with their U.S.-born counterparts," he continues, "a lot of Asian children reflect the aspirations of their parents rather than what they want to do. So kids will end up in classes for music and art rather than just basketball."

Cultural traditions also play a major role in summer break activities within the African American community. While wealthy blacks have long spent their summers on Sag Harbor, Martha's Vineyard and Myrtle Beach, S.C., more downscale families traditionally send their kids to Southern communities to visit with relatives. So many blacks now gather for family reunions that hotel chains have begun assigning sales people dedicated to facilitating these events. And in recent years, Afrocentric tours have taken off, as students follow the Underground Railroad, tour historically black colleges or visit the homes of celebrated African Americans.