The lure of the countryside
the spiritual dimension of rural spaces of leisure
pp. 202-219
in: Sean Gammon, Sam Elkington (eds), Landscapes of leisure, Berlin, Springer, 2015Abstract
The human search for spiritual fulfilment and transcendence, as a dominant contemporary theme, is increasingly evidenced in the area of tourism and leisure pursuits (Heintzman, 2009; Narayanan and Macbeth, 2009; Norman, 2011; Satpathy and Mahalik, 2010; Schmidt, 2005; Sharpley and Jepson, 2011). Tourism is inextricably tied to the concept of leisure places and the nature of tourists' engagement with place, in particular their emotional/spiritual engagement, is fundamental to our understanding of tourist behaviour and motivations. In exploring landscapes of leisure, the emergent fascination for rural landscapes, particularly seen as the antithesis to city life, has been a principal factor in the development of tourism and leisure in the countryside (Aitchison, Macleod and Shaw, 2000).