• Canada
• 050212 sport, leisure & tourism close

Organisational culture is known as the values, beliefs and basic assumptions that are guided by leaders and shared by employees, and that explain “how things are done around here.” Organisational culture has primarily been viewed as an internal phenomenon, having an impact on staff behaviour and attitudes, and ultimately influencing organisational performance. Yet, it has more recently been conceptualised as a factor in shaping a company's image in the marketplace. This study examined the external perception of organisational culture according to clients of one company in the Canadian fitness industry. Findings showed that clients’ perception of organisational culture was significantly associated with their satisfaction and intent to stay with that fitness organisation.

Quebec, like other Canadian provinces, is dealing with sedentary lifestyle problems affecting its youth. Several recent studies have suggested that good-quality spatial planning regarding recreational and sporting facilities helps to increase the level of physical activity youth undertake. However, this correlation also intermingles with spatial elements linked to the living environments of youth (urban, suburban, and rural), and this study was conducted from this perspective. It aims to analyze the spatial planning quality of recreation and sports facilities in the regional county municipality of Joliette according to youth aged between 12 and 17, and, concomitantly, identify the perceptions of local actors working or involved with youth regarding these spatial planning elements. Through 16 focus groups, this study brings to light the key elements for making the proximity of leisure and sporting venues attractive to adolescents, namely accessibility, animation, and multifunctionality.

The proliferation of empirical research on immigrants’ leisure constraints as restrictive and negative, which is implicitly based on discourses that present particular leisure forms and practices as positive and desirable, has provided scholars with a limited understanding of constraints. In contrast, Foucault's understanding of constraints as necessary for any social practice suggests that power acts as a constraint on action in a way that is never wholly inhibiting. Indeed, from a Foucauldian perspective, constraints make many leisure actions and experiences possible. Thus constraints must be seen as both inhibiting and enabling individuals’ actions. This paper offers a critical Foucauldian review of constraints research to demonstrate how multicultural citizenship discourses in Canada both inhibit and enable immigrants’ leisure pursuits.

Places like zoos, where free-choice learning is encouraged, are important for conveying climate change and sustainability issues to the public. Free-choice learning that targets environmentally focused sustainable behavior changes must be meaningful in order to encourage actual behavior change post-visit. However, visitors often fail to translate their learning into behavior change after a visit. This research explores the role of post-visit action resources (PVARs) in facilitating long-term learning for individual environmental sustainability after a visit to the Leatherdale International Polar Bear Conservation Centre in Winnipeg’s Assiniboine Park Zoo in Manitoba, Canada. An embedded mixed-methods research design used personal meaning maps and follow-up interviews to measure free-choice learning; data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Findings revealed that the PVARs positively affected free-choice learning after an on-site visit to the zoo. Recommendations and implications a...

Existing literature on the commodification of punishment has yet to examine small penal history museums or related issues of tourism marketing, networking, and souvenirs. Bringing this literature into conversation with tourism studies, we examine how penal history sites attempt to attract visitors and generate revenue to sustain their operations. Drawing on findings from a 5-year qualitative study of penal history museums across Canada, we argue tourism operators use three strategies for the marketing of commodified punishment: authenticity, historical specificity, and exclusiveness. Our findings also indicate that networking between these sites is underdeveloped and that the souvenirs sold to visitors are an important source of museum funding. Overall, we show that the concepts of marketing, networking, and souvenirs can comprise a key conceptual framework for examining consumption in small tourism enterprises in Canada and internationally. Our findings also raise questions about how to theorize and investigate museum management, solvency, and profitability in the penal and dark tourism sector.

High-harmonic spectroscopy is a powerful tool for probing the electronic structure of atoms and molecules in gases. Experiments now show that similar emission from solids has a different origin.

Accelerated growth of tourism in the Kullu District of Himachal Pradesh in the Himalaya over the past decade has had substantial impact on the local society, economy and environment. Based on research focused in Manali and environs over this period, growth, development and impacts are described and explained by the unusual geopolitical and other factors which pertain in this area. The analysis shows that the rapid rate of growth which occurred in the early- to mid-1990's has not continued, that the current level of tourism activity may not be sustainable, and that the physical and cultural attractions of the area are compromised by some of the impacts of tourism. The Kullu District contains spectacular mountain scenery and a fascinating cultural heritage with deep historical roots. For centuries it has attracted visitors and has catered to travellers and traders. From the beginning of the 1990's, violent conflict in Kashmir, upgrading of National Highway 21, improvement in communications, effective market...

