The Role of Time in the Global Tourism Market – A Demand Perspective

The earliest western concept of leisure (Greek: scholé) is credited to the Greek philosopher Aristotle who juxtaposed production activities performed from the necessity to labour (e.g. by slaves) with self-actualisation activities fit for free men, such as education, pursuance of arts and philosophy, contemplation, or the performance of political duties (de Grazia 1926). Aristotle was first to point out that time should be used in accordance with the values which determine the sense of human existence.


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Among Polish authors who explored the subject of free time, or leisure, were Wnuk-Lipiński (1972), Czajka (1975), and Rogoziński, Cieloch and Kiczyński (1992). According to Czajka (1975), the notion of free time refers to all activities which are performed of an individual's free will for the purpose of relaxation, informal or self-education, and voluntary or community work after having freed oneself from paid work activities, domestic chores, and family and social commitments. In turn, Wnuk-Lipiński (1972) defines leisure as the time remaining at a person's disposal after fulfilling work responsibilities, family and school duties, and meeting one's biological needs.
A somewhat different approach to free time is represented in the work of Rogoziński (1992) who interprets leisure as the time which by virtue of free choice is filled with activities (situations or states) performed for their own sake. (Buhl 1982) claims that man's life has several dimensions. The rhythm and duration of human life is determined by a person's biological clock and his or her participation in various social groups whose members interact and influence each other. This period of interaction between individuals and groups is known as social time. The economic dimension of time, on the other hand, is construed as the time scale of economic phenomena and processes related to the conversion of nature into goods and services in order to satisfy human needs (Ronek 1997).
It has to be noted that leisure can be defined in strictly sociological, or strictly economic dimensions. In the sociological dimension leisure is usually related to time free from work, duties and compulsion. It is connected with various forms of recreation, relaxation, social life, sports and travelling (Tarkowska 2001, p. 18). The difficulty in defining the phenomenon arises partly from the fact, that in the English language the terms free time and leisure are often used interchangeably, while in some approaches the two terms are distinct from each other: free time refers to quantifiable periods of time measured by hours and minutes, whereas leisure refers rather to the very activities filling the time away from work and other duties. To find the answer what free time really is we should refer to the classic definitions of leisure by Joffre Dumazedier (Winiarski 2011).
In their empirical studies, Robinson and Godbey (1999, p. 12) accept that free time is the time available after paid work, household work and family care, travelling and commuting, and also sleeping, physiological needs, and personal care and hygiene. The time budget studies conducted by GUS (Main Office of Statistics) in Poland use a similar division of activities, identifying specific classes of activities in line with Eurostat recommendations to enable comparability of data throughout the European Union. The classes of time-use activities are as follows: sleep and physiological needs, paid work, education, household work, travel and commuting, and leisure. The leisure category includes such activities as participation in culture and entertainment, social life, sports and recreation, hobby and games, mass media use, reading, voluntary and community work, passive relaxation, and other pursuits. Leisure is therefore understood as the time used for relaxation, or activities outside daily commitments.
It has to be noted that in some approaches leisure has a broader meaning, e.g. as the time after work which includes such activities as improving one's qualifications, participating in political, community and social life, or child care (such approaches are explored in greater detail by Tarkowska 2001, pp. 20-21).
In all leisure concepts free time is closely connected with tourism. In fact, availability of free time is a precondition of pursuing tourist activities. According to Jung (2011), to meet their needs in a well-balanced economy, people both purchase goods and services and have time to make full use of their purchases. The author thinks that rational individuals at every level of work remuneration will choose an optimal number of working hours to both finance their consumption needs and have enough time to enjoy the consumption. Applying this thought to real life with its numerous limitations, such as increased income polarisation observed since the late twentieth century, we find that such optimum is difficult to achieve given that consumers today are usually either money-rich/time-poor or time-rich/money-poor. Gershuny (1995) mischievously suggests that if we were to apply Keynesian approach to demand stimulation we should redistribute time to the richest groups, since deficit of time is the greatest barrier hindering consumption among the better-off.
