LEISURE INDUSTRY AND ITS VALUE FOR REGIONAL SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

Free time and forms of its spending, rather than material things, increasingly become one of the central values of the modern person. Researchers use different terms to define free time: leisure, recreation, entertainment, etc. Leisure is an inherent component of a person vital activity, and leisure industry became one of the most profitable types of economic activity. Thus leisure industry should become the prior economic sector in our country and needs more detail research.
Leisure industry consists of the set of different business entities (leisure institutions) providing services aimed at fulfilling person’s needs in free time from work. The institutions list of leisure industry is quite big. It causes the necessity of their classification. Therefore, by the level of involvement in leisure activities all leisure institutions are divided into 3 groups, providing leisure services as an additional, main or peripheral activity respectively. Among institutions providing leisure services as the main activity, functional sub-groups are sports, entertainment, cultural, educational, and spectator institutions. Other classification criteria are visitor’s age, administrative-territorial status, accessibility, period of functioning, ownership, capacity, cost, service level, establishment time, visitor behavior, etc.
Leisure industry has significant influence on economic and social development of a country and its regions.