So of these places are nationally owned by private companies like Mecca Leisure and Rank organisations. These companies provide things like bingo, nightclubs and disco and other entertainments.
Libraries
Most of the funding for libraries comes from the public sector, then the libraries also make a little income from money that people pay by paying fines, video hire, corporate fees, audio hire. The most of the money comes from people book fines. There are many libraries around the country as the library system cover the whole of the UK. There are large libraries in the towns and cities and also mobile libraries for less densely populated places in the UK. There are currently around 4,227 libraries and 663 mobile libraries and these attracted 303 million visits in 1999. (Outhart et al 2000:48).
The library is regarded as a very important part of the public sector. It plays a very important part of the leisure and recreation sector, and has developed over the past 10 years and now offers a wider range of thing to the public like
- Books
- Computers for use in the library
- Cassettes and CD’d to borrow
- Play station and other computer games
- Videos and DVD’s.
This helps attract a wide range of people to the libraries, which helps the library to stay open and afford more services for the public.
Theme and Leisure Parks
A theme park is an action packed family centre for leisure and entertainments. These places often have high technological equipment like funfair rides and roller coasters.
Theme parks often include
- Traditional fun fair rides
- Roller coasters
- Amusement arcades
- Adventure playgrounds
- Computer simulations
- Laser games
Some theme or leisure parks have sports facilities, heritage activites, zoos and wild life areas.
Theme parks and Leisure parks attract a lot of visitors every year. People who are on holiday with children often go to resorts with theme parks and leisure parks. The top ten theme parks and leisure parks are
- Blackpool Pleasure Beach
- Palace Pier Brighton
- Eastbourne Pier
- Alton Towers Staffordshire
- Pleasure land Southport
- Chessington World of Adventures
- Legoland Windsor
- Peter Pan’s Adventure Island Scotland
- Pleasure Beach Great Yarmouth
10.Flamingo Land Theme Park North Yorkshire
(Outhart et al 2000:50)
The theme parks and leisure parks attracted over 37 million visitors in 1998. (Outhart et al 2000)
Most of these parks are run by private sector organisations. These places have evolved as technology has developed which has meant that these companies have spent millions of pounds on investing in new rides like the Pepsi Max at Blackpool. So these places often charge a daily admission fee covering a cost for the rides and other entertainments, which are at the place. Alton tower is the largest admission charging theme park in the UK attracting over 2.7 million visitors in 1998. (Outhart et al 2000).
Theatres and Concert Halls
Theatres and concert halls are used for live performances and temporary venues for one off events. There are many national theatres around the country such as London’s Palladium, Wembley and Earls Court, these are all owned privately.
Many of the theatres and other venues for live performances are subsidised by the public sector such as the Royal national Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Opera, these all receive funding from the Arts council of England.
The voluntary sector also plays a large part in the theatres and concert halls as they run lots of small and large drama groups, operatic societies and other performing groups.
The larger theaters and concert halls are located in major cities; most of the larger ones are in London’s West end. The theatres in the West End attracted a total of 11.9 million attendances from over 16,000 performances, which generated receipts of £257.9 million. (Outhart et al 2000:46).
There are also different festivals, which are based on theatrical and entertainment festivals, which can be small local festivals a example of a local festival is the Eden Fest or internationally known festivals such as Edinburgh Festival.
Museums and Art Galleries
Museums and art galleries are spread out all the country and millions of people visit them each year. There are a variety of recreational, educational and cultural reasons. Museums are run by the public, voluntary and private sectors organisations. Although the majority of them are run by the public sector organisations.
The facilities can range from large national museums and art galleries, such as the British Museum and gallery to different small local galleries and museums such as Keswick Pencil Factory.
The museums Association defines museum as “an institution, which collects, preserves, exhibits and interprets material evidence and associated information for the public benefit.” (Outhart et al 2000:46). Different sorts of museums that you can visit are
- General municipal museums
- Specialised museums such as social history, national history, transport and science.
There are many different categories that museums fall in to due to their different collections that the museums provide like
- Archaeology
- Art and Design
- Transport
- Maritime
- Natural History
- Science and technology
- National Collections
- World Cultures
- Coins and Medals
- Music.
Sports and Physical Recreation
The sports and physical recreation covers a wide range of activites and facilities, events, products and services.
Swimming Pools
Most swimming pools are based indoors around the UK, which are all nearly provided by the public sector. Inn 1998 it was estimated that there was roughly 1,400 public indoor swimming pools and a further 3,500 pools in schools (Outhart et al 2000:51). In the recent years there has been a great increase in the amount of pools for leisure with flumes, chutes and wave machines, islands and water rapids. So this attracts more people to go to the pools and also there will be more children using them.
The private sector is also developing swimming pools and health and fitness clubs for their customers to use while staying at a hotel.
Sports Centres
Public sector and local authorities and schools mainly own the sports centres. Sports centres vary in size and what facilities they have for the public to use. They usually contain a sports hall, but some places that have had more money often have a climbing wall, squash courts, weights rooms and social areas like bars cafes and function room.
