Key Concepts in Leisure

Jonathan Sutherland

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9780230224285
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350314832
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Study Aids
• Subtopic: Study Guides

Leisure studies encompasses the broadest range of leisure and sports pursuits and marries management, administration and sports, as well as customer service. Key Concepts in Leisure presents an indispensable guide to the key themes and concepts in this rapidly developing, fast-paced and demanding industry.

Aa

A la carte

Translated from the French, this literally means ‘from the menu’. The term indicates to the customers that each dish ordered will have a separate price. The term is also used in tour literature to indicate to the customer that a choice of options will be available.

ABTA

The Association of British Travel Agencies (ABTA) was formed in 1950 by 22 leading travel companies, and now represents over 5,500 travel agencies and 900 tour operations throughout the British Isles. ABTA is the principal trade association of travel agents and tour operators in the UK. Members range from small, specialist tour operators and independent travel agencies through to publiclylisted companies and household names; from call centres to internet booking services and high street shops. They all carry the ABTA logo, which means they offer choice, value, and high levels of service.

ABTA’s main aims are to maintain high standards of trading practice for the benefit of its members, the travel industry at large, and the consumers that they serve, and to create as favourable a business climate as is possible for all its members.

The amalgamation of ABTA and the Federation of Tour Operators (FTO) on 1 July 2008 created a still more powerful and authoritative voice for the travel industry.

ABTA provides the following services:

Financial protection in cases of failure of the travel company.

A complaints procedure.

Travel insurance.

A code of conduct for its members to follow.

Access to an independent arbitration scheme in the case of disputes.

Access to a personal injury mediation scheme.

www.abta.com

Accommodation

When related to a package holiday, this term refers to a room, lodging, a suite of rooms or a dwelling place, which is offered to travellers in hotels, bed and breakfast establishments or on cruise ships. It is usually used for sleeping and the storage of property. In self-catering accommodation a kitchenette may also be included, which may contain a refrigerator, cooking rings, crockery, cutlery and utensils. Basically the term refers to any establishment that provides shelter and overnight accommodations to travellers.

Action learning

With the support of either peers or colleagues in a small group, this is a process by which a link is made between reflecting on past events, making sense of actions, and identifying actions or options that can be taken, or new ways of behaviour in relation to future events and activities. The participants need to be given time and space to develop a relationship between reflection and action, according to McGill and Brockbank (2003/2006). Typically, the groups (also referred to as sets) have five to seven members and need a facilitator to help establish ground rules. Each member presents an issue, a problem or concern that needs to be explored and understood. Sets often meet on a regular basis in order to develop strategies. Action learning can probably be attributed to Reg Revans, who developed the idea in the 1930s and went on to refine it over the next two decades, during work with the National Health Service and the National Coal Board. Revans wrote:

The central idea of this approach to development, at all levels, in all cultures and for all purposes is, today, that of a set, or small group of comrades in adversity, striving to learn with and from each other as they confess failures and expand victories.

McGill and Brockbank further described it as:

A continuing process of learning and reflection with the support of colleagues working on real issues. [It] can achieve improvement and transformation in a wide range of applications and disciplines including professional, training and other contexts.

The primary purpose of the process is to encourage individuals and the group as a whole to take an active stance toward problems and is often seen as a way of unblocking blockages.

McGill, Ian and Brockbank, Anne, Action Learning Handbook. Kogan Page, 2003/2006. Revans, R. W., ABC of Action Learning. Lemos & Crane, 1998.

Active ageing

‘Active ageing’ is a relatively new definition of ageing. It aims to reflect both the desire and the ability of older members of the population to remain connected and engaged with a broad range of activities, including leisure, education and work. The approach supposes that life does not follow traditional stages (age segregation), running from education dominating childhood and adolescence, work dominating the early and middle adulthood, and retirement (and opportunities for additional leisure) in later adulthood. In effect, it suggests a far more age integration approach, where education, work and leisure occur across all stages of an individual’s life.

See also age integration, age segregation.

McPherson, D. B., ‘Leisure in Later Life’, in G. Gross (ed.), Encyclopedia of Recreation and Leisure in America. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2004.

Active audience

This is a theory that is often applied to television audiences and suggests that audiences are not an undifferentiated mass of people, but a series of isolated individuals. Watching television is both a socially and a culturally informed activity and its central concern is the negotiation of meaning. Audiences are active in the sense that they view the television programmes on the basis of acquired cultural competences, integral parts of the context and their language and social relationships. It is a development of work suggested by Gramsci (1971) and developed by Hall (1981), focusing on the encoding and decoding model of communication. This proposes that messages conveyed to audiences have different meanings to readers, audiences and consumers, dependent upon their own criterion that determines their decoding of that message.

The term ‘active audience’ is also associated with hermeneutics, which challenges the concept that there is only one actual meaning associated with authorial intent. The audience approaches any information with a range of different expectations and anticipations, which are modified during their engagement. Reading, for example, is not merely the reproduction of textual meaning, but it actually produces new meaning in the minds of the readers. A text can guide the reader, but it cannot fix the meanings because it cannot anticipate the imagination of the reader.

See also hermeneutics.

Gramsci, A., Selections from the Prison Notebooks, ed. Q. Hoare and G. Nowell-Smith. Lawrence & Wishart, 1971.

Hall, S., Culture, Media, Language. Hutchinson, 1981.

Morley, D., The Nationwide Audienc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• The Key Concepts
• Index