Publishing in the primary leisure journals: Insight into the structure and boundaries of our research

Abstract

This study is a systematic empirical analysis of the structure and boundaries of leisure research as reflected by 2,628 citations used in six volumes of Journal of Leisure Research and Leisure Sciences. Four indicators were used to describe the structure of leisure research: the contributions from other fields, the type of citations used, the number of leisure sub‐topical areas, and the age of the citations. Leisure research has extensive ties with at least six fields and intensive attachments to three fields. As a result, citations are diversified by field and by many leisure research specialty areas. Journals and books constitute the majority of citation types, and the accumulation of recreation/leisure literature has shown substantial growth since the late 1950s. The proportion of sources originating in the recreation and parks field is growing but is still at relatively low levels in comparison with other fields of inquiry.     

The Role of the Proximate Principle in the Emergence of Urban Parks in the United Kingdom and in the United States

Abstract

Residences located close to urban parks frequently sell at a premium. The increased home values represent a ‘capitalization’ of a park’s value to proximate homeowners and this phenomenon has been termed ‘the proximate principle’. The evolution of the principle from squares and gardens in small private estates to large park areas occurred with the development of Regent’s Park in London. The proximate principle’s dissemination into the new industrial cities of the UK first emerged at Prince’s Park in Liverpool, but it was still confined to private developments. Its transition into the public sector occurred with the development of Birkenhead Park. The data showing that Birkenhead Park was potentially a self‐financing venture funded by the enhanced value of proximate profits were widely disseminated and provided the financial rationale for many subsequent urban parks in other UK cities. This principle was absorbed by Frederick Law Olmsted on two early visits to Birkenhead Park and incorporated into the design of Central Park in New York City, the first large urban park in the US. Olmsted meticulously documented the impact of Central Park on adjacent property values and demonstrated that the park made a ‘profit’. These data were crucial in verifying the legitimacy of the proximate principle and in providing the justification for large urban parks in a host of other US cities. Although these data are naïve when viewed through the lens of modern social science, recent studies using sophisticated techniques have confirmed the fundamental legitimacy of the proximate principle.     

Evolution and implications of a paradigm shift in the marketing of leisure services in the USA

The evolution of leisure services marketing in the USA has passed through five stages in the past half‐century: pre‐marketing (activity/custodial focus), selling, user benefits orientation, community‐wide benefits orientation and repositioning. The first two stages were supplanted by the user benefits orientation in the late 1970s. The user benefits focus transitioned into the leisure field from the business literature and remained pre‐eminent until the mid‐1990s. It was superseded because it had two conceptual flaws. First, it failed to address the notion of equity. Second, its focus on being responsive to individual users was inconsistent with the broader mandate of public leisure agencies to provide community‐wide services. The emergence of credible scientific research in the past decade to support advocates’ claims of community‐wide benefits has facilitated emergence of the most recent evolutionary stage of leisure services marketing which is repositioning. Repositioning seeks to connect community‐wide benefits the agency has the potential to deliver with an issue that is important to taxpayers and elected officials. It is argued that repositioning is the key to the future viability of public leisure agencies.     

Dimensions of the social group role in pleasure vacations

Interviewees were asked about their patterns of interpersonal association in pleasure vacations. In an individual's selection of a destination, social groups exerted four kinds of influence. First, some respondents were directly persuaded to accompany another member of their social group on a vacation. Second, social groups exerted a normative influence both on choice of destinations and choice of attractions at selected destinations. Third, long term socialization appeared to have some influence on the predisposition to vacation and the predisposition to go to a particular destination. Fourth, the distant physical location of some social group members was found to influence destination decisions.     

An empirical investigation of the appropriateness of the product life cycle to municipal library services

A set of longitudinal data for each of 25 major U.S. cities was extracted from the U.S. Bureau of the Census publicationCity Government Finances. This was used to compute municipal libraries' market share of total city expenditures. The data were graphed and exhibited the characteristics of a product life cycle curve. The findings of the study suggest that the product life cycle concept can be usefully applied to non-profit public sector organizations. Specifically the findings indicate that library administrators should give serious attention to market stretching or recognize that decline in their market share in the next few years appears likely. It is also suggested that recognition of the product life cycle concept has implications for managerial strategy and skills in the library service, particularly in the field of personnel selection.     

'A Lot of Friction at the Interfaces': The Regulation of Britain's Privatised Railway System

This paper examines the regulation of privatised industries, especially the railways. It focuses on the regulation of the infrastructure company, Railtrack, which collapsed into insolvency less than six years after its flotation. It analyses in detail the establishment of a key interface in the railway system, the track access charges, and discusses the extent to which Railtrack's collapse was a failure of regulation. The paper concludes that the key problem was not the regulatory system, but the fundamentally flawed concept of the rail privatisation, and discusses the implications for the success of privatisation and of Railtrack's successor, Network Rail.     

“A deficient performance”: The regulation of the train operating companies in Britain's privatised railway system

This paper focuses on the performance and regulation of the train operating companies in Britain's privatised railway system. It places regulation in context by examining rail privatisation, with particular scrutiny given to the theory and practice of the franchising process which established these companies. The record of the regulatory authority is assessed up to the announcement in 2004 of its planned abolition. This assessment employs critical financial analysis, and draws on non-financial performance indicators, in order to examine the extent to which it achieved its five main objectives: increasing the number of rail passengers; managing franchises in the interests of passengers; encouraging efficiency and economy in the provision of passenger rail services; encouraging investment in rail services; and securing a progressive improvement in the quality of rail services. The paper concludes that the regulatory authority's performance was “deficient” as it only achieved the first of these objectives. It places this failure in context by highlighting the fundamental problem—the flawed concept of fragmenting and privatising a loss-making rail industry in the interests of British capitalism. The “stronger” regulation envisaged by the Blair Government is revealed as a smoke screen behind which there is a continuing transfer of wealth from taxpayers to the owners and providers of capital.     

Measuring novelty seeking in tourism

The purposes of the study were to define the construct of novelty in the context of tourism, to conceptualize its role in the destination choice process, and to develop an instrument to measure novelty. The novelty construct was comprised of four interrelated but distinctive dimensions: thrill, change from routine, boredom alleviation, and surprise. A 21 item instrument was developed to measure the construct and its dimensions. The scale was judged to have content validity by an initial panel of experts. It was demonstrated to have convergent, theoretical, discriminant, and criterion validity in terms of its expected correlations with other measures. Items measuring the dimensions were internally consistent, and both test-retest and split-half reliability were satisfactory.