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Stress and coping are prevalent and ubiquitous in our everyday lives. The degree and manner in which we experience stress, and ways in which we cope with stress, strongly influence our daily choices and their outcomes, including those related to leisure. Research on leisure, stress, and coping is important within a broad spectrum of leisure research since it can be potentially integrated with leisure research on constraints and negotiations, lifespan development, diversity, and lifestyle. Such integration works to bridge the gap in the leisure research community that is often characterized as isolated entities. One important tangible benefit of such integration is that stress and coping have the potential to be a common language for many researchers with diverse interests, and it thus leads to opportunities for enhanced communication and understanding, as well as for possible collaborations. We hope that this special issue, presenting a diverse collection of papers focused on leisure, stress, and coping, may instill such ambitious, but important, desire. The role of this issue is threefold: (1) to better identify relationships among leisure, stress, and coping, (2) to introduce new theoretical and methodological approaches for such research, and (3) to encourage increased attention to and collaborations related to leisure, stress, and coping research.

This study investigated the acute effects of repeated walking sessions within green and suburban environments on participants’ psychological (anxiety and mood) and cognitive (directed-attention) outcomes. Twenty-three middle-aged adults (19 female) participated in a non-randomized crossover study comprised of once-weekly 50-min moderate-intensity walking sessions. Participants walked for three weeks in each of two treatment conditions: green and suburban, separated by a two-week washout period. Eleven participants completed green walking first and 12 suburban walking first. For each walk, we used validated psychological questionnaires to measure pre- and post-walk scores for: (1) mood, evaluated via the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS); (2) anxiety, assessed by the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-S); and (3) directed-attention, measured using the visual Backwards Digit Span test (BDS). Repeated measures linear mixed models assessed pre- to post-walk changes within-treatment conditions and post-walk contrasts between-treatment conditions. Results indicated that anxiety decreased after green walking and increased after suburban walking (−1.8 vs. +1.1 units, respectively; p = 0.001). For mood, positive affect improved after green walking and decreased after suburban walking (+2.3 vs. −0.3 units, respectively; p = 0.004), and negative affect decreased after green walking and remained similar after suburban walking (−0.5 vs. 0 units, respectively; p = 0.06). Directed-attention did not improve from pre- to post-walk for either condition. Our results suggested that green walking may be more effective at reducing state anxiety and increasing positive affect compared to suburban walking.

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Abstract:Destination image has received significant attention in recent Western travel literature. However, developing and lesser-developed countries have less research attention devoted to them despite the fact image is a key factor in determining travel decisions. This study explored current visitor images of a Middle Eastern country, Jordan. On-site interviews with tourists indicated a fairly positive image of Jordan, with improvements possible in service related areas. Marketing and research implications are suggested. Keywords: Image; Destination decisions; Middle EastArticle: IntroductionThe concept of destination image has commanded tourism researcher attention for over 20 years, resulting in a rich body of literature. Crompton (1979, p. 18) offers an integrative definition of image as `the sum of beliefs, impressions, ideas, and perceptions that people hold of objects, behaviors, and events.' When travelers discover a country, both their general and tourist images may be impacted. This notion is particularly pertinent to the study of international destination image because tourism may offer the best and only opportunity for countries to correct misperceptions.Destination image is a `...critical factor' in destination choices (Bramwell & Rawding, 1996;Chon, 1991;Dann, 1996;Echtner & Ritchie, 1993;Gartner, 1993;Goodrich, 1978;Mayo, 1973). Thus, the identification, tracking, marketing, and management of image should be among the top priorities of tourist destinations as `images don't always reflect reality ' (Hunt, 1975, p. 2) and may deter potential tourists. In their study of foreign tour operators' image of the US, McClellan and Foushcee (1983) note that images of the US formed by tourists during their visit, which are then carried back home, have far more weight than any type of publicity effort by the US. Destination image research focuses on a few countries around the world (Calantone et al

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