The scale and Significance of the leisure and recreation industry.

Authors Avatar

Ryan McAllister

Assignment 1; The scale and Significance of the leisure and recreation industry.

  1. Consumer Spending:

Consumer spending on the leisure has risen since the 1970s dramatically in actual fact it has risen since 1971 to 1996 by 95 per cent. Britain has finally entered the leisure age. Spending on leisure goods and services has for the first time replaced out lay on food, housing or any other single element of the weekly family budget. According to the office for the national statistics. the figures that were produced on the 10th of November 1999 show that £60 a week was spent on leisure which is £3 more then 3 years ago, the closest behind this is the spending on food and none-alcoholic drinks running at £59 a week and housing at £57 a week. The consumer spending is widely varied in the leisure and recreation industry. The definition of leisure is the time that an individual sets aside for activities or pastimes out side work or other necessities such a sleeping. The definition of recreation is the type of activities undertaken for enjoyment or relaxation during a person’s leisure time.leasiur3 can be a number of things like reading, sport, cinema, going to the pub, or just hobbies in general below shows the money spent on some leisure activities in 1993 and 2003 in billions of pounds.

Assignment 2

The development of the leisure and recreation industry

Socio-economic and technological developments , together with changing consumer needs have combined to produce today’s huge consumer demand for leisure and recreation products and services this is down to many different factors which are explained below.

  • The increase in leisure time available for many in individuals

Since the 1960s the UK leisure and recreation industry has experienced huge growth in the consumer spending and product development. There are many different factors that have combined to produce this increase. Time is essential ingredient of all forms of leisure and recreation. Many people thing that the increase in since the 1960s has been due to the expansion in the amount of free time that people have available for free time however research shows that this can not be justified.

The table above shows that over the 25 year period between to 1996 total leisure time rose only by 10% however spending on leisure per person rose by 85% over the same period, so despite the increase in consumer spending on leisure the amount of time spent on leisure time per person has only rose by 0.2 per cent per year. The main reasons why leisure has increased up to the 1970s were increasing amounts of paid annual holiday entitlement and a gradual reduction in the weekly hours worked by the majority of workers. However since the 1970s there are factors that have had a greater influence on the availability of leisure time pursuits such as flexible work patterns, widespread use of labour-saving devices in the home, and increasing numbers of unemployment and retired in the population.

The most significant changes in the distribution of free time in the UK since the early 1970s arise from shifts in the population age structure and the extent to which different elements of the population participate in the paid employment, rather then changes in the average weekly working hours and holidays.

  • increase in disposable income

The main factor behind the development of the leisure and recreation industry since the 1960s is the major rise in affluence in the UK and other western countries. As standards of living have risen free time has been used in a much money-intensive way then in the past. The amounts of money people spend on leisure depend on the money they have left after they have brought necessary goods such as food. The money left after buying necessarily goods is refereed to as personal disposable income or household disposable income. Government research shows that the average UK house hold spends £51.60 per week on leisure goods and services out of a total average expenditure of £313.70. This represents 16 per cent of there weekly budget. The amount of average weekly spending devoted to leisure is second only to food which has 18% leisure goods and services has 16% along with housing motoring and fares. There has been a major increase on consumer spending on leisure since 1970s leisure rose by 96% between 1971-1996. Leisure spending per person increased by 89% and it is predicted that by 2003 consumer spending in the UK on home base4d and away from home leisure will total £179 billion representing 25.8 per cent of all consumers spending.

The UK has benefited from improved mobility since the 1960s due to advances in transport technology. Most people now have access to efficient transport networks which have made leasire and recreation facilities, products services and events much more readily accessible. The main transport factor that has led to increase in leisure is the increase in car owner ship since the 1970s, since many leisure facilities rely on attracting people form a wide area the increase of car ownership has helped and increased the number of people being able to attend the leisure facilities.

There is no an estimate that there are over 20 million privately owned cars in the UK this means that that over 705 of households in the UK have access to at least 1 car, also 20% of households in thee UK have 2 cars this means that if 1 car is used to go to work then it is still possible for another remember of the household to get to some leisure facilities in the second car  this rise in car ownership has led to the increase in leisure facilities being used, days out being undertaken, a detractions being visited like theme parks, museums, country parks and sports staid.

      The demographic factors concerning the size, age structure and distribution of the population have influenced the development of the leisure and recreation industry. In generally since the 1970s people have been leading healthier lifestyles this combined with people improving there levels of health care has meant that  life expectance has continued to rise thus means that there are increasing numbers of retired people who have lots of free time in which they can pursue leisure activities , another noticeable trend in the UK since the 1970s is the falling birth rate consequently while population has increased due longer life expectancy the proportion of children in the UK population has decreased

Join now!

     The age distribution within the UK population can affect demand for the certain types of leisure product of service. The ageing population is beneficial to attendances at museums, art galleries, historic buildings and gardens. government predictions for the period 1994-2002 show that the UK population will grow by just 2per cent in which there are a quite significant decreases in rates of growth, and in some key age groups are set to decline in number among the child population, the number of children aged four and under is set to contract, to a lesser extent so is the ...

This is a preview of the whole essay