OBJECTIVE We examined the demographic, medical and behavioral correlates of participation and interest in extreme sport/adventure activities (ESAA) in gynecologic cancer survivors. METHODS A random sample of 621 gynecologic cancer survivors in Alberta, Canada, completed a mailed self-report questionnaire assessing medical, demographic, and behavioral variables and participation and interest in ESAA. RESULTS Multivariate analyses revealed that gynecologic cancer survivors were more likely to participate in ESAA if they met aerobic exercise guidelines (OR=1.75 [95%CI:1.02-2.99]), had better general health (OR=1.71 [95%CI: 1.01-2.90]), had cervical or ovarian cancer (OR=1.95 [95%CI:0.97-3.93]), were employed (OR=1.71 [95%CI:0.95-3.08]), and were of healthy weight (OR=1.58 [95%CI:0.93-2.68]). Moreover, gynecologic cancer survivors were more likely to be interested in trying an ESAA if they had cervical or ovarian cancer (OR=1.76 [95%CI:0.94-3.27]) and were meeting the strength exercise guidelines (OR=1.68 [95%CI:0.95-2.98]). CONCLUSIONS Medical, demographic, and behavioral variables correlate with participation and interest in ESAA in gynecologic cancer survivors. The pattern of correlates suggests that gynecologic cancer survivors are more likely to participate in ESSA if they have the physical capability and financial resources. Interventions to promote ESAA in gynecologic cancer survivors need to address these 2 key barriers.

Sous forme de bilan des interventions menées en région dans le cadre des activités du Groupe de Recherche-Action en Muséologie à l’Université (GRAMUL), nous avons tenté par cet article de tirer sommairement les enseignements de terrain que cet exercice de praxis a autorisés. Ayant eu le mandat d’accompagner deux réseaux de musées au Québec (successivement en Sagamie et au Kamouraska) en vue de réfléchir avec les acteurs culturels du milieu muséal et patrimonial, nous avons, avec leur complicité, esquissé des perspectives d’avenir pour un horizon meilleur de fonctionnement. Cette recherche-action a d’abord permis de baliser le parcours de mise en réseau des musées en région en identifiant trois étapes de consolidation : l’esprit du lieu, les traces-témoins et la légende du pays. Une fois réalisée, il a fallu proposer un calibrage des forces en présence par une projection de spatialisation des spécialisations, question de faire écho plus fidèlement à la dynamique interne des réseaux constitués. Il reste maintenant à approfondir les divers aspects d’une muséologie tout-terrain que l’on pourrait énoncer pour les besoins du milieu dans une somme de principes applicables en micro-muséologie. By summarising interventions carried out in the region by Université Laval’s Research Action Group, this article draws on information about the region that this exercise in praxis has developed. Having worked with the two museum networks in Quebec (at Sagamie and Kamouraska) in order to reflect with the cultural actors of the museum and heritage circles, we jointly developed perspectives for a better working situation in the future. This action-research initiative enabled us to demarcate the museum systems in the region by identifying three stages in the consolidation process: the spirit of the area, the traces of evidence and the predominant legend of the region. Once these steps were carried out, it was necessary to reorganise the physical space in order to better reflect the internal dynamics of these systems. We now need to take a more careful look at the diverse aspects of an all-fields museology that could take into account the needs of the area in applying principles of micro-museology.

The purpose of this study was to examine (a) whether adolescents’ leisure-time sports participation is socially stratified, and (b) whether possible stratification patterns have changed over the last decades. The population for the study consisted of four random samples of high school boys and girls in Flanders who were exposed to a standardized questionnaire in 1969, 1979, 1989 or 1999. The results indicated that social back ground variables remain relevant to analyse constraints on leisure-time sports participation. Parental sports participation, gender and school programme still deter mine the respondents’ active involvement in sports. The impact of gender and school programme has intensified during the last decade. On the other hand, the adoles cents’ sports participation is no longer correlated with the socioeconomic status of the parents. Some explanations are discussed for linking the adolescents’ sports participation behaviour to the respondents’ social background.