A More Tenable Marketing for Leisure Services and Studies

Abstract

The integration of marketing principles and practices into leisure services and studies over the past 25 years has been met with significant confusion and skepticism. Recent theoretical re-conceptualizations of public leisure services marketing suggest that a new marketing philosophy is needed to guide marketing efforts in this context. This paper argues that social marketing, previously largely ignored in the leisure literature, offers a perspective more consistent with the mandate of public leisure services. An explicit goal of the essay is to clarify confusion surrounding marketing and to describe a more tenable philosophy so that a wider range of subdisciplines in leisure services and studies might take advantage of some or all of the beneficial aspects of marketing.

Keywords:

• management
• public benefits
• public good
• social marketing
• public sector

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Bill Stewart, Heather Mair, Mark Havitz, Dawn Trussell, and the rest of the University of Waterloo Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies' pizza lunch club for their insightful comments on an earlier version of this paper. Also, many thanks are owed to three very knowledgeable reviewers. All errors, omissions, and opinions are the sole responsibility of the author.