Choosing leisure services: the effects of consumer timestyle

As the leisure industry matures, it is important for marketers to have a clear understanding of why people choose to consume specific leisure services. The paper proposes that “timestyle”, or how a person customarily perceives and uses time, influences the choice of leisure goals and resultant leisure services. Individuals’ timestyles can be characterized in terms of social, temporal, planning, and polychronic orientations. Data from qualitative research suggest that all four dimensions of timestyle can have systematic effects on leisure choices. Knowledge of the timestyle concept and its antecedent influences should allow leisure marketers to better understand and target the motivations that underlie consumer decisions on leisure services.