A literature review shows that despite an obvious connection between free time and tourism, it is difficult to find works dedicated specifically to this relationship.

Conceptual model of the chapter
The aim of this paper is to show how globalization affects the understanding of time at different stages of human life, and how the changing concepts of time impact tourism demand both at work ("economic time") and leisure.
The effects of globalization on people can be succinctly summarized as the shrinking time and space. The impact of globalization on time is expressed both in biological and economic senses. The economic perspective pertains to working time and leisure alike, hence time can be considered from the viewpoint of both the enterprise, and the individual -a client who purchases tourism services.
The underlying theme of the discussed aspects of time, particularly in reference to the client, is tourism. Given the complexity of the tourism phenomenon, our considerations will be limited to the demand side.
Tourism demand pertains both to working time (business travel) and leisure (private travel). Hence it is important to show the relationship between changing concepts of time and tourism demand in both these aspects.
We begin with a discussion of the globalisation phenomenon which has raised the significance of economic time, an integral part of the so-called social time. The relationship between processes of globalisation and tourism is reflected in increased business travel. The article explores other interdependencies between the two phenomena. It also presents a typology of tourists according to the time perspective (Seaton 2002). The most prominent feature of this typology is a distinction between "traditional tourist" and "traveller". Considerations on free time and its perception in the society are concluded with a projection of future tourism services.

Results
Globalization has a fundamental impact on time use by man. In tourism this is particularly apparent in the planning and realization of travel. The profound and multidimensional transformations effected by globalization are due to many factors, of which the most important is the development of information technology, mobile communications, and transportation -air transport in particular. Almost all aspects of human activity -business, finance, trade, labour market, social relations and also tourism-related activities -are subject to these transformations. Globalization affords direct and instant access to almost unlimited variety of tourism offers, allows direct purchase of tickets to all parts of the world, and makes it possible to book services such as hotels, restaurants, cultural attractions, entertainment, and transport in almost all corners of the globe.
For humankind the extent of these transformations is best summarized by the phrase "the shrinking time and space". This is reflected in the diminishing importance of the public space and in the shortening of time distances. With instant communication and unrestricted mobility time loses its traditional dimension. Space is no longer an impediment: distances are not as important as they were in the past. Growing in importance are the "cyber space" and the "new freedom". Today's elites, including tourists, set new standards and values: their ties with specific territories loosen; less restrained by socio-cultural and political spaces they are becoming increasingly ex-territorial. A new social polarization and asymmetry arises between old "territoriality" of societies and "ex-territoriality" of "mobile" elites (M. Golembski, 2007).
As a result, globalization leads to increased importance of economic time, which itself forms part of social time. Time spent at work, as well as time between jobs (a consequence of employee mobility), and time outside work which is used to recover mental and physical strengths, are all parts of economic time. Its importance in the functioning of social structures will continue to grow.
The growing importance of economic time results in consumptive lifestyles. This is a consequence of globalization, particularly relevant to the provision of tourism services driven by worldwide competition between regions, service providers and intermediaries. The new, increasingly sophisticated media, such as the Internet, facilitate creation of new needs, which in turn drive global demand. Thus the accelerated consumption, characteristic of the so-called western civilization, leads to the extension of the biological and economic times of human activity.
The biological clock may differ from conventional measure of time that determines the duration of human life. Scientific progress in medicine, psychology and sociology as well as technological advances can "put back" the biological clock, a phenomenon having profound economic implications. Simultaneously we can observe an accelerated pace of time, mainly in production processes (work time) and consumption. Perception of time and the concept of time use are not uniform across social groups and societies. In some societies time passes at a slow pace in a monotonous rhythm, whereas in others life is dynamic and tumultuous. Time is perceived differently in different cultures. The way members of a given culture perceive and use time says a lot about priorities of that society and its life philosophy (C. Ezzell, 2002).
Even though globalization does not affect perception of time to the same extent in all societies, the direction and the rate of changes have already been set by the leaders: societies which change their perception of time the fastest. It is true that the impact of globalization on the concept of time varies in different cultures, but in the long run globalization tends to blur cultural differences.
