Teen Power: Travel’s New Frontier : As more families vacation together, the choice of programs aimed at teen-agers is growing.

Music video producers court them. So do jeans manufacturers and fast-food chains. Now the travel industry is the latest to acknowledge teen power, and it’s going after it in a big way.

Travel companies have commissioned surveys to question teens about their vacation dreams (Australia was tops in a recent Holiday Inn survey) and attitudes (they don’t want to be with their parents all day, but they don’t want to be left at home either, Hyatt Hotels reports). And companies from resorts to cruise ships to Club Meds are rolling out red carpets to lure teens with everything from special teens-only concierges to teens-only evening cruises and teens-only lounges, complete with the latest music videos. Some hotels are even talking about special teen menus and working with partners interested in marketing specifically to this group.

“Teens spend or influence the spending of an estimated $79 billion each year,” said Darryl Hartley-Leonard, president of Hyatt Hotels Corp. “Teens are valuable customers for us today and they’re our next generation of business travelers.”

Club Med, for example, will assign a special counselor to the teens visiting a village--so that it is easier for them to hang together as a group, going from activity to activity, even eating together.

Hyatt, an industry leader in programming for children, earlier this summer unveiled Rock Hyatt, a comprehensive program for teens, ages 13-17, that is being offered at all Hyatt resorts. Hyatt is touting it as the first hotel program designed specifically for teens.

Even Holiday Inn is getting into the act. Besides surveying teens, it is sponsoring “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?,” a PBS game show aimed at teens that airs weeknights at 5:30 in the Los Angeles area.

Cruise lines provide each “teen cruiser” with a detailed daily sheet of activities: How about a scavenger hunt? A “Pizza Pig Out?” Teen Bingo?

Clearly, teen-agers are the target of the travel industry’s latest salvo aimed at the growing and increasingly important family vacation market. Some 90 million parents and kids are expected to vacation together this year, according to a study done for Better Homes and Gardens by the U.S. Travel Data Center.

Now the industry has learned what parents already knew: “Teens play an important role in deciding where a family will go on vacation,” explained Gayle MacIntyre, a spokesman for Holiday Inn Worldwide.

That is not to say that even if the teens choose, a family automatically will have a great time. In fact, today’s busy families, who spend little time together, may find vacations tough going when so much togetherness is thrust upon them, suggested Lucinda Katz, director of the University of Chicago’s K-12 Laboratory School and the mother of a teen herself.

“Kids can get bored easily,” Katz said. “And if they’re not used to being with their parents, they have to learn to be together. Totally unstructured time can get wearing.”

Indeed, the Holiday Inn survey reports that 76% of families say vacation is the only time they’re together for every meal.

Katz worries that these programs will keep families heading in different directions at precisely the time they should be together. At the same time, she added, “Parents are looking for places to go where the kids have enough activities so they won’t get bored and where it will be conducive to stress-free family time.”

According to Hyatt’s survey of 500 teens across the country, the vast majority (79%) said they want to meet and spend time with other teens on vacation. More than 60% said they hope to find romance. Most said they want to shop (93%), sightsee (82%) and participate in sports (73%). Hyatt used the survey to develop “Rock Hyatt” at all of its resorts, and, as a result, teens may take fitness classes at Lake Tahoe, bobsled in Colorado, follow clues to lost pirate’s treasure in St. John or kayak in Hawaii. Some activities are free; others may cost more than $50 for a day’s excursion.

Will teens go for these organized programs? “Teens like to be seen by other teens,” Katz said.

“As long as they can be with other teens, they’d go for it,” added Don Wertlieb, chairman of the Child Study Center at Tufts University in Massachusetts and a well-known expert on teens (and father of one).

Wertlieb applauds these efforts. “Anything that provides for constructive connectiveness among family members is on the right track,” he said.