The study presented in this chapter adopts 'meditative mindfulness' as the theoretical foundation to examine if day-to-day leisure activities involved in travel could lead to well-being benefits. It is revealed that the studied Taiwanese backpackers experienced mindful states during their travels...

This chapter discusses the dependency of special interest tourism on transport provision and infrastructure while also exploring cases where transport is a leisure-based special interest activity in its own right rather than merely providing access to the special interest activity. The concept of...

This book chapter looks at adventure-based activities and outdoor education programming as examples of an innovative approach for integrating the concepts of natural environments and human health.

This chapter presents a case study focused on a rural area between Lakes Orta and Maggiore in Italy. The study analyses the roles of networking processes and stakeholders' power relations in promoting a vibrant rural community through leisure and tourism events. The chapter reviews literature on...

This chapter uses examples from a variety of European waterways and their immediate surroundings to present an overview of activities that are both water- and land-based and which collectively constitute Europe's river tourism sector. Potential threats to river and canal tourism are also discussed. ...

This chapter discusses the feminist critique of male stream leisure research. The statistical evidence in gender differences in time use and patterns of leisure activity are considered. The arguments of writers who believe that women are less able than men to act on their leisure inclinations due...

This book is an expanded and updated edition of a previous work entitled World Leisure Participation: Free Time in the Global Village, by the same editors (CABI, 1996). It brings together the results of national leisure participation surveys from 15 economically developed countries (3 of which were ...

This chapter re-visits the question of East-West influences by examining findings from recent surveys (1993-2000) of leisure participation in Hong Kong. It also examines the impact of technology-based leisure and mass media on the leisure lives of people in Hong Kong. It specifically examines...

This chapter contrasts the trends in leisure participation in Japan during the 1980s (a period of high economic growth) and the 1990s (a period of relative economic stagnation). It is revealed that some activities grew in popularity in the 1980s and declined in the 1990s, while others did the...

This chapter discusses developments in obligatory time and free time in the Netherlands based on data from the 1975, 1990 and 2000 Time-budget Surveys. Although the amount of free time in the Netherlands is still high compared to that of other industrialized countries, it shown that during the...