ABSTRACT
Children are the future. And excluding “the future generation” from the decisions made for “the future generations” is simply unacceptable. Participatory approaches to research with and not merely on communities are ideologically grounded and underpinned by theoretical interests linked to social justice and democratic principles, which enable a critical or transformative worldview. By empowering children’s voices, understanding their lived realities with perceived anxieties and prospects regarding future tourism development will inevitably help advance critical tourism scholarship by focusing solely on socio-cultural aspects of tourism impacts. In addition, this chapter presents innovative research methods that are yet to be embraced by tourism scholarship. These include deliberative youth panels aiming to empower children’s voices and contribute to social justice and delivering a child-led model for sustainable tourism development sitting on the premises of qualitative and quantitative values.
