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Highly involved amateur athletes may pursue an event travel career (ETC) characterized by progression in their event and travel preferences and behaviours. However, pursuing an ETC requires individuals to address competing priorities which emerge between their everyday commitments—such as family, career, social life, and domestic responsibilities—and their ETC aspirations. To date, the concept of competing priorities, as an alternate theorisation to leisure constraints has been developed using qualitative approaches. The aim of this study was to identify, organise and define relevant constructs to develop a new quantitative instrument for scholars to evaluate competing priorities and an individual’s use of constraint negotiation strategies generally and to maintain ETC involvement. We present the process—from theory development and definition to the creation of the competing priority scales (CPS). Future research suggestions and uses of the CPS are provided along with practical implications.

Purpose Recognising tourists’ increasing desire for authentic destination-specific experiences, the hospitality industry has responded by increasing provision of innovative culinary activities. This study aims to use the concepts of serious leisure and terroir to examine how knowledge, physical environment and service quality influence co-creation within the culinary tourism context. Design/methodology/approach Following cooking class participation, 575 domestic Iranian tourists were surveyed. These educational classes provide opportunities to learn about local foods alongside peers in an interactive setting. Consistent with the benefits of serious leisure, this consumption context could prove conducive to stimulating co-creation. Findings Prior knowledge strongly influences tourists’ reflective and recreational motives for participation (i.e. the benefits of serious leisure). This shapes how tourists evaluate physical environments and service quality therein; influencing value co-creation and supporting serious leisure as the conceptual lens through which to understand experiential culinary consumption. Research limitations/implications The proposed conceptual model was tested on domestic tourists following class participation. However, in suggesting that visually-stimulating, tactile premises with the olfactory appeal can encourage co-created experiences, the findings are relevant to service touch-point management more generally. Originality/value Recognizing the influential role played by the physical and social aspects of experiential consumption, the serious leisure framework improves an extant understanding of value co-creation.

Serious leisure can have a positive impact on wellbeing, defined by six attributes: perseverance, significant personal effort, career, durable benefits, strong identity, and unique ethos. There are hundreds of airshows organized annually, yet the pilots are under-researched in event tourism research. This study examines pilots’ activity through content (online reviews, videos) and semiotic (photos) analyses. Findings show pilots demonstrate the six attributes of serious leisure. Because flying is a highly invested and specialized leisure pursuit, and requires ongoing commitment marked by distinct levels of accomplishment, pilots’ sense of identity, networks, wellbeing, and quality of life are all enhanced through flying. The study establishes a foundation for future studies on pilots as serious leisure travelers at airshows, and generates useful implications for marketing airshows to pilots. It also discusses the context of contemporary discourses that advance the serious leisure paradigm.

PurposeDrawing on a framework of Job Demands-Resources (JD-R), the purpose of this paper is to conceptually develop and empirically validate a moderated mediation model of serious leisure and workplace well-being.Design/methodology/approachThe data were collected between December 2020 and March 2021 using an online questionnaire. A total of 225 completed questionnaires were received from employees in India who graduated between 2018 and 2020.FindingsThe authors’ findings indicate that serious leisure is positively associated with workplace well-being and that the relationship is mediated by self-perceived employability. Stress moderates the relationship between serious leisure and self-perceived employability in such a way that the association is stronger when levels of stress are higher. Stress also moderates the mediating effect of self-perceived employability on the relationship between serious leisure and workplace well-being such that the indirect effect of serious leisure on workplace well-being is stronger when levels of stress are higher.Originality/valueTheoretical implications come from drawing on leisure studies literature to differentiate casual leisure and serious leisure. The concept of serious leisure is subsequently integrated into the human resource management literature to explore the relationship between serious leisure, self-perceived employability, stress, and workplace well-being. Practical and policy implications suggest how universities and organisations can support their students and early careers talent by encouraging them to participate in serious leisure activities.

Entrepreneurs play a crucial role in fostering innovation and fuelling economic growth. China has recently sought to increase entrepreneurial intention in university students by providing entrepreneurship education based on the model deployed by universities in Western cultures. Additionally, a longstanding challenge for universities has been the wellbeing of their students. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated this issue, leading to enhancing the wellbeing of university students being declared a global priority. Consequently, by drawing on a framework of conservation of resources theory, the purpose of this paper is to conceptually develop and empirically validate a model for enhancing entrepreneurial intention and wellbeing in university students. The data were collected in December 2022 and January 2023. A total of 952 undergraduate students completed the questionnaire, with 476 responses from China and 476 from the UK. Findings indicate (i) positive associations between self-perceived academic performance and individual entrepreneurial intention, whereby self-perceived employability mediates the relationship, (ii) positive associations between serious leisure and wellbeing, whereby self-perceived employability mediates the relationship, and (iii) the country moderates the association between (a) serious leisure and wellbeing, and (b) serious leisure and self-perceived employability, whereby the association is stronger for China than for the UK. The theoretical contribution comes from constructing and empirically validating a model, evidencing alignment and divergence by country concerning acquiring specific personal resources via self-perceived academic performance, serious leisure, and self-perceived employability. Practical and policy implications arise from suggesting how higher education institutions can support their students to enhance individual entrepreneurial intention and wellbeing. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).

