International Journal of Market Research Vol. 57 Issue 2 1 © 2015 The Market Research Society DOI: 10.2501/IJMR-2015-000 The competitive landscape for leisure Why wide appeal matters John Scriven Ehrenberg-Bass Institute Diana Perez-Bustamante Yabar Rey Juan Carlos University Maria Clemente London South Bank University Dag Bennett London South Bank University This article reports the results of an analysis of participation across a range of leisure activities in the UK. This work follows that of Chris Hand and Jay Singh in the January 2014 issue of IJMR, which analysed participation and partitioning in the UK betting market using the same UK government DCMS Taking Part database. Our paper uses a duplication technique, widely used in other consumer goods markets, which gives a clear understanding of the polygamous portfolio structure of leisure choices, revealing for the first time how choice processes for free time activities are similar to those for other consumer goods. The results show that leisure activities of all kinds compete for the free time choices of all consumers. The market has some partitioning – for example, ‘cultural’ activities attract more overlapping customers than expected. However, those in this group do not participate in these activities to the exclusion of more populist ones, they are at least as likely to participate in those too. We contrast this with the extant literature, much of which suggests more marked segmentation between leisure activities. This has major implications for the purveyors of competitive offerings; in particular it means that whether marketing ‘cultural’ or ‘leisure’ activities, strategies that emphasise reaching the largest possible number of occasional customers are most likely to succeed. Introduction Leisure is a major activity: according to the OECD (2009), in developed countries people spend 20–25% of their time on leisure activities, significantly more than they spend in paid employment. And this free Received (in revised form): ?? ?????? ????