Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
In other words, Coppock and Duffield (1975) acknowledged the need to recognise the
interrelationship between human demand as participation or a desire to engage in
recreation and tourism, and the supply of resources, facilities and opportunities which
enable such demand to be fulfilled. The concepts of demand and supply have largely
been developed and applied to conventional market economies, where the individual has
a choice related to the consumption of recreation and tourism (for a discussion of these
issues in the former Soviet Union, see Vendenin 1978; D.J.Shaw 1979; Riordan 1982).
As Roberts et al. (2001) show, since the 1980s the former Soviet Union (now Russian
Federation) has gone from one of the most equal societies to one of the most unequal, but
leisure does make a significant contribution to the Russian quality of life, despite
inequalities in leisure provision. In numerous reviews of Soviet geography in the post-
war period, the impact and influence of Russian research has been deemed to have had
little impact on the development of geography internationally (excluding theoretical
debates on Soviet ideology and Marxism). Yet within the field of leisure and recreation,
there has been a strong tradition of the study of leisure demand and an ongoing interest in
leisure phenomenon as various studies attest (Nefedova and Zemlianoi 1997;
Tchistiakova and Pabanne 1997; Ioffe and Nefedova 2001; Kruzhalin 2002) as well as
wider social science contributions such as Gvozdeva's (1999) study exploring the
expansion of women's leisure time in post-communist Russia.
According to Smith (1989):
Recreation geographers use the work [demand] in at least four different
ways. The most traditional sense is a neoclassical definition: demand is a
schedule of the quantities of some commodity that will be consumed at
various prices…. A second definition of demand is that of current
consumption [which] is of limited utility to recreation planners because it
tells nothing about trends in participation or about current levels of unmet
need. Demand is also used to refer to unmet need. This is sometimes
referred to as latent demand. …Finally, demand is used to describe the
desire for a psychological experience.
(S.L.J.Smith 1989:45)
In contrast, Patmore (1983:54) acknowledges, 'leisure is far more easily recognised than
objectively analysed…the difficulties are only in part conceptual: equally important are
the nature and limitations of available data', which this section will seek to explain in a
recreation context.
According to Pigram (1983) there is a general lack of clarity in the use of the term
demand
in the recreational literature. One can distinguish between demand at a generic
level, where it refers to an 'individual's preferences or desires, whether or not the
individual has the economic or other resources necessary for their satisfaction' (Pigram
1983:16) reflecting behavioural traits and preference for certain activities. At another
level, there are the specific activities or participation in activities often expressed as
visitation rates and measured to reflect the actual observed behaviour. One factor that
prevents observed demand equating with participation is the concept of latent demand
(the element which is unsatisfied due to a lack of recreational opportunities). Knetsch
(1969) identified the mismatch and confusion between participation and demand, arguing
