Adventure activities parks in Europe: an outdoor education touristic destination

In the course of time and according to the evolution of research data in the world literature, there is an increasing number of people, who prefer to exercise outdoors and express through motion next to nature away from the commitment to a confined space, such as the gym. People today choose to combine movement with entertainment and contact with other people, creating strong social bonds and orienting themselves to a form of exercise that will enable them to have unique experiences and unprecedented emotions, feeling the adrenaline constantly increasing in the face of challenges. Therefore, the involvement of the population in a form of exercise that provides these opportunities is becoming more and more intense. The focus of our dissertation and the topic that will concern us are the spaces that promote the form of exercise mentioned above, the parks of motor leisure activities. In this paper we searched in the web and analyzed the websites of (Ν=250) thematic parks in Europe. We found that all parks have a description related to a sport theme and we categorized them in three categories: a) rope parks with high and low passages with climbing equipment b) seasonal parks with water tubes and water pipes (waterparks) and c) mixed parks with outdoor activities like archery and sport shooting. Our results indicate that in Northern Europe countries the adventure parks are a common tourism destination with schoolchildren visits and tourism packages, whereas in south Europe and the Mediterranean the phenomenon is less common and the countries are like to invest in more traditional touristic models. In the limitations of this pilot research is that the procedure was interrupted by the pandemic and the covid 19 restrictions from March to May 2020.