Youth leisure careers during post‐communist transitions in the South Caucasus

This paper reports findings from interview surveys with 1215 respondents, split between the capital cities (Yerevan, Baku and Tbilisi) and one non‐capital region (Kotayk, Aran‐Mugan and Shida Kartli) in each of the three South Caucasus countries – Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The respondents, who were drawn from households in larger representative household social surveys, were all born between 1970 and 1976 and were aged 31–37 at the time of the fieldwork in 2007. Their life stage transitions from childhood to adulthood had roughly coincided with their countries’ transitions from communism to post‐communism. Data was collected on the samples’ participation in selected leisure activities from age 16 to 30. Similar data was collected on the samples’ careers in education, the labour market, housing and family relationships. This information enables us to identify typical leisure careers and how their development was affected by events in other life domains, all in the context of the macro‐changes that were in process in each of the research locations. The evidence enables both personal leisure careers and aggregate leisure trends in different socio‐demographic groups to be identified This shows that changes in leisure behaviour between age 16 and 30 were neither widening nor narrowing the differences between the leisure of males and females, or those who married and became parents on the one hand, then, on the other, those who were still single and childless at age 30. In contrast, differences by place, and by social class, grew progressively wider, thus raising the social costs of geographical and social mobility. Changes in leisure behaviour between age 16 and 30 were separating young adults into those who participated in little, if any, structured out‐of‐home leisure, whose main leisure spending, if any, was on alcohol and tobacco (typically consumed in homes and neighbourhoods), and those whose leisure was characterised by relatively high and sustained participation in sport, consumption of high culture, and going out to bars, cafes, cinema, discos, etc.     

Thinking rhizomatically about communist heritage tourism

Communist heritage tourism in central-eastern Europe is part of a stale process of decades-long transition from centrally-planned to market-oriented societies. We deploy Deleuze and Guattari's concept of the ‘rhizome’ to disrupt understandings of static hierarchies between post/communist histories, places and peoples. Experiences and memories of communism between 1944 and 1991 together with current touring performances of communist remnants are heterogeneously connected in a multidirectional network. Via the rhizome we explore this network as shifting connectivity rather than a confined and permanent construct. Thus, locals' post/communist experiences are roots and shoots which associate with other elements of the past, and with tourists' heterogeneous performances of communist places. We, therefore, explain ambivalences towards communist heritage and simultaneous dis/inheritance through tourism in these places.     

Changes on traditional livelihood activities and lifestyles caused by tourism development in the Okavango Delta,Botswana

The Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) program in Botswana aims at achieving conservation and rural development. In the Okavango Delta, some communities are involved in tourism through CBNRM to improve their livelihoods. However, research has not adequately analyzed changes caused by CBNRM on traditional livelihood activities and lifestyles. This study, therefore, uses modernization theory to analyze changes on traditional livelihood activities and lifestyles caused by CBNRM at Sankoyo, Mababe and Khwai villages in the Okavango Delta. Using primary and secondary data sources, results indicate that CBNRM is causing a decline in traditional livelihood activities like subsistence hunting, gathering, crop and livestock farming. As a result, a modern cash economy has emerged. New livelihood activities done by communities include: employment in CBNRM projects, the sale of crafts to tourists and thatching grass to tourism lodges. Income derived from CBNRM affords households to build modern houses, buy foreign foods and household equipment like: four-burner gas stoves, kitchen utensils, and satellite televisions. Conversely, this causes a decline in the consumption of traditional foods and the use of huts and household utensils. CBNRM is thus a modernization tool since it is causing a transformation of traditional livelihood activities and lifestyles. However, even though changes in livelihood activities and lifestyles may be an indication of the dynamism of culture in study villages, sudden change and modernization may increase livelihood insecurity. As such, tourism planning should ensure that modernization is sensitive to traditional economic systems and the need for rural livelihood sustainability.     

生活方式型旅游小企业的特征及研究启示

近年来,生活方式型旅游小企业已成为国际学术界关注的热点,西方学者对生活方式型旅游小企业的研究较为丰富,但国内对此领域的研究极少。文章首先对生活方式型旅游小企业的概念进行了界定,从创立动机、经营目标、信息媒介、地点选择、主体来源、经营业态、经营业主七大方面揭示其特征;其次,指出在发达经济体和发展中/转型经济体下生活方式型旅游小企业意义和价值的差异性,并从经济、社会、文化三方面阐释生活方式型旅游小企业对旅游目的地的影响;最后,作者对国内外该领域现有文献进行了回顾与梳理,并在此基础上指出了未来可能发展的走向。     

The concept of lifestyle: a review

The paper is a review of literature and an analysis of the concept of lifestyle and its relationship to leisure. In the first part of the paper the review is divided into nine sections covering Weberian, sub-cultural, psychological, market research and psychographics, leisure/tourism styles, spatial, socialist lifestyles, consumer culture, gender, and miscellaneous approaches. In the second part of the paper a number of themes are identified and their roles in defining lifestyle are discussed; these are: activities/behaviour; values and attitudes; individuals versus groups; group interaction, coherence, recognisability and choice. In conclusion, a definition of lifestyle is offered and a brief indication of a research agenda is presented.     

