Is the so-called OPEC holiday coming? An inevitable consequence of the holiday OPEC of tourism countries, which, like the oil-exporting countries with their policy of supply shortages and simultaneously rising prices, are joining together to form an emergency community and systematically closing holiday centres. Their aim: to avoid programmed self-destruction. And according to this prediction, it looks like this: Natural water supplies are running out, the concreted landscape is drying up. Accompanied by further bad news: "Acropolis under glass - Rolling system of European summer holiday regulations collapsed - European environment ministers met for a lightning conference in Geneva - Still no solution in sight to the traffic disaster on the Spanish border - Tourist unrest in the Sicily reserve".
A vision of the future? Not at all. In a study entitled "Leisure 2000" (published in May 1980), the ADAC takes up the thesis of the "revolt of the travellers" and proves it: Tourists could be unwelcome in the future, or even locked out. The traffic announcements during peak holiday periods support such theses.
An irritating picture, but not a new one. Back in November 1979, the scientific director of the BAT Leisure Research Institute, Prof Dr Horst W. Opaschowski, predicted "tourist unrest" at the Loccum Tourist Conference. Because: "As a result of the worldwide OPEC epidemic, environmental awareness is increasing. More OPEC holidaymakers will stay at home and look for alternative forms of holiday," Opaschowski surmises. For example, a citizens' initiative "Discover your neighbour", which opens up new paths in the residential environment. Using mobile animation teams to encourage a change of scenery from house to house, to discover new people in familiar surroundings.
Here, too, the danger follows hot on the heels. The leisure expert warns against reversing the positive development by institutionalising and exploiting the OPEC holiday. Fuel supplies that are being reduced further and further, prices that nobody can afford, airline tickets at unaffordable prices - developments that are quite realistic - could prompt tour operators to offer leisure programmes close to home. But this would destroy the spontaneity and protest character of OPEC