Thoughts about the Theoretical Approach of Recreation, Sport and Tourism

Abstract

Despite the fact that recreational activities – like many other activities evolv-ing in parallel with the social development of humans – are as old as mankind, recreation, as a topic for academic interpretation and research was justified only at a relatively late date in the history of sciences. Recreation, according to recent terminology used by researchers is the culture of how humans spend their free time; it relates to active recreation, the creation of well-being, the res- toration of people’s abilities to work, as well as the preservation and improve- ment of their good health. My study is aimed at elaborating on and rethinking the relationship between recreation, sport and tourism by the help of a desk research. As a result of the investigtion it can be state that recreation needs to be considered a complex phenomenon which is based on a variety of elements taken from various symbolical domains. At the same time it is also evident that recreational activities cannot be simplistically identified by using parameters of one or another symbolical domain. What needs to be considered instead is the complex recreational experience as well as the person, fully engaged in and enjoying the recreational activity in question. Recreation sport and tourism all have a lot of common attributes, moreover, the same activity occasionally might belong to all three entities. They also have a lot to share concerning their ori- gin; they all might be described as cultural phenomena, and, at the same time, they also play a prominent role in economy.