II. Common Areas in Recreation, Sports and Tourism
Dr. Győri Ferenc
Recreation, as an academic problem, became an autonomous research area at a relatively later date. Its most important features were first explained with the terminology and within the system of notions and paradigms of other academic disciplines, including leisure time sociology and recreational geopgraphy. The situation was the same with sports. Sports research first developed within the framework of other academic disciplines and it was only at the beginning of the 21st century that sports science was declared an autonomous academic discipline. (Bognár 2009). Rearch into tourism was launched earlier, because its area was clearly identified by geographers as early as the beginning of the 20th century. Tourism thus had a well-defined place on the border between human and physical geography. At the same time, the growing popularity of tourism, its increasing economic significance, as well as its becoming a mass phenomenon were all features, that have made it a multi-faceted and complex research topic. (Aubert 2002). Actually all the three previously mentioned areas have become central topics in academic research when due to the developments of civilization and urbanization the relationship between humans and nature has been changed forever. The proportion of people who wanted to build a relationship with nature only temporarily, has been on the increase, and the harmful effects of modern life have become increasingly manifest. (Kozmanovics 1989).
The self-definition and the emergence of the science of recreation (recreology, leisure sciences), sports science (sport sciences), and the science of tourism (tourismology) as autonomous academic disciplines were actually answers to the process of the differentiation of academic disciplines and social challenges. Today these academic areas integrate both natural and social sciences, they synthetize them into one new discipline and they are considered transdisciplinary areas. They use the terminology and the symbolism of several other disciplines.
On the other hand the ambitions and terminological disputes to legitimize the previously mentioned academic areas as autonomous disciplines have misinterpreted several issues onesidedly. Polemies beginning with the questions words: Where do these terms belong? Where are the boundaries? What is the exact term?, lead to uncertainties in our days as well. Current problems include questions like: Is tourism part of recreation? Where are the boundaries of recreational sports? Is there such a phenomenon as sports recreation?
The main cause of dilemmas is that recreation, sports and tourism are all parts of universal human culture and as such they share a lot of common characteristics. They have many similarities concerning their aims, development, as well as the tools they use. In short, they have more features in common than differences. It is especially true when considering interdisciplinary areas, like sports tourism or recreational sports. All these areas are potential parts of people’s lifestyle and they include optional human activities deriving from people’s somatic and psychological needs, and which are aimed at the renewal of physical and intellectual energies. All these three interdisciplinary areas have health sociological and psychological effects and they are part of those social activtiies, which are closely related to the geographical (natural and humanl) environment. An equally important aspect is that at the higher level of social development these areas become mass activities and – through related industrial and service activites – they speed up the economic development of the given country by creating jobs, stimulating markets and by increasing income. Recreation, sports and tourism are intertwined in a way that their services are offered within the same infrastructure. In common thinking the three areas are often confused, and, it is not rare either that they are used interchangeably by specialist literature as well. (Mitchell, Smith 1985).