This week: the resurgence of deep reading, art as everyday care, and community-led tourism.

When my kids were younger, they were avid readers, as was I when I was a kid. But as they grow older, they are increasingly lured away from books by their technology. I too, don’t read as much as I used to. Like so many of us, I have become accustomed to getting “quick hits” of information from my smartphone rather than taking the time to immerse deeply into a book.

Reading today is no longer the easiest choice. It requires conscious effort to turn away from the distractions of the digital world and immerse oneself fully into the mind of another. But a book is still one of the best investments of leisure time one can make. People distill lifetimes of knowledge and wisdom into a book that can be consumed in mere days (if not hours).

The articles in this week’s roundup suggest that reading is no longer mainstream. Those who commit to reading are, in a way, rebelling from the pull of digital culture. And these rebels will be well rewarded as reading remains one of the best pathways to learning and growth that we know of.

Happy reading,

Jeremy

Reading Is Punk
In an economy of notifications and instant rewards, this essay casts sustained reading as a deliberately unproductive—and therefore culturally radical—form of attention. Its return to Josef Pieper makes a useful case for leisure as contemplation rather than mere consumption. (Tablet Magazine)

Too Much to Read? How Reading Habits Change
A review of Joel Halldorf’s Reading Matters places today’s reading anxieties in a long history of people adapting their habits to new media and more abundant texts. It makes room for both skimming and deep reading while preserving the latter as a restorative practice of attention. (Miller’s Book Review)

Why Flow Outperforms Effortless Leisure
A lucid account of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s research argues that our most satisfying hours tend to come when challenge and skill are closely matched. The practical invitation is not to abolish rest, but to make room for absorbing hobbies and pursuits that renew a sense of agency. (ScienceBlog)

Arts-Based Leisure and Psychological Therapies
This Lancet Psychiatry perspective examines the shared cognitive, emotional, social, and behavioural processes activated by arts participation and psychological therapies. Music, visual art, dance, creative writing, and cultural outings are presented not as substitutes for care, but as accessible practices deserving more rigorous attention in mental-health pathways. (The Lancet Psychiatry)

Leisure and Hospitality’s Hiring Engine Slows
Business Insider reports that U.S. leisure and hospitality employment fell by 40,000 in July, with restaurants, arts, entertainment, and recreation contributing to the decline. Rising prices and weaker discretionary spending turn this into a prompt for operators to sharpen the value—and sociability—of an outing. (Business Insider)

A Stronger Hotel Outlook, with Cost Pressures Intact
CoStar and Tourism Economics raised their 2026 U.S. hotel outlook after stronger leisure and business travel in the first half of the year, according to Hotel Dive. The counterweight is operational: rising expenses are expected to outpace inflation, keeping productivity and pricing discipline central to the sector’s strategy. (Hotel Dive)

A Hybrid Wellness Destination for Midjourney in partnership with TLEE
Fit Tech explores a concept that folds fitness, spa, preventative healthcare, and body-scanning technology into a single wellness destination. The more interesting design proposition is the attempt to pair high-tech personalization with organic, restorative spatial language rather than treating technology as the experience itself. (Fit Tech and TLEESpas)

The Next Generation of Parks
This recorded session frames public parks as adaptive leisure infrastructure, combining climate-responsive design, smart technologies, sustainability, and user-centred thinking. It is a helpful reminder that memorable public space comes from designing for comfort, accessibility, ecological resilience, and changing community expectations together. (Green Flag Award Academy)

How Community-Led Tourism Can Strengthen India’s Local Economies
The World Economic Forum highlights Indian initiatives in which tourism creates income while sustaining local knowledge, craft, and cultural traditions. The underlying design principle is refreshingly clear: recognize and support communities’ existing strengths rather than imposing a destination narrative from outside. (World Economic Forum)

Featuring exciting updates from Leisure Alchemy clients and partners.

Leisure Alchemy’s Jeremy McCarthy joins industry colleagues in discussion on importance of fitness.
This Hospitality Net panel argues that fitness should move beyond the isolated hotel gym and become a meaningful enabler of guests’ wider routines—training, sleep, nutrition, recovery, and longevity. The opportunity is both horizontal, through thoughtful partnerships with gyms, coaches, clinics, and technology platforms, and vertical, through service designs that make healthy habits easier to sustain while travelling. (HospitalityNet)