Globalization has the greatest impact on the perception of economic time which can be divided into three parts: working time, work-related time which is not physically spent at work, and leisure. Tourism demand, construed as the need to travel beyond one's place of residence, can arise in any of the three divisions of economic time.
Working time pertains to activities of man performed in the production of goods and services (Kozioł 2000), and extends beyond the physical presence of employees in the workplace by including the time at which the employee remains at the employer's disposal. The employer's perception of time is oriented towards the company's interests and its main objective -efficiency. The role of time in the efficiency issues can be analysed on two planes. Firstly, time considered in its physical dimension is a production asset in its own right. Secondly, measurement of work time efficiency has a profound impact on productivity (M. ).
An important role in productivity improvement can be attributed to actions taken during and as a consequence of business travel. There are many forms of business travel, with the frequency and variety of business trips continuing to grow. The range of business travel objectives includes skill improvement events organised by the employer, participation in trade shows, business talks, and meetings. Some jobs, such as auditing of multinational corporations, involve travelling to distant parts of the world. Incentive travel is growing rapidly, as is conference and convention travel. Globalization is indisputably a major standard-setting force in business travel. Business travellers have certain common characteristics, needs and preferences regarding procedures and service levels. The nature of business travel requires a specific time-saving model of services. The necessary services expected by business travellers (in addition to accommodation and food) include efficient communication facilities, access to the Internet, access to specific television channels, availability of major international newspapers, copying and printing facilities, and translation services. It is noteworthy that business travellers often exhibit characteristics of the global client: spatial mobility and extensive international contacts (Niezgoda, Markiewicz, 2007). Apart from general factors mentioned before, the perception and use of time in business travel is affected by the characteristics of this type of demand, such as: short duration and elite nature of business travel high expectations with respect to infrastructure, accommodation and service levels greater use of hotel accommodation compared with leisure tourism higher spending in the destination compared with an average tourist lower price sensitivity relative to leisure tourism.
The lower sensitivity of business travel to price fluctuations is to some extent due to the sharing of expenses between the trip organiser, or delegating organisation, and the business traveller ("customer dualism"). It is a fact that expenses incurred by people travelling on business are generally higher compared with leisure tourists, but usually the costs of business travel are covered by the delegating institution.
It can be said that during an intensive professional career the frequency of travelling on business increases at the expense of time spent in private travel (people increasingly take short breaks from work) 1 . One effect of globalization is a growing number of tourism offers and their division into mass (unified) propositions, and special interest differentiated packages offering new forms of activities at ever-new destinations.
Business tourism in simple terms can be divided into individual business travel, conference tourism, trade shows, incentive travel, and corporate tourism. Duration of business travel generally depends on factors such as: the extent of economic globalization the state of economic welfare development of transportation infrastructures The state of national as well as global economy has a great impact on the demand for business travel. Even though demand for business travel is more stable and less dependant on psychosocial factors than private travel, the amount of business travelling usually reflects the fluctuation of economic growth.
Economic time does not refer solely to the time spent physically at work performing duties organized by the employer. This is also work-related time whose scope and organization depends on individual decisions, and includes such activities as job changing, employment seeking, qualifications improvement, and generally providing for one's family. This often requires mobility and involves travelling. To describe the phenomenon of frequent job hunting that involves short periods of joblessness between subsequent employments the economics theory uses the term "frictional unemployment" (Samuelson, Nordhaus 1990). This notion, in the past referring mainly to young people, nowadays has relevance to the entire population in productive age. People need to adjust their qualifications to the demands of fast-changing (due to globalization) labour market, hence a growing individual demand for travel beyond one's place of residence (to attend job interviews, training courses, post-graduation studies). This work-related time plays an increasingly important role in people's lives, particularly in their economic time.
Leisure plays a tremendous and ever-growing role in the social time of a person. Leisure refers to time spent outside work, a period of discretionary time used for resting, pursuing one's interests, enjoying pleasures afforded by the civilization, participating in cultural and entertainment events, etc. Free time can just as well be spent on improving one's qualifications through self-education and thus increasing one's productivity at work time.
