Streszczenie
Leisure time is a prerequisite for participation in tourism. However, the impact of leisure time on the
tourist services market is much bigger. Namely, it affects primarily consumer behaviour which
reflects changes in the perception, importance, price and division of leisure time. This article’s goal is
to analyse the role of leisure time (in a demand-related approach) in determining tourism (present and in the future). Consideration on free time and its perception in the society are concluded with
a projection of future tourism services.
The main changes in tourism caused by changes of leisure are: a transformation from serviceoriented
economy to experience-oriented economy, compression of time and space, withdrawal
from synchronization resulting from the so-called “third wave”, departure from a traditionally
construed idealistic „traveller” towards the notion of the „tourist”, chameleon behaviour and
prosumers form as a category of consumers in the tourist market. The article is of a theoretical
nature with studies of literature on the subject as the adopted research method.