--- title: "Smooth Sailing: New Group Promises to Ease Family-Travel Stress" id: "28025" type: "post" slug: "smooth-sailing-new-group-promises-to-ease-family-travel-stress" published_at: "2015-04-09T20:55:01+00:00" modified_at: "2026-03-16T13:49:53+00:00" url: "https://associationsnow.com/2015/04/09/smooth-sailing-new-group-promises-to-ease-family-travel-stress/" markdown_url: "https://associationsnow.com/2015/04/09/smooth-sailing-new-group-promises-to-ease-family-travel-stress.md" excerpt: "Planning and going on a big family vacation can create unwanted drama. To help families travel easier, the new Family Travel Association opened its doors this week." taxonomy_category: - "Advocacy" taxonomy_post_tag: - "Advocacy" - "AssociationsNow" - "Business" - "family travel" - "industry partners" - "Media" - "tourism" taxonomy_content_format: - "Article" taxonomy_role: - "Association CEO / Executive Director" - "Executive Team" taxonomy_persona: - "Industry Professionals" --- [Home](https://associationsnow.com/) » [Articles](https://associationsnow.com/format/article/) » Smooth Sailing: New Group Promises to Ease Family-Travel Stress ## Planning and going on a big family vacation can create unwanted drama. To help families travel easier, the new Family Travel Association opened its doors this week. If only the Griswolds had had the Family Travel Association. The hapless family of four who embarked on a road trip to a fictional Florida theme park in 1983’s *National Lampoon’s Vacation* became the pop culture symbol of everything that can go wrong when a family vacations together. All that Hollywood mayhem had some basis in reality. In a 2014 [TripAdvisor study (opens in a new tab)](http://t4binsights-cache.tripadvisor.com/TripAdvisorInsights/sites/default/files/downloads/ajax/tripbarometer_sep2014_globalreport_us.pdf) [PDF], 92 percent of travelers said they plan to take family with them on vacation. More than half said they plan to travel with their spouse and children, and 20 percent said they would travel with extended family. However, [a MasterCard study (opens in a new tab)](http://newsroom.mastercard.com/press-releases/89-percent-of-americans-are-stressed-out-over-planning-family-vacations/) found that 89 percent of families get stressed over the amount of work and planning that goes into a successful family vacation. That’s where the [Family Travel Association (opens in a new tab)](http://familytravel.org/members/) , launched this week, comes in. FTA, founded by former *National Geographic Kids* publisher Rainer Jenss, will offer families resources, tools, and tips for traveling together and will advocate on behalf of families for child-friendly experiences, services, and destinations. “We want to help parents and inspire them to travel,” Jenss [told USA Today (opens in a new tab)](http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/columnist/2015/04/06/traveling-with-kids/25232901/) . To start, FTA recruited [dozens of members (opens in a new tab)](http://familytravel.org/members/) across a variety of industries, including associations, media, tourism organizations, tour operators, cruise lines, hotels, travel agencies, and theme parks. “The fact is, the industry has never before come together for the specific purpose of helping families and inspiring them to travel,” Jenss says. “Now, the industry is joining forces to present a clear and unified message—that travel with kids can be transformational, not just recreational.” [On its website (opens in a new tab)](http://familytravel.org/mission/) , FTA said it will focus on three primary areas: education, promotion, and simplification of the industry. The initiative will include an industry-facing newsletter that launched in the winter, a consumer-facing newsletter that will launch this spring, and an FTA Summit planned for September. “Our goal is to have the public, the media, travel agents, and the travel industry at large recognize and respect the Family Travel Association as the leading authority and resource for family travel information,” the group said. Jenns said FTA will encourage families think big about their next adventure. “There are things you can do with your children that you may never have dreamed possible,” he said. (iStock/Thinkstock) [Rob Stott](https://associationsnow.com/author/rob-stott/) Rob Stott is a contributing editor to Associations Now. 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