Rest and the recovery of a person's physical and mental strengths, supported with activities such as tourism, have a great impact on personal development and productivity at work, since time spent outside work has three basic functions: Changes brought about by globalization processes have the following consequences for the use of free time and subsequently work productivity: 1. The amount of leisure time available to an individual depends on his or her period of life. In productive age and in the time of raising children, availability of free time is limited but the range of activities that one can engage in at leisure is greater (this is particularly relevant to tourism). In post-productive age, which nowadays tends to become longer, the amount of free time is greater. 2. In productive age, the way free time is used has a great impact on work productivity, and the efficiency of enterprises and the entire economy.  Another phenomenon affecting the perception of time and the use of free time is societies' evolution towards a so-called leisure civilization. This phenomenon is a consequence of changes in individual systems of values influenced by mass media and caused by civilization stresses as well as an increasingly felt desire to relax, divert from every-day activities, gain new experiences, meet new people, visit new places, etc.
Tourism is a mass phenomenon, therefore in analysing tourism demand and the meaning of time in tourism we must not overlook social processes in their broadest sense (Niezgoda 2004).
In tourism literature there are numerous analyses looking into the process of departure from a traditionally construed idealistic "traveller" towards the notion of the "tourist" (Mehmetoglu 2004). The traveller is a person working on a project, for whom journey is a process and a means to greater goals; the tourist, on the other hand, pursues pleasures, new experiences and adventure. The tourist passively awaits events and service. The traveller is active and does not want to be served. Seaton (2002) proposed a new typology of tourists that takes account of the time perspective and social conditioning: a. metempsychotic -the tourist presents a non-linear behaviour, and expresses himself in a journey as a precisely defined person, always the same; b. metensomatosic -in the course of a journey the tourist plays multiple roles (a chameleon behaviour).
According to Seaton, this model highlights individual stages in the motivation process, showing the dynamics of tourist behaviour. People become tourists not because of the desire to satisfy their needs but through a socially conditioned desire for personal development. This development proceeds through culturally-endorsed role-playing. Therefore people should not be asked "where" they want to travel, but "what" they want to be in their journey (Niezgoda 2010, p.26).

Discussion
Beside disposable income, availability of leisure time is the necessary pre-condition to engage in tourist activities. On the other hand, tourism is only one of many possible leisure pursuits. In this paper we will attempt to answer the following questions: Answers to such questions are particularly important in the countries which have initiated and are continuing a total transformation of their political, economic and social systems. Perceptions of leisure time by people subjected to socio-economic transformations have changed dramatically. In the centrally planned economy, characteristic of totalitarian political systems, leisure time pursuits were seriously limited for the following reasons:  major administrative difficulties in travelling abroad (passports made available to citizens at the sole discretion of authorities; necessity to obtain visas to destination countries);  black market for convertible currencies raising the price of foreign exchange many-fold relative to its real value, and thus making foreign travel uneconomical;  limited possibilities for arranging one's holidays domestically (around 80% of all reception facilities were holiday hostels or camps belonging to state-owned industrial plants, institutions and offices; employees could either make use of those facilities or stay with their relatives or friends;  producer market for tourism services, resulting in the dearth of offerings and lack of choice for the tourist;  a steep decline in the value of the domestic currency, resulting in permanent shortages of goods and services whose prices were fixed by the state (the amount of worthless money in circulation exceeded many-fold the value of goods and services offered in the market);  little differences between salaries across all sectors of the economy;  existence of privileged social groups (e.g. the ruling party establishment, or certain groups of industrial workers such as coal miners), having priority in the access to more attractive offerings (  full opening of borders with all European countries, and unrestricted use of passports;  exchange rate stability for the local currency and systematic adjustment of domestic price structures to those characteristic of free market economies;  emergence of a free market in tourism leading to proliferation of service providers, tour operators, and tourism offers (transport, tour packages, diversified propositions for spending leisure time);  opening of the domestic market to foreign providers and investors;  growth and diversification of tourism reception facilities;  accelerated differentiation of incomes, and polarisation of the society;  total freedom of choice for the buyer, in accordance with market economy rules;  growing productivity and efficiency of labour.
