Recreation Gaining Ground Among Those in Their Twenties During the COVID-19 Restriactions and Tourism Regression

The coronavirus pandemic in 2019 has brought about a number of drastic economic and social changes. Tourism has been suffering a crisis and restrictions have affected people’s everyday lives. The daily free time of the majority has increased, while the opportunities to spend it qualitatively have been reduced, causing several mental and physical issues. The central topic of this research is the progression of recreation in Hungary due to the increase of most people’s free time spent alone or with family caused by the restrictions during COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease of 2019), along with the population’s fundamental relationship with recreation, and their current tendency of delving into new recreational activities. The research consists of an online questionnaire and two interviews with recreation professionals. The results show that the exploitation of recreation and its spread during the pandemic is a more common phenomenon among the educated, while the majority of the population is less affected by the topic. New recreational habits were picked up by some, however tourism cannot seem to be replaced by other recreational activities. Promoting recreation on a larger scale among Hungarians is of increasing necessity, as many of them do not have a close relationship with it. This article is based on a university thesis, the extract of which was published in a Hungarian scientific journal.