ABSTRACT
Theories of motivation abound, and among them Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is helpful in exploring what it is that people are seeking from leisure and recreation. Behaviour is dependent on personality and environment (both biophysical and socioeconomic) and it is in these settings the manager can intervene. What distinguishes leisure from work is the freedom to choose, the activity, the place, the company, the intensity of physical, mental and emotional effort that is deployed. The end may be happiness, a search for meaning, or the journey itself. This is a matter for the participant. What we choose to do depends in part on the life stage we are involved in, as an individual, whether independent, dependent youngster, or with young or old dependants. Similarly, the amount of time we have available will reveal different opportunities. Our desires and the opportunities afforded will often have a relationship with natural periodicities or cycles, whether during the day, lunar month or year, even though technologically we can have a twenty-four-hour day.
