Philosophy of Tourism and its inner self

As a synonym for frivolity leisure activities are considered as the things we do when we don’t have anything useful to do. The concept is mostly anything done slowly, ploddingly or inefficiently is described as doing it in a leisurely manner. While definition of leisure (Oxford English Dictionary), “the freedom or opportunity to do something specified or implied,” should alert us that leisure is extraordinarily important. “Something specified or implied” can be any action whatever. This definition puts the word Leisure to a higher degree of generality which remind us that leisure is a fundamental of action.

Aristotle’s view was that Leisure is the first principle of all actions. According to him “We are busy just because we have Leisure and conceptualised leisure is the goal of busy-ness, of what we call labor.” Aristotle is a philosopher with the view that leisure is a fundamental human value and leisure is time available for action.

The unfortunate definition of leisure as time off work is like defining money as a commodity which can be exchanged for useless luxuries. We can grasp the full significance of leisure only when we recognise it as a time to devote the mental and physical powers to an action for a period of time, like to devote life to that action for that time.

Formally, leisure is an individual human life as measured by time and informally leisure is the time of life. Since life is a value, Leisure also has a value and leisure is life itself.

Many people find leisure expression in work or in functional, goal-directed activities, often looked upon in our early history as work, while others now work at what was actually play.

The growth of technology, communications, transportation and mobility has increased satisfaction of the lower echelon needs. As neophiliac animals, people always seek to challenge the ability and are tempted to test their abilities once their basic needs are met. Since 1955, the economic growth coupled with political freedom and choice of life styles has provided the setting for the development of the modern concept of leisure.

According to the modern concept leisure, which is not mere time, is a state of being in which the individual has to do things, mostly on self-actualization and is engaged in the recognition of one’s responsibilities and relationships to one’s fellow being.

Our concepts of leisure have been far too narrow. Between 1890 and 1930, providing leisure services means planning of organized and structured activities. We have learned to believe that leisure means some identifiable activity like music, art, dance and drama in an organized behavior is needed to be in a leisure state.

We have compartmentalised the personal expression and self-actualization in separate boxes. Leisure state is personal, intrinsic, and an individual happening; the satisfaction level attained by one must discover for oneself in which situations these state of mind occur. It is truly a unique task to provide worthwhile leisure opportunities for the masses of our population not just today but in future also.

Sometimes we have to face more complex conditions than previous civilizations, but we have more resources to deal with the socio-economic variables that condition our use of leisure.

Many researches provide helpful information to clarify objectives and to formulate basic concepts of leisure and how to collaborate it with the term ‘Tourism’, which is relatively modern in origin. It is distinguishable by its mass character from the travel undertaken in the past.

Tourism Industry players should have basic knowledge of this behavior and should have clear notes to predict about it for the future as it is crucial before the decisions of leisure choices and opportunities and its type, location and character are taken.

Rajani. A

Editor