Recreational and leisure time activities in hotel management: Managerial approach

Since the Industrial Revolution, the concept of leisure has gained importance and the idea that leisure is worthless has lost its meaning. With leisure gaining importance, people have started looking for new experiences. Recreation, tourism and entertainment services have especially become points of attraction for hotel businesses. The purpose of this study is to explain how hotel businesses evaluate recreation, animation and leisure activities in terms of management, the way these functions are incorporated into management and whether hotel managers are involved in decision-making processes such as planning animation and entertainment services, organizing the staff involved, and the managing, coordinating and controlling of the tasks. This study has been planned as a survey and uses questionnaires as data collection method. From the results, it is understood that Recreation Activity Managers are determining the division of labor and the activities of recreation, animation and entertainment; whereas Activity Unit Chiefs are responsible for the coordination among staff members. Since hotels organize their own recreation, animation and entertainment activities, schedule these activities using their own staff, inspect their own staff and budget, it is understood that the management of recreation, animation and entertainment services are linked up with the business management of the hotel. Keywords: Recreation, Tourism, Animation and Management-Organization