All these changes have been responsible for increased spending on leisure time activities (economic effect) and -above all -resulted in a rapid growth of outbound tourism (tours, stays). In recent years we have also observed a growth in the domestic tourism. Consumption has undergone significant differentiation. On the one hand, people have realised the importance of managing their free time by themselves, on the other hand people are more inclined to follow current trends and fashions, and are more responsive to aggressive promotions and psychological aspects of choosing the way of spending their free time.
A much greater choice of tourism offers afforded by the free market economy has led to a change in preferences with regard to the way leisure time is arranged. Instead of one leave lasting two or three weeks the Poles prefer several short holidays. This is characteristic of societies that not so long ago espoused market economy. A frequent change of destinations is due to a desire to see as many places as possible in the shortest possible time, in a way to make up for the lost time. Another reason is the responsiveness to massive advertising campaigns and other promotional activities.
The studies made by the authors (Gołembski, Nezgoda 2003) reveal that the longer the holiday the more people consciously plan the order in which they will visit destinations.
The reasons people do not plan their holidays include both the lack of financial stabilisation and little knowledge about the world due to limited travelling experience. With limited and unstable disposable incomes people decide to travel not when they really want to but when they have the money. The lack of knowledge and experience is a result of long isolation and practical inability to travel abroad, as well as limited choice for domestic travel, in the past usually organised for people by their state employers. This is why most Poles do not know how to plan and organise their holidays.
Consequently, travel decisions are largely affected by incidental factors (such as advertisements, opinions expressed by other people, information obtained unexpectedly). It is little wonder, therefore, that in Poland very popular are "last minute" holiday offers.
To evaluate people's readiness to make conscious life-time plans for their holidays, in our recent survey we asked respondents how far into the future they planned their vacations. The Poles are still little aware that their lives can be planned and their lifetime goals can be realised. They underestimate the possibilities to develop their personalities and expand knowledge. After all it would be possible to plan subsequent trips to, say, Egypt, Tunisia, Sicily, Greece and Turkey to increase one's knowledge about the history of European civilisation. The Polish people still do not see such possibilities and do not plan their travel destinations in a purposeful manner long into the future. It can be seen that the various opportunities afforded by the free market of tourism services influence the choices of potential tourists and allow them to plan their holidays in detail. The study shows, however, that people tend to plan only the one forthcoming vacation. The destination is carefully chosen, but it is a short-term planning (up to one year) rather than a life-time scheme.
The paucity of financial means and shortage of time are the reasons why Poles use only a small amount of leisure time for holiday travel. Therefore a correlation between the length of leave and the way it is utilised can only be determined for a small group of people who have substantial amount of disposable income.
The transformation of political system gave people freedom of movement and freedom of choice, but still the deciding factor is the country's level of affluence. The multitude of offers playing on people's imagination has brought about a short term effect of frequent travels and frequent changes of destinations. Financial constraints decide that holidays are short, and destinations not excessively distant.
Twenty years of socio-economic changes have not been quite enough to teach people how to make conscious long-term leisure plans. We can therefore restate the importance of tourist education to raise people's awareness of what leisure time means for them and how important it is to make their lives happier. A special attention must be given to educating tourists about the relationship between self-development, or self-actualisation, and the conscious planning of leisure time. Such opportunity is afforded by the free market which creates conditions for long term leisure planning irrespective of prevailing political systems.

Vision for the industry
Analysis of tourism demand reveals ever-new customer needs. The complex nature of tourism and a wide spectrum of needs that drive tourism demand lead to the emergence of a growing number of market segments and types of tourists in a broader, social sense. People look for variety to satisfy their needs, and at the same time they demand instant access to information and bookings, and the ability to make quick decisions. Globalization and communications development, including universal access to the Internet, have made it easy for tourists to look for suitable offers and book services by themselves. As a result tourists are able to plan their time individually, and more often than before decide to organize travel on their own. Tourists want to use time "effectively" by maximizing the amount of experiences per unit of time, at the same time expecting the best quality of services (Niezgoda 2010).