The influence of dance music on the UK youth tourism market

Today's young people are influenced by a variety of factors when considering a holiday. During the late 1980s and 1990s we have witnessed a rise in recreational drug use and the move in music taste towards repetitive rhythms of re-mix DJs creating their music from synthesized tunes on records and CDs. The ‘Big Name’ DJs such as Sasha, Pete Tong, Danny Rampling, etc. are superstars within today's youth culture and receive wages to match their status. During the past 5–10 years, we have also witnessed a move towards young people taking holidays to pursue their interest in Dance Music and to follow their favourite DJ to wherever in Europe, or the world, they may be playing. Often the established night-clubs within countries will seek to attract these DJs, but sometimes special holidays are packaged by tour operators with a distinct Dance Music theme, highlighting famous ‘superclubs’ such as Cream and Ministry of Sound. Radio stations are also becoming involved, especially London's well known Dance Music station ‘Kiss FM’ who, in conjunction with a tour operator, offer a distinct Dance Music tourism experience.     

Higher skilled working tourists and their leisure lifestyles: a qualitative study of guest language instructors in South Korea

Using interviews conducted with 24 higher skilled working tourists employed as guest language instructors in the Republic of Korea, this paper explores how working tourists could secure an optimal leisure lifestyle in their host countries. Three key findings emerged. First, the respondents were seeking casual, touristic, amateur, hobby and volunteer leisure with their colleagues and with their host community members. But, the rewards and episodic aspects of their leisure, including formal and informal language development, suggested that it incorporated variations in project-based leisure as a core characteristic. Second, these respondents were taking part in guest, host and leisure speech communities that were each offering leisure choices. However, their leisure lifestyle was best when leisure, second language development and acculturation coincided in a leisure speech community. Third, that in a leisure speech community, respondents’ acculturation and friendships improved more so than in either guest or host speech communities. Also, that these respondents’ formal and informal second language learning within their leisure speech communities was essential for an optimal leisure lifestyle. The paper determines that leisure speech communities, occurring along a continuum of monetary, educational and interpersonal resources, could affect the linguistic mobility of higher skilled working tourists. It recommends that future research could examine if a sociolinguistics of leisure could assist in exploring and mapping the leisure lifestyles appearing among mobile populations in a globalising world.     

An examination of serious participants at the Australian Wintersun Festival

Events, such as festivals, have been identified as places in which activities are provided for participants to develop skills and build their leisure careers. This study aimed to explore the leisure and tourist behaviours of serious, and at times fanatical, participants at the Wintersun Festival in Queensland, Australia. The weeklong nostalgic celebration of music, dancing, cars and lifestyles attracts participants from distant communities to travel and participate in the activities that are integral to achieving their leisure goals. This study utilised participant observation to identify nine domains which describe and explain the behaviours of participants including specialised travel, lifestyle, identity reinforcement, pride, fanaticism, social interaction, fixated consumption, competition and skill development. The results highlight the specialised travel experience undertaken by participants and the important role of events in fulfilling their personal and social goals.     

Identity,Politics, and the Beach: Environmental Activism in Surfers Against Sewage

Abstract

Academic accounts of leisure activities like surfing tend to emphasise their individualistic, hedonistic and commercialised qualities, seeing this as characteristic of leisure consumption in late capitalism; that culture is increasingly dominated by the market and attention is diverted from collective and political issues. Yet empirical research in such lifestyle sport cultures reveals a more complex and contradictory picture of leisure consumption. This paper examines the pressure group Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), founded by surfers in Cornwall, England. It draws on subcultural media discourses about SAS and interviews with SAS members and personnel. Whilst acknowledging the limitations in the political significance and impact of SAS’s activism, the paper argues that through their sport consumption, participants from a range of minority water sports cultures have formed a politicised trans‐local collectivity based around a concern with their own localised environment, one which has become articulated into broader trans‐national political issues. It is argued further that SAS is part of a broader wave of new social movements and direct action protest groups that gathered momentum in Britain in the mid to late 1990s. In such groups the politics of identity take centre stage. The paper therefore challenges us to rethink the meaning of political activism, and the capacity of leisure and sport to contribute to the politics of identity.     

