The Department of Tourism at the University of Otago is very proud to host the 17th World Leisure Congress in Dunedin. The Congress brings together leisure professionals from academia, government and industry to promote informative, stimulating and challenging discussion on the latest issues in leisure.
The theme of the Congress is ‘Leisure: Learn well, live well. As the world continues to deal with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on well-being leisure in our lives is of crucial importance to help us learn and live well. It is within this context that “Learn Well” reflects how we learn through leisure and the strong education focus in Dunedin, which is home to one of the world’s leading universities’. “Live Well” reflects how leisure contributes to individual and community wellbeing at local, regional, and international levels.
Together, these components of the Congress theme speak to the relevance and application of academic leisure theory and research to the practice of living well, and refer to academic, industry and practitioners alike. Leisure encompasses tourism, sport, recreation (active and passive, indoor and outdoor), hospitality and events.
As such, the Congress is ideally situated as we hopefully emerge from the worst of the pandemic, to examine how leisure can help us in moments of crises and in constructing a new, sustainable norm.
Delegates will have many opportunities to learn from a wide variety of stakeholders (local and national government, industry, not-for-profit organisations) about initiatives related to all aspects of leisure.
The 17th World Leisure Congress will also give everyone working and researching in the leisure field the opportunity to come together to reflect on what we have learned and begin to chart where we want leisure research and the position of leisure in people’s lives to go moving beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. The opportunities are immense and the Congress offers a unique moment in which to begin to grasp them.
Dunedin and New Zealand in general also offer myriad leisure experiences for visitors to the Congress to embrace and learn from. Be it walking on a beach, exploring our unique natural and cultural heritage, or engaging in more adrenaline fuelled activities such as bungee jumping.
The organising committee for the 17th World Leisure Congress welcomes you to join us in New Zealand in 2023 and invites you to submit abstracts for presentation at the Congress.
Presentation types
We welcome abstracts for contributions to:
- General Congress sessions – oral presentations (20 minute presentation and 10 minutes Q&A)
- Special topic sessions
Special topic sessions
The below special topic sessions are open for contributions as part of the call for abstracts. Find out more about each special topic sessions. If you would like to submit your abstract for a special topic session, please select the session when submitting your abstract. Do not email your abstract directly to the session lead. Abstracts must be submitted via the official Congress abstract portal.
- 80% awesome – Personal sustainability and team resilience
- A 100 years of LGBTTQIA+ leisure and events
- Academic research in leisure studies: the global south perspective
- Adaptation and innovation of events in times of crisis
- Archival research across leisure domains
- Children and families in leisure
- Driving organisation-wide change to achieve excellence in access and inclusion for ALL in leisure
- Experience measurement: Empirical approaches to the measurement of experiences
- IBPOC, 2SQ (Two Spirit Queer), LGBTQ, Disability, and Settler Ally perspectives on cultivating wellness in the academy
- Learning communities for better places
- Leisure and Human Rights
- Leisure and marginalisation through an ecological lens
- Leisure and Migration
- Positive Psychology, Experience Design, and Leisure
- Serious leisure & event travel research: Where do we go from here?
- The legacy of public parks & recreation
- The paradoxes of events studies as a form of leisure
- Transformative travel storytelling via video documentary
- Unstructured entanglements of human leisure and non-human animal life
- Use of storytelling to add value to natural and cultural heritage from diverse perspectives including that of indigenous people.
Abstract formatting guidelines
Abstracts must be clearly written in English and be a maximum of 300 words excluding the title and authors.
Submit your abstract here
Professor Neil Carr
University of Otago Department of Tourism
