Grandparents taking their grandchildren on holiday is a growing business. THE world over, grandpas and grandmas love to spoil their grandchildren with treats and leisure activities, and the tourism industry knows this. Enter the concept of multi-generational travel experiences tailored to three-tiered family groups. Increasingly, parents and children are being joined by grandparents and aunts and uncles in a form of all-together holiday that some operators refer to as "house party tourism." Tourism NSW has coined the term "compatriot tourism," identifying the trend as "holiday-makers increasingly taking time out with peer groups or large extended family units ... groups of, say, six to 12 are booking a large holiday rental or a series of hotel rooms or suites to accommodate the house party." In our time-poor world, many families feel the easiest and most convivial way to catch up with the extended clan is to rent a holiday home with loads of space. Everyone pitches in with catering, cooking and child care, and there's no pressure on any member of the party to be the official host. Canny groups opt for houses with bedrooms of equivalent size - or at least confirm in advance which couple gets the master suite. While such a concept is a time-honoured Christmas and new year holiday option for many Australians, real-estate agents in popular leisure locations such as the Queensland Sunshine Coast report that rentals of family-sized houses are booming year-round. Jennifer Carr, principal of Richardson & Wrench Noosa, says: "Families are using our larger (holiday) homes very often ... our dominant category is still mum, dad and the kids, but very often grandparents (are included) or we might even have two families sharing, which is great. Cousins can play together in a secure backyard or swim in a private pool rather than sharing with others at a holiday complex. Dan Neylan of Dowling & Neylan Real Estate at Noosa Heads says families are increasingly attracted to "adventurous outdoors holidays" as parents "want their children to have an appreciation of our environment" in a relaxed setting with friends and relatives. Neylan says low-season costs range from about $750 to $5750 a week, depending on the size and location of the Sunshine Coast holiday rental. A selection of smaller Australian resorts have seen the value in adding group-use facilities to their accommodation stock. That's the case at Bannisters Point Lodge at Mollymook on the NSW south coast, which boasts a seafood restaurant by celebrity chef Rick Stein. About 18 months ago, management did a substantial renovation of Stein's 1960s-built holiday bungalow, located on a cul de sac within strolling distance of the lodge proper, to make it suitable for extended families and self-contained groups. Now, Rick's Place has five bedrooms and five bathrooms across two floors, a smaller double-bunk room for children, a mosaic-tiled heated spa pool, well-equipped kitchen (helpfully, Stein's recipe books are on the shelves) and multiple lounging areas. Bannisters Lodge sales and marketing director Annie Cochrane says reunions and landmark birthday celebrations are popular reasons for get-togethers at Ricks Place and she is running a Christmas in July package, targeted at parties. Such getaways can work out to be good value when bills are split, say, 10 ways, and everyone puts money into the kitty for food and drinks. Last month, BIG4 Adventure Whitsunday Resort at Queensland's Airlie Beach won the best caravan and tourist park category in the Qantas Australian Tourism Awards. On more than 10ha of landscaped grounds, the property is marketed to a range of tastes and pockets, from camping and caravanning sites to stylish studios, villas, cottages and three-bedroom condos. Facilities include the largest resort-style pool in Airlie Beach, waterslides and floodlit mini golf course. The resort's public relations spokesperson Corrie Gardner says family holidays here are often planned, and even paid for, by grandparents who have retired after active lives. They have worked hard and have well-educated, successful children and grandchildren who like the good life. They may believe those grandchildren spend too much time inside on computers and electronic gaming equipment, travel the world with their parents but are not experiencing the basic pleasures of a true Australian childhood holiday. They would like to spend quality time with their children and grandkids outdoors, playing sporty games and seeing something special. They may have beach houses but this is about a joint holiday - perhaps to celebrate an anniversary or birthday - where they pay for the whole family to spend a week together. Gardner says such groups typically book a series of adjacent villas and cottages at BIG4 Airlie Beach. We recently had a family group from NSW who took nine cabins and stayed for a week. Gardner adds that unlike staying at a private holiday home, it's not about cooking and housekeeping. Food can be ordered from Whitsunday Provisioning or there are poolside barbecues for guests; specialist staff are available to organise group activities such as sailing, diving courses or boat trips to the Great Barrier Reef. For get-up-and-go clans who want to venture on structured holidays, some tour operators offer multi-generational adventures. U Tracks, for example, has more than 25 family-friendly itineraries, mostly in Europe. A Villages of Provence tour can be taken as a biking adventure or as a walk, and there are options to shorten journey segments by using taxis for older or younger travellers in the group. Modified bikes are also available for youngsters from four to about nine years. U Tracks has an eight-day Amsterdam to Bruges bike and barge holiday - cycles are carried on board and excursions en route are on generally flat terrain, suitable for most age groups. The key to such travel is plenty of itinerary variety so everyone can do their own thing during the day and reunite in the evening for quality family time. Abercrombie & Kent offers "luxury family holidays" tailored to "engage a variety of ages, personalities and interests" and including European villa stays and seven-night wildlife safaris with a cultural and community slant in South Africa. There is a world of options for modern families on the move, and it's much more fun to share and care.