You will live the rest of your life in the future, so it makes sense to think about it. In The Future of Leisure Tourism and Sport, we consider the near future and ways that all forms of leisure, particularly sport and tourism, will be affected by accelerating change.

This may seem to be a fool’s errand, but ignoring the possibilities of the future is even more foolish. Leisure is of central importance in the future; what will people do when they experience the absence of the necessity of being occupied?

What will be worth doing when constraints are minimal? Two forms of leisure will receive special attention. Tourism can be a way of exploring the world and sport a way of exploring within playful rules.

Both tourism and sport have emerged as expected parts of life, as huge components of the economy, and as the basis for careers. Some of the readers of this book are planning careers in parks, recreation, tourism, sport, fitness, and other forms of leisure.

We discuss important trends and future projections in diverse areas such as population growth, immigration, crowding, climate change, and technology. Each of these factors is important in its own right. However, these forces will interact with one another in ways that are difficult to foresee.

So the best that you and your colleagues in the field of recreation, park, sport, tourism, and other leisure services can do is to keep scanning the horizon and to develop a variety of broad scenarios that the interplay of the above forces may create.

Strategies and flexible plans for each scenario will have to be constructed, each based upon admittedly inadequate information and major assumptions.