Aventura 1

Defining the ‘Outdoors’
By: Introduction Officially the European Confederation of Outdoor Employers (EC-OE) was established as a non-for-profit organisation on 30/08/2008. From day one it was clear that ‘the outdoors’ was used - as a concept - by many to describe activities such as canoeing, mountain bike, sailing, survival, hiking, skiing, etc., etc. On the other hand it was hardly understood that these kind of activities were organised by many thousands of very small businesses and consequently provide for an income for even more thousands of people throughout the EU. Simultaneously, through a multitude of contacts the EC-OE felt the need to define more precisely the field of action they were involved with. The latter is what this article is all about: defining the outdoors. The first part of this article will focus on ‘identifying’ the outdoors within a European context. The second part will then focus on ‘defining’ the outdoors. And finally, the third part of this article will be devoted to ‘positioning’ EC-OE and ‘the outdoors’ within the overall ‘Sport & Active Leisure’ scene. Dr. Herman Smulders President of the EC-OE

1. 1.1

Identification of ‘Sport’, ‘Active Leisure’ & the ‘Outdoors’ The European context: European umbrella organisations

In the 1990’s begin 2000, European umbrella organisations focusing on ‘specific’ or even ‘general’ sports related issues, became a new phenomenon. Obviously many – mostly scientific – international organisations already existed in the ‘sports arena’ (e.g. on the history of sport and physical education, sports psychology, sociology of sport, sports geography, etc. etc.,). On the other hand, international sports federations, the IOC and even organisations such as the sport for all federation (FISPT) 1, the International lifesaving federation (ILSF) 2 etc., etc. are also operational for many years. The ‘new phenomenon’ we are referring to in this article are umbrella organisations with a specific European (political)