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Policies & Strategies: Leisure and Events for preferable futures

Leisure, Cultural Tourism, Events and the City: Reflections on the work and life of Greg Richards

Blended learning for an educational event in a leisure context: impact on the participants’ experience.

This paper contributes to the blended learning paradigm for educational events in a leisure context, where organisers and participants can no longer rely on a linear approach for knowledge transfer and learning (Robinson, 2011; Giacalone, 2001) in a non-linear world (Castells, 2000). With the design of meaningful experiences at the core of Leisure Studies and of Events as their sub-field (Richards, G., Marques, L. & Mein, K., 2016), it is appropriate to investigate experiential learning and the role of blended learning in the participants’ experience, in a leisure context. The qualitative methodology focuses on in-depth, semi-structured interviews held with students enrolled in leisure studies and tourism management programmes who took part in the World Leisure international field school, which takes place biennially as a satellite event to the World Leisure Congress. The findings indicate that constructing a tailored blended learning experience in an educational event within a leisure context has a positive impact on the participants’ learning experience and knowledge transfer, extending it in terms of time and spaces. This research has relevant implications for practitioners, academics and designers targeting blended learning environments in educational events in leisure-related contexts.

Events in the network society : the role of pulsar and iterative events

This conceptual article argues for a broader view of the role of events in social systems. When analyzed as social phenomena, events can be seen as social actors that have the potential to both sustain and transform social systems. The maintenance of social systems is often reliant on iterative events, regularly occurring celebrations that tend to confirm social structures. In contrast, pulsar events have the potential to transform social structures. In this sense events can be seen as actors that have important influences on social systems, particularly in linking localized small world networks with the global space of flows. These ideas are explored through the case of Barcelona, which illustrates the interplay between these different types of events in their total portfolio, and how the extension of ritual in the sense of Collins can also contribute to the generation of new relationships and practices in the contemporary network society. Barcelona is examined as an eventful city in which the alternation of continuity through iterative events and change through pulsar events contributes to increasing the network effects of events.

Advocating for leisure globally : the world leisure organization and events

Role of creativity in educating leisure and events professionals