Seeking Self: Leisure and Tourism on Common Ground

Abstract

Each individual's meaning of the leisure and tourism experience will be constructed according to the recreationist and tourist's own cultural and social background, the purpose of the visit, the companions, preconceived and observed values of the social group, the marketing images of the destination and, above all the relationships of power between recreationist/tourist destination or area. If the space is perceived as one in which interactions occur and the self enlarged or expanded, challenged, renewed or reinforced, the recreation and tourist experience becomes an ongoing process that extends beyond the time and place boundaries of the visit. In accounting for tourism and outdoor recreation much of the initial sociological and social psychological work was concerned with the individual and the part that holidays and outdoor recreation play in establishing identity and a sense of self. This paper then is about examining the effects that comparable types of tourism (ecotourism/volunteer tourism) and leisure (outdoor recreation) can have on the development of self and the common ground that exists in trying to analyse the experience that results through the disciplines of tourism and leisure.