Book Description

"Managing to Optimize the Beneficial Outcomes of Recreation focuses on the need for public park and recreation agencies to optimize the beneficial outcomes of recreational opportunities they provide and on how such optimization can be achieved. The six chapters in Part 1 of the text explain what Outcomes-Focused Management (OFM) is, how it evolved, why it is needed, why it is credible, how it can and should be implemented by public municipal and wildland recreation park and recreation agencies. These introductory chapters also explain why every segment of a country's population needs to understand the existing science-based knowledge about the benefits of leisure, and why repositioning of people's currently too limited understanding and appreciation of the benefits of leisure is so badly needed. The six chapters of Part 2 describe how OFM has been used to help guide park and recreation policy development by agencies in Australia, Canada, the U.S., and New Zealand. Part 3 is comprised of eight chapters that describe how OFM has been applied to guide the development and implementation of management plans by various public park and recreation agencies. A large proportion of the chapters in Parts 2 and 3 were authored by practitioners who were directly involved in the applications described. Those chapters are rich in their descriptions of what was learned about how to, and how not to, apply and implement OFM. The four chapters of Part 4 describe other applications of OFM such as to promote more attention on the benefits to residents of local communities, determine the local impacts of recreation and tourism, and guide recreation-related health initiatives and wildlife management. The summary chapter critiques what the text and suggests future needed direction. This text was designed for leisure professionals as well as lay persons, politicians, and journalists. The primary hoped-for readers include leisure scientists, academics, and students; leisure professionals who work for municipal park and recreation agencies; and their counterparts who work for agencies that manage public wildlands on which outdoor recreation opportunities are provided. Managing to Optimize the Beneficial Outcomes of Recreation explains what OFM is, why it should be applied more widely to the management of recreation and related amenity resources and programs that are managed by public agencies, and how such management can and should be done." -- Publisher.