Most sports centres provide different things for the public like
- Sports activites
- Lessons and classes for different groups and people.
- Functions such as parties wedding receptions
- Food and drink
- Special rates for members and/or groups
- Purchase and hire of equipment.
Health and Fitness Centres
People have become more aware of the risk of being over weight and unfit, as people are becoming more health conscious, which means the demand for health, and fitness centres have being under a bigger demand.
Private health and fitness centres often contain
- Weight rooms
- Exercise bikes
- Treadmills
- Rowing machines
Some places also have
- Saunas
- Jacuzzis
- Steam rooms
- Massage
- Aromatherapy
- Beauty therapy
There was around 2,200 private health and fitness clubs in the UK. (Outhart et al 2000:52).
Large hotel chains like Shire Inns have developed there own fitness, suites as part of service free to their guests. There has also being a great increase in the number of people using health farms and country clubs have become more popular for a more health awareness population.
The two largest fitness operators are Whitbread and First Fitness they are dedicated to health and fitness clubs in the UK.
Healthtrack group and the opening of several new David Lloyd clubs towards the end of 1999 it had broken through the 200,000member barrier for the first time. (Outhart et al 2000:53).
(Outhart et al 2000:54)
This table shows the amount of members the leading operators of UK health and fitness clubs had in December 1999. There had been a great increase in the demand for health and fitness places across the country so at this time it was at one of its high points.
Local Sports Clubs and Associations
Local sport clubs are often run in the voluntary sector. It is estimated that there is 150,000 voluntary sports clubs in Britain, and there is about 400 national governing bodies of sport.
Some communities form their own sports association that provides a different of activites for people to do. Some villages have there own sports associations as they provide facilities for cricket, football, hockey, tennis and bowls. Many places also provide a bar, function room and meeting rooms. The majority of these places run on a non-profit basis and are in the voluntary sector organisation.
Sports Spectating
Sports are spectated all around the world. In the UK the most popular sport to be spectated is Football and Rugby League. Rugby union and, cricket, golf, motor racing and horse racing draw large crowds of spectators.
Through the last few years’ facilities have been re developed to provide a better service for both participants and spectators. Sports stadias are now used for multi purpose leisure activites.
Old Trafford Manchester United Football Stadium has also hosted the rugby league and pop concerts before. The stadium has developed by increasing its capacity and making it an all-seater facility. They have also increased the amount of car parking so they can get more people to the place. It also has a football museum and has a place for conference exhibitions and private functions.
Heritage Sites and Attractions
Heritage sites and attractions can range from centuries-old historic sites and castles. Places which have some heritage is far reaching and consists of:
- Historic buildings, e.g. Windsor Castle
- Historic Cities and Towns, e.g. Bath, York
- Places with historic literary and cultural associations, e.g. Elgar and Malvern, Dickens and Rochester
- Cultural Collections, e.g. Royal Armouries
- Historic landscape, e.g. Historic parks and gardens
- Industrial heritage, e.g. Ironbridge
- Local traditions and cultures, e.g. Morris Dancing
- Pageantry, e.g. Changing of the guard.
(Outhart et al 2000:56)
Visiting our heritage is one of the most important parts of the leisure and recreation industry. It is estimated that the heritage attracts over 50 million visitors in 1998.
There are around 450,000 historic buildings in the Unites Kingdom.
Local authorities, like the national trust and English heritage are all involved in keeping historic buildings and places maintained and preserved. About a third of the historic places in the UK are owned by the private or voluntary sector organisation.
Heritage experience attractions
The English heritage has also got places where you can go and get involved in the way things used to be done. The Jorvik Viking Centre York offer an experience through technology based techniques such as interactive displays, sounds, and smells, rides and animation.
These sorts of places are run in the private sector because there isn’t enough money in the voluntary and public sector for them to run.
Catering
Catering and hospitality and accommodation are an industry that is closely linked to the Leisure and recreation industry. Most leisure and recreation facilities include some sort of catering for example
- Sports centres – bars, cafes, meeting rooms
- Cinemas – bars, snacks and confectionery shops
- Theme parks – restaurants, bars, accommodation
- Swimming pools – vending machines, cafes
- Sports stadia – conference and reception facilities, restaurants
- Social clubs – bars, restaurants, reception facilities.
(Outhart et al 2000:58)
All sectors of the industry provide some sort of catering service for people to use publicly or some places can be booked for private use. In 1998 there was around 44,500 restaurants, cafes and take away food shops in the UK. These places made over £13.5 billion, (Outhart et al 2000:58).
How ever it is mainly the private sector, which has a businesses in the catering industry.
Catering Facilities
There is a very large amount of catering facilities with in the United Kingdom. The place we can eat range from an expensive restaurants like a la carte restaurants, to self-service cafeterias, burger bars, pizza hoses and takeaways.
Both restaurants and take-away markets have grown and they still are growing with in the UK. It is due to the increasing popularity of ethnic restaurants and take-aways with in the UK. In 1997 the largest proportion of food was in pub meals.
