Notes

Active vs. Passive
Recreational activities can be both active and passive. Active activities include any type of sport, as well as hiking, rock climbing, and camping. Passive recreational activities include reading, playing and listening to music, gardening, playing computer games, or watching television. Recreation is a big part of our nation’s environment and an important component of maintaining personal well-being. People select recreational pursuits based on their interests and abilities.

Parks, Recreation, and Leisure Services
Government sponsored recreation such as parks, recreation, and leisure services depend on government funding to staff and keep these services running. Some of this is funded through income, sales and property taxes. In addition, the government also raises special revenue from related activities, such as automobile and recreational vehicles, boats, fuel, and transient occupancy taxes (TOTs) on hotel accommodations. Funds raised by these taxes are distributed to the various recreational and leisure organizations at the federal, state and local level.

National Parks
In 1916 Congress founded the National Parks Service to conserve park resources and provide for their use by the public in a way that leaves them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations. The U.S. has 397 national parks that range from destinations like Yellowstone National Park to the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. These destinations are popular among families who want to explore the nation’s landscape and heritage of America.

People visit national parks in great numbers for various recreational and educational purposes:
To experience the natural landscape
To see plants and animals in their natural environment
To view major sights
To learn about significant battles in the various wars and other significant events from history

Commercial Recreation = Fees
Commercial recreation is defined as outdoor recreational activities provided to the public for a fee, with a focus on creating experiences in the natural environment. Most often in the form of guided services. If you want to raft down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, you can apply for a permit one year in advance, or you could pay a guide service to take you down the river. Commercial recreations also extend to include theme parks, attractions, and clubs.

Types of Theme Parks
Theme parks focus on creating an experience based around a specific theme. The theme influences the architecture, landscaping, costumed personnel, rides, shows, food service, and merchandise the park offers. Examples of themes include historical, cultural, geographical, fantasy, or animal.

Theme based examples include:
Animal Theme - Seaworld and Busch Gardens
Fantasy Theme - Disney, Magic Kingdom, Universal Studios
Cultural Theme - Epcot
Geographical Theme - Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Hershey’s
Historical Theme - Libertyland and Freedomland (both no longer in business)


Attractions
Attractions are places that draw visitors by providing a unique experience that captures interest or provides amusement. Depending on what you are interested in, there are thousands of attractions to choose from across the United States that focus on various interests, such as:
Animal Attractions - Zoos and Aquariums
Historical Places / Sites (heritage tourism) - include national historic attractions
Examples include Monticello, Alamo, French Quarter, Grand Ole Opry, Liberty Bell, and Freedom Trail.
Museums - National, military, historical, art, children’s, etc.
Performing Arts - Broadway productions, concerts, musicals and comedy shows.

Commercial Recreation = Fees
Commercial recreation is defined as outdoor recreational activities provided to the public for a fee, with a focus on creating experiences in the natural environment. Most often in the form of guided services. If you want to raft down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, you can apply for a permit one year in advance, or you could pay a guide service to take you down the river. Commercial recreations also extend to include theme parks, attractions, and clubs.

Clubs
Clubs are private places where only members gather for social, recreational, professional, or fraternal reasons. Club members pay an initiation fee to belong to the club and annual membership dues thereafter. Some clubs charge a set utilization fee, usually related to food and beverages, which is charged whether or not those services are used.

Examples of Non-Commercial Recreation Include:
Voluntary Organizations - are nongovernmental, nonprofit agencies, serving the public with programs that often include a substantial element of recreational opportunity at no cost to participants.
Campus Recreation - are college and university programs that include involvement by campus recreation offices, intramural departments, student unions, residence staff, or other sponsors.
Armed Forces - have programs for the physical, social, and mental well-being of its personnel.
Employment Recreation - are activities established to promote employee well-being and efficiency.

Hospitality & Tourism Leadership
In terms of hospitality and tourism, leadership is defined as the following: “The process by which a person with vision is able to influence the activities and outcomes of others in a desired way.”


Transactional vs. Transformational Leadership
Transactional leadership is defined by the exchange that happens between the leader and the follower. For example, a hotel manager who pressures the food and beverage director to achieve certain goals in exchange for receiving a bonus would be applying transactional leadership. On the other hand, a manager who uses transformational leadership looks to change the long-term, higher order behaviors in their followers. Transformational leaders use inspiration to motivate followers to reach beyond their current abilities. Often times transformational leaders demonstrate charisma, individual attention, and intellectual stimulation to move their followers to a greater goal.


Management & Leadership
Management is the process of dealing with or controlling resources or people. Managers plan, organize, make decisions, communicate, motivate, and control the activities of others so their activities are completed efficiently and effectively.


Efficiency vs. Effectiveness
Being effective is a matter of doing the right things, while being efficient is about doing things the right way. A manager who is effective will prioritize the tasks that will have the greatest impact on success first. Then he or she will focus attention on completing the tasks with the least amount of resources possible (money, people, time, and equipment). The goal is to minimize the waste of time, talent, or effort.

Effective managers (leaders) have the following skills:
Decisiveness
Follow through
The ability to select the best employees
Desire to empower their employees
A focus on employees' career development


Key Management Functions
Management is defined as the role and responsibilities of a manager that include planning, organizing, making decisions, communicating, motivating and controlling. All of these responsibilities do not function separately, but frequently overlap or happen simultaneously.

The five key management functions include:
Planning - setting the organization's goals and developing plans to meet or exceed those goals.
Organizing - is deciding what needs to be done, who will do it, how the tasks will be grouped, who reports to whom, and who makes decisions.
Decision-Making - determining the vision, mission, goals, and objectives of the organization.
Communicating - is the exchange of information and meaning between the manager and his or her employees to keep morale high and everyone informed.
Controlling - comparing actual results with the established set of standards. If significant deviations are found, they are investigated and corrected.


Three Levels of Managers
Managers are often classified into three levels:
Frontline Managers - also referred to as supervisors, they are the lowest level managers who manage the work of line employees (the ones doing the work).
Middle Managers - are similar to department heads and are responsible for short-to-medium range plans and who manage the work of frontline managers.
Top Managers - are responsible for making medium-to-long range plans and manage the work of both frontline and middle managers.