Managing for Excellence in the Leisure and Recreation Industry

Interest in the field of leisure and recreation has grown steadily over the past few decades. Each year, millions of people engage in sports and fitness programmes, cultural activities, outdoor recreation, the arts and numerous other forms of leisure activities. One possible reason for this increased participation is that Americans today are finding themselves with more free time than their ancestors had. A 1984 study conducted by the Outdoor Recreation Policy Review group found that American adults had 10% more free time in 1975 than a decade earlier. Some of this new found free time resulted in an increase in recreational activities from an average of .9 hours per person weekly to 1.3 hours per person weekly.