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Holiday childcare impacted by Madeleine McCann disappearance
Parents are less likely to use hotel baby childcare services following the disappearance of Madeleine McCann while on holiday in Portugal last year.
A survey by family travel website takethefamily.com showed that 62% of parents were now less likely to leave their children alone in their room using baby listening or in the care of hotel or resort staff.
Takethefamily managing director Lucy Ace said: “The tragic disappearance of Madeleine McCann has obviously had a dramatic effect on parents’ attitudes.
“Such incidents are extremely rare but it has definitely made parents re-evaluate their holiday childcare – whether it’s baby listening or even qualified babysitting.”
However, a quarter of those polled said recent news stories had had no effect on their attitude.
“Holiday childcare has become increasingly sophisticated with resorts and hotels offering supervised cinema clubs and children’s activities while parents have dinner,” said Ace.
“Fully vetted babysitting and nanny services using local or often British-qualified staff have also proved popular in recent years but the result of this survey shows the Madeleine story has made parents think again.”
A total of 425 families participated in the online poll. Of these, 265 families were ‘less likely’, to use in-resort baby listening/sitting services than they were a year ago, 54 families were ‘more likely’, and 106 families thought there was ‘no change’.
by Phil Davies
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