Micro-leisure and the hidden layer of urban tourism: evidence from longitudinal mobility data

This study examines how everyday recreational activities contribute to the formation of urban tourism. While tourism is often conceptualised as an activity separate from daily routines and associated with travel to specific destinations, routine small-scale recreational activities in urban contexts remain underexplored. This paper introduces the concept of micro-leisure as a form of recreational practice embedded in daily mobility, capturing leisure episodes within multi-purpose urban trips and representing a ‘hidden layer’ of urban tourism. Using longitudinal GPS-based mobility data from 1,093 individuals over more than 150 days (over 673,000 trips) in Makassar City, micro-leisure activities are identified based on location, duration, and temporal context. The findings show that micro-leisure is episodic yet significant, occurring on approximately 38% of observed days and accounting for around 19% of total daily-trips. These activities are associated with temporal factors, individual characteristics, and urban spatial structure, particularly density and land-use diversity. The results suggest that urban tourism is not only shaped by exceptional travel but also by everyday practices embedded within urban life.