The relationship between the quality of the city’s recreational offering and the physical activity of its inhabitants – results of a pilot survey in Bielsko-Biała

Abstract

The aim of the article is to outline the theoretical framework for studying the relationship between the quality of the city’s recreational offering and the physical activity of its inhabitants. The study was based on a review of the literature and was supplemented with data from a pilot questionnaire survey. The pilot survey was conducted in 2016 and involved 180 inhabitants of Bielsko-Biała. Responses were collected during direct interviews based on the survey questionnaire consisting of two parts: International Physical Activity Questionnaire (short version) and recreational offering assessment questionnaire proposed by authors. The literature review revealed gaps in research and publications addressing the relationship between the quality of the city’s recreational product and the level of physical activity of its inhabitants, and results of previous studies vary depending on their location (which was also confirmed by the pilot survey). According to the authors’ pilot survey, the respondents preferred outdoor forms of physical activity (Nordic walking and fast walks). The majority of respondents can be classified as sufficiently active. No statistically significant findings were found between respondents’ assessment of the service staff or the recreational infrastructure and the level of physical activity reported by inhabitants of Bielsko-Biała who participated in the survey. The innovative character of the work consists in developing and testing during the pilot survey a new theoretical framework for researching relationships between the quality of the city’s recreational offering and the level of physical activity of its inhabitants. The authors propose extending the existing approaches involving mainly the assessment of recreational assets by including marketing, staff-related and organizational aspects. This calls for interdisciplinary research.