Proceedings of the 20th International Academic Conference, Madrid

THE COMPARISON OF CERTAIN THEORIES CORRELATING LEISURE TIME AND RECREATION

ALPER SELÇUK SAKAR

Abstract:

In today’s modern life, leisure time is a contemporary issue that is needed to explain recreation. According to Tezcan (1982), it is the residual time that people using freely and relaxingly on the purpose of deriving career and entertainment, remaining after the time period they are using of continue to their work lives and fulfill their physiological needs. As for recreation, it is the activities that people do voluntarily and without any degree of pressure or compulsion, in their leisure time residual after working time and the time they are fulfilling their compulsory needs (Karaküçük and Gürbüz, 2007). This study addresses the comparison of certain theories such as compensation, spillover, leisure theory of Neulinger, flow, surplus energy, relaxation, preparation, psychoanalysis, catharsis, work and leisure of John Kelly, leisure pyramid of Iso-Aloha, leisure of Dumazedier, leisure class and personality in leisure , that have an impact on leisure time and recreation. It is inevitable not to remark people’s attitude and behavior to leisure time as it is a differentiating factor from person to person. This study aspires to point out theories that explain the perception of leisure time in people’s mind and make connections between them, as it is so important when it comes to marketing of recreation activities. In this study, it is tried to understand people’s attitude to leisure time and perspective to recreation, in consideration of mentioned theories. In this way, it is also pointed out the different approaches that are explaining the leisure time and recreation behavior of person, which recreation marketers have to take into consideration when they design leisure time activities.

Keywords: Leisure time, recreation, recreation theories, play theories, recreation marketing.

DOI: 10.20472/IAC.2015.020.085

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