Amateur athletes invest a lot of effort, time, and money on participating in events such as marathons and bike races. The aim of the study is to explore whether this increases their subjective well-being (SWB). The study addresses both what contributes to SWB and the effects of SWB for participants in large-scale sport events. More than 7,000 sport event participants responded to surveys including measures of sociodemographics, participation in sport events, perceptions of quality and satisfaction of the event, behavioral intentions, and SWB. Building on theories of SWB and serious leisure, hypotheses linked to the causes and effects of SWB are explored. Results show that sociodemographics, past relational activities, and past event participation influence SWB. Furthermore, with higher SWB the sport event participants are more satisfied, perceive a higher quality, and are more likely to participate in future events. These are proposed to be effects of SWB. For sports clubs and event organizers the results help inform marketing efforts before, during, and after events. In particular, if participants with serious leisure careers are identified.

In this article, the social world perspective (SWP) is discussed to address the concern that current serious leisure (SL) studies focus predominantly on individual experiences while overlooking the broader sociocultural context. In addition to using SWP to identify how social organization and process shape a leisure world and its members' experiences, the fluidity of SWP indicates the need to explore social changes in a leisure world, underlying situations, and the influences of individuals' and groups' actions on social changes. SL experiences and qualities in those situations may be performed differently or innovatively by enthusiasts to legitimize and sustain their or their group's status in a leisure world. Those diverse and innovative actions, in turn, can enrich a leisure world. This study reveals that SWP is a useful tool for conceptualizing the social aspect of SL.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to reconsider the role of the body in information in serious leisure by reviewing existing work in information behaviour that theorises the role of the body, and by drawing selectively on literature from beyond information studies to extend our understanding. Design/methodology/approach After finding a lack of attention to the body in most influential works on information behaviour, the paper identifies a number of important authors who do offer theorisations. It then explores what can be learnt by examining studies of embodied information in the hobbies of running, music and the liberal arts, published outside the discipline. Findings Auto-ethnographic studies influenced by phenomenology show that embodied information is central to the hobby of running, both through the diverse sensory information the runner uses and through the dissemination of information by the body as a sign. Studies of music drawing on the theory of embodied cognition, similarly suggest that it is a key part of amateur music information behaviour. Even when considering the liberal arts hobby, the core activity, reading, has been shown to be in significant ways embodied. The examples reveal how it is not only in more obviously embodied leisure activities such as sports, in which the body must be considered. Research limitations/implications Embodied information refers to how the authors receive information from the senses and the way the body is a sign that can be read by others. To fully understand this, more empirical and theoretical work is needed to reconcile insights from practice theory, phenomenology, embodied cognition and sensory studies. Originality/value The paper demonstrates how and why the body has been neglected in information behaviour research, reviews current work and identifies perspectives from other disciplines that can begin to fill the gap.

It seems that people’s quality of life can be positively influenced through bicycle tourism. Bicycle tourism can be an effective measure to enhance serious leisure, tourism satisfaction, and quality of life. To verify this empirically, a survey was conducted of bicycle tourists who visited Qinghai Lake in China during an international road bike race. The purpose of the present research is to prove the association between latent variables related to bicycle tourism through statistical analysis. For this, hypothetical relationships based on tourism motivation, serious leisure, tourism satisfaction, and quality of life were presented as research models. As a result of empirical analysis, it was analyzed that friends and nature had an effect on serious leisure among the motivation of bicycle tourism. In addition, it was found that the level of serious leisure for bicycle tourism exerted a positive influence on the satisfaction and quality of life. This suggests that bicycle tourism can improve the quality of life during travel to Qinghai lake by bicycle and revealed the crucial role in relationships is serious leisure.

PurposeReligious and secular pilgrimages present rich opportunities for investigating information activities in an original and intriguing context. While the Information Science community has previously shown interest in digital expressions of religion and spirituality, discussion on pilgrimage is at a nascent stage. The purpose of this study is to conduct an in situ investigation of how pilgrims record, curate, and share their experiences.Design/methodology/approachA field ethnography was conducted while walking with, observing and interviewing pilgrims along the Camino de Santiago, a popular European pilgrimage and UNESCO World Heritage route. Data collected from 25 semi-structured interviews and participant observations were thematically analysed within a theoretical framework combining Stebbins' contemplation and Nature Challenge Activity in serious leisure and Hektor's model of information behaviour.FindingsThis study expands the interpretation of pilgrimage by introducing new insights into pilgrims, different types of mobilities, spaces and objects, and social interactions. By using field ethnography and close-up observations of praxis, pilgrimage is analysed as a socio-technical process and discussed literature within and beyond Information Science. The work presents new understandings of the interplay between spirituality, embodied information practices, physical and online social interactions, analogue and digital media before, during and after these journeys and legacy aspirations.Originality/valueThe study is original in its combination of theoretical models and their ethnographic in situ application. It contributes to a more in-depth, in-the-field understanding of how pilgrims document their experiences via a rich palette of old and new media, the dynamics of using digital technologies during such physical and inner journeys and pilgrims' sharing practices. Implications for serious leisure and information practices are discussed, from theoretical to practical challenges and opportunities offered by pilgrimage experiences.