Tourist destinations, therefore, must deliver a high standard of basic services and a wide variety of ancillary services to satisfy visitors' expectations. The tourist wants to enjoy lots of experiences in the shortest possible time. The tendency to make quick decisions leads to a "chameleon behaviour' (Roth, Schrandt 1992). In the course of one journey tourists can play multiple roles, for example they can use inexpensive accommodation and at the same time a very expensive mode of transport, they can economize on food while purchasing very expensive items of clothing, etc. In response to tourist expectations, on the demand side we can observe a transformation from service-oriented economy to experience-oriented economy. Apart from physical experiences, tourists expect the satisfaction of their spiritual needs. Surveys conducted among young people in Poland have revealed that tourism is increasingly regarded as a deliberately chosen lifestyle rather than just a way of spending time (Ró ycki, Winiarski 2005). Young people want to expand their horizons through tourism. They want to escape the control of their parents and spend time in the company of their peers, experiencing as many pleasurable moments as possible. The surveys have also revealed that young people engaging in tourist activities perform better at school, even though they themselves are not aware of this correlation. For young people the most important thing is to have a good time and enjoy themselves.
Availability of free time is not a sufficient condition for engagement in tourist activities.
What is also needed is income which could be spent on discretionary items after satisfying the essential needs, a pool of money enabling the realisation of tourism demand. The personal income variable is positively correlated with the "price of time". In market economy, and in the conditions of globalization, there are many ways of acquiring the same product or service. This, however, entails a trade-off between time and money. Consumers consider and evaluate different ways of satisfying a need, comparing benefits and costs of individual offers or variants of the same offer. In this process time is considered as a value.
Hence we can talk about the price of time. People on higher incomes usually put a higher price on their time. This is reflected in the behaviour of consumers: those who do not value their time highly are inclined to spend more time looking for cheaper products or services. In tourism practice, people who value their time highly are prepared to pay an intermediary to organise their holidays, whereas people with lower personal incomes are inclined to sacrifice time in order to organise their tourist activities by themselves, saving on the agent's commission (Niezgoda, Zmy lony 2006).
A large and continuously growing segment of travelling population are "third age" persons -retirees having time on their hands and enjoying substantial discretionary income. This, of course, refers primarily to retired populations in affluent countries, particularly in the aging societies. These people can easily spend a lot of time travelling. The world's division into affluent countries generating substantial tourism flows, and poor countries whose outbound tourism is negligible, produces a gap between populations having time on their hands and populations enjoying purchasing power.
To summarize the discussion we may conclude that despite cultural diversities and differences in affluence between societies, globalization affects all countries, albeit with varied intensity. Cultural differences, however, are going to blur at an accelerated pace. Tourism, a phenomenon of travelling beyond one's place of residence, will continue to grow at a high rate. Owing to globalization, access to tourism offerings becomes almost unlimited. The world is rapidly shrinking: people across the world can book air tickets and hotel rooms directly and instantly by themselves. The intensity of time use will grow -the pace of life is likely to continue accelerating. Tourism demand will be generated equally by individuals and organizations, with the type and intensity of tourism activities becoming more than ever correlated with man's life cycle. The role of tourism for people in productive age will strengthen not only at leisure but also during their working time (incentive travel, training, job interviews, business travel, scientific conferences, and conventions). The structure of leisure tourism demand generated by people in productive age is already changing: breaks from work tend to be shorter but more intensive in terms of activities. Enjoying longer retirement (longer life expectancies), people of post-productive age also increasingly engage in tourist activities during their free time. In a desire to play the roles of "travellers" rather than "tourists", they deliberately extend the duration of their trips to enjoy and savour the atmosphere and uniqueness of the visited destinations.
To travel, whether in productive time or retirement, people need disposable income and purchasing power. However, the choice between being a "tourist" who expects to be served during his or her short break and the time-savouring "traveller" depends on personal attitude towards free time.