Central and Eastern European cultural policies,media reform and development of media markets in the mid-nineties

In many ways the media has become (together with tourism) the most important and dynamic element of leisure in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The role of most traditional and all modern media has been greatly strengthened in the region after 1989/90, after the political and symbolic influence of the ‘fourth power’ in the region's reforms had been widely recognized. The expansion and (post)modernization of the media in CEE countries is taking part at a time when the position of traditional cultural institutions and activities in the regions is being seriously undermined. Following the changes made in 1989/90 to political and economic systems of the CEE countries, a breath of extreme liberalism swept through the region. At the critical initial stage of transition culture in the CEE, countries had to face an assault from two flanks. Severe curtailment of state commitment (both financial and ideological) coincided with a wide opening to the West and absorption of imported culture. Despite generally negative feelings about cultural policy, neither of the countries in question abandoned this realm nor scrapped its cultural administration, but their priorities shifted from aesthetic or ideological considerations to the management and financing of the cultural sphere. While governments still cherish visions of reformed cultural and media policy, the commercial media sector develops successfully throughout the region with minimum amount of regulation. The successful development of the media in Central and Eastern Europe shows not only high growth potential of new markets, but also produces interesting evidence on the co-existence of the state or public providers with new commercial operators. It also shows the difficult balancing act in which domestic cultural industries attempt to introduce legislation to protect local cultural production and curtail international competition, while keeping the domestic market open enough to attract foriegn investment.     

Towards a lifestyle experience: A phenomenological conceptualization and scale development in the hotel context

The topic of lifestyle has attracted interest both in service providers and marketing researchers. To better understand lifestyle experience, study 1 adopts a phenomenological approach to conceptualize lifestyle experience that is generated within consumers in a hotel setting. It is discovered that sense of community and culture is the spirit of a lifestyle experience that lives up to its name. In addition, it is uncovered that lifestyle experiences essentially meets consumer's higher-ordered psychological social needs. Studies 2, 3, and 4 demonstrate the development of a scale, LHEI—Lifestyle Hotel Experience Index, that captures consumer's lifestyle hotel experience. Such scale can be easily adapted to measure lifestyle experiences in other contexts. This paper contributes to current research by conceptualizing and quantifying the novel lifestyle experience. It contributes to the industry as a wakeup call for more sustainable and consumer-centric strategies in value co-creation.     

Inauthentic archaeologies: public uses and abuses of the past

After returning home from fieldwork on the Guarani reservation in Misiones, Argentina, the author was approached by one of his colleagues and asked about the difference between ethnography and ethnic tourism. The immediate response was, what do you mean by ‘ethnic tourism’? After a moment of silence, he responded that, to him, ethnic tourism meant people traveling to interact with indigenous people and experience their lifestyles and customs. This thought process brought about the interest in writing this reflective research note. This short opinion piece teases out the importance of aboriginal peoples and their culture as heritage attractions and proposes the role of anthropology in creating conditions of neo-colonialism in the tourism context.     

Running Havana: Observations on the Political Economy of Sport Tourism in Cuba

Abstract

Sport tourism is a booming global business that has different costs and benefits for distinctive societies depending upon both global and local socio‐cultural, political and economic factors. With more than 130 officially sanctioned events worldwide, marathon running has developed to become a key feature of the international sport tourism calendar. This paper provides an ethnographic account of the 2005 Marabana – the Havana Marathon. After consideration of some of the central conceptual and historical issues pertinent to sport tourism in relation to the marathon in general, it uses this race and the events surrounding it as a critical window into Cuba’s complex contemporary political economy. Detailed consideration is given to the special conditions that have led to the development of the Island’s sport tourism industry and the consequences of that development in terms of Cuba’s political heritage. What sets Cuba apart from the tourist economies of its Caribbean neighbours is its continued commitment to the economic and political principles of communism and its strained and tense relationship with the United States. The paper concludes by pointing to the social and economic contradictions associated with the development of a tourist economy that is essentially capitalist within a society that is avowedly communist.     

We can have the cake and eat it too: leisure and spirituality at ‘veiled’ hotels in Turkey

This paper uses ethnographic methods to inquire how new forms of consumption arise as a result of bridging Islamic spirituality with leisure in the newly growing tesettür hotels in Turkey, which have become a magnet of popular and academic attention. We aim to offer a multi-layered analysis of the leisure and consumption practices of Muslim women in the context of the new Islamic hospitality industry by looking at the interactions between spiritual Islam and modern capitalism. We focus on the consumption process of the female customers of these hotels as part of defining and redefining their newly developing identity that is Islamic and spiritual; as well as modern and luxurious. The study responds to the call of Gökar?ksel and Secor to analyse new Islamic patterns of consumption and leisure by building on their perspectives bridging neoliberal capitalism and resurgence of Islamic identities. We call for a critical and contextual perspective to understand the dynamic emergence of new forms of Islamic lifestyles and capitalism; emphasising a future agenda of further research that is sensitive to the complexities of desires and leisure activities of veiled Muslim women in diverse countries.     

Emerging Eastern European tourism markets

The collapse of communism led many to see Eastern Europe as a major new market both for the development of tourism and the generation of outbound travel. While both are likely in the long term, current economic confusion (in the West as well as the East) makes their realization much more difficult in the short term. This article analyses the economic future for the countries of Eastern Europe, the travel behaviour of their citizens and the outlook for tourism in the region.     

Continuity,change and performativity in leisure: English folk dance and modernity 1900–1939

In post‐industrial countries, folk dance may be considered as an embodied performance of a perceived tradition and is representational of values attached to an imagined past. The English Country Dance is one such form of folk dance, having been revived, or re‐invented, in the early twentieth century by Cecil Sharp who claimed it to be a national dance of England. However, Sharp re‐defined it not as a popular and spontaneous leisure activity but as a serious middle‐class art form representing an English sensibility and the virtues of a pre‐industrial pastoral collectivism. After the hiatus of the First World War, the English Country Dance continued to offer a resistance to the modern, this time in the form of a burgeoning popular dance culture which embraced urban sophistication and jazz dance. Using the concept of performativity, this paper attempts to demonstrate that the leisure context of the English Country Dance, in terms of spatiality, style, consumption and gender, enabled a continuity of resistance to the modern in a changing socio‐cultural environment. The paper draws upon primary research in the archive of the Manchester Branch of the English Folk Dance Society and upon records of contemporary dance in the Mass Observation archive.     

Cross‐cultural tourist behavior: An analysis of tourist attitudes towards the environment

In a cross‐cultural tourist behavioral study, skiers from three different countries were surveyed in order to understand their environmental awareness and knowledge. The contingent valuation method (CVM) was also used to discover their willingness‐to‐pay (WTP) for environmentally‐friendly skiing products. The results point to a general lack of knowledge and even confusion amongst skiers about environmental issues pertaining to skiing. However, skiers say they will be more likely to visit a resort that is environmentally‐responsible. Use of the CVM indicated a strong correlation between WTP and the cost of the holiday, level of income and level of environmental conscience. The majority of skiers would pay more for a “greener” ski resort, but significant differences in responses were found between the three cultures. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Emerging Definitions of Boutique and Lifestyle Hotels: A Delphi Study

Despite growing interest in the boutique and lifestyle sector of the lodging industry, there is not an accepted definition of either “boutique hotel” or “lifestyle hotel.” Boutique and lifestyle hotel strategies provide hotel companies with important points of differentiation in an increasingly competitive marketplace. The current study determined definitions using a Delphi analysis of responses from a diverse group of experts from the lodging industry. Forty-one panel members were involved in the process that was undertaken with three rounds of questions. The study determined that boutique hotels are best characterized as small, stylish hotels that offer high levels of service. Lifestyle hotels are described as innovative and provide more of a personal experience than so-called “branded” hotels.     

Leisure and urbanisation in Brazil from the 1950s to the 1970s

There is growing interest in how workers recover and unwind from work during leisure, as poor unwinding has been associated with negative health. This research explores the recovery process to gain a greater understanding of how individuals switch‐off from work‐related thoughts post work. Specifically, we conducted interviews with workers who habitually find it difficult to switch‐off from work (i.e. high ruminators), and workers who find it easy to switch‐off from work (i.e. low ruminators). Three master themes were elicited using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis: (1) work philosophy, (2) coping strategies and (3) coping outcomes. The findings revealed differences in core beliefs about work; high ruminators perceive blurred boundaries between work and home life, and they allowed work to mentally predominate during their leisure time, whereas low ruminators viewed their work and leisure as two distinct spheres, and actively developed strategies to switch‐off and disengage from work. Both high and low ruminators acknowledged the health benefits of unwinding post work, yet only low ruminators managed to successfully do so. It was concluded that there is a need for organisations to educate their employees, particularly high ruminators, about the importance of strategic unwinding post work to optimise the quality of leisure time and prevent them from becoming fatigued and burnt out.     

Sport and South Asian youth: the perils of ‘false universalism’ and stereotyping

Studies of the sport-ethnicity relation have tended to neglect young South Asians in Britain and although there has recently been an increasing interest in the role of sport in South Asian lifestyles, the significance and function of sport in South Asian cultures remains confused and ill-informed. This paper offers a critical reflection on some of the important studies that have informed this under-researched area of leisure studies, and considers two key themes. First, that the failure to fully acknowledge South Asian heterogeneity — a failure manifest as ‘false universalism’ — operates at three different levels: collective treatment of all minority groups; mistaken assumptions about all South Asians; and a misunderstanding about the full complexity of South Asian heterogeneity. Second, that false universalism leads to the sort of crude stereotypes about the sporting aptitude and preferences of young South Asians that are generally prevalent, and can also become internalized by South Asians themselves.