Pandemic shifted millions to outdoor sports—and the change may be permanent
Sweden's softer COVID restrictions created an unexpected natural experiment: indoor sports migrated outdoors en masse, and participants liked it enough that the shift may reshape the recreation industry long-term. New research suggests activity patterns established during lockdowns are redefining how people understand fitness and leisure—a finding that matters for facility planners, sports organizations, and urban policymakers.
Originaltitel: Outdoorification of sports and recreation: a leisure transformation under the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden
<p>Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, most European countries imposed lockdowns, whereas Sweden introduced soft restrictions. Sports and physical activity could continue if conducted 'safely' and outdoor activities were even promoted if restrictions on the number of participants were not violated. The aim of this article is to demonstrate how the pandemic led to transitions and transformations of typical indoor sports activities to the outdoors and to outdoor recreation, or what we call an outdoorification process of sports and recreation, and how the changes were perceived by the population. Sweden is used as a case study. The inquiry is based on three studies involving more than 100 semi-structured interviews, two national questionnaire surveys and a regional-based PPGIS study. Based on the results, we argue that the outdoorification process is likely to influence how sport and recreation is understood and practiced also in the years after the pandemic.</p>