Why we are not all going on a summer holiday? An examination of barriers to ethnic minority participation in leisure activities and domestic tourism in the UK

Access to the outdoor green spaces and the countryside has been associated with facilitating improved mental health and subjective wellbeing. But ethnic minorities in the UK face longstanding systemic barriers that have limited their participation in most sport, leisure and recreational activities that have been implicated in health lower health outcomes and disparities. This chapter examines the historic and systemic barriers, as well as the attitudinal hindrances to ethnic minority participation in leisure activities and domestic leisure tourism in the UK. It reviews the academic and grey literature on studies that have aimed to account for the comparatively low levels of participation among people of colour. The findings show an overwhelming sentiment among ethnic minority participants for the opportunity to be more involved in outdoor leisure and tourism experiences in the UK. The benefits of these leisure activities for health and mental wellbeing were widely acknowledged as part of their lifestyle aspirations. However, the risk of racism was predominantly identified as the main deterrent to visiting countryside, local attractions and holiday destinations in the UK, and often restricted return visits to locations where negative racialised encounters were encountered.