New opportunities arise

This edition, with many in-depth articles, highlights the past corona period (what hit us?) but also looks ahead and focuses on new opportunities for our ‘new normal’. Here is an assembly of passioned articles written by our lecturers, students and industry partners.

I cannot help myself looking back at this past year, to see so many new opportunities arise. The crisis that seems to end in the next months has brought us many complex challenges but also excellent new initiatives. We know, the higher the complexity, the more we need creativity and community involvement. The less we need are regulations to solve them. Unfortunately, during the lockdown we saw more regulations coming in and community involvement was not an easy task. The importance of creativity unveiled more than ever before.

Looking at the different Fieldlab events in the past months, I am very proud to see that BUas played a very important role in partnership with fellow Universities for our leisure and event industry. There was extensive research on the different touch points of visitors. We showed pro-active support to our industry to see how they could re-open with the desired occupation. Excellent work and lots of smart solutions.

If we look at digitalisation, we saw brand-new top-notch events that popped up, looking extremely professional. Online and interactive events even had more participants than before the crisis. We saw that the hybrid combinations of life and online forced the industry to act differently. Today, we are changing our travel behaviour, making less related costs, and when meeting online we are more time efficient. And suddenly, we dare to ask questions like why do we travel so far for only one meeting? and Can’t we do it online?

We see that working from home often brings even a higher productivity, whereas in traditional industries, working from home was not done. How can we create the informal, less scheduled experience that plays a typical role in the leisure experience? How do we create a new normal? We will take some aspects from this lockdown experience with us to the future. It was also a time where social value and spontaneous creativity was leading, but this still needs further development towards a time where we really meet and feel we are on the move together.

‘See, touch and move the world’

Although cost avoidance and staying alive has been vital during corona, financial gains are no longer the only priority. What surfaces even stronger and will be there to stay is our commitment to societal domains. In places such as nursing homes, elderly and vulnerable patients have missed out on personal contact during corona and sometimes do not even understand why there is no longer the weekly visit by their family members. As a result, many have been feeling left alone and disconnected from society and loved ones. Or the rise of Urban Living Labs, a co-creation that brings together the entire community. A great example of full inclusion. Again, by the lockdown experience we feel the need to really see each other even stronger than before.

It gives me energy to read articles written by our industry partners, students and lecturers. I feel the partnership on our shared values. To me, this shows who we are. You are not only involved, but you are also committed. It is much deeper because we care.

Roland Kleve is director of the Academy for Leisure & Events, Breda University of Applied Sciences.

We are able to create meaningful ‘you will never forget’ experiences together that will make a difference for our society. We design and develop leisure for future generations. Already for a long time we have felt the need to put in words what it is that we strive for. Sometimes it is easier to see what you are missing than recognizing what is there all the time. So, what did we really miss? We missed to ‘See, touch and move the world.’ That is what Leisure & Events is all about and the lockdown could not make this clearer.

We can be proud of this new Uncover. I hope this edition gives you a lot of reading pleasure and more importantly, continues to push all of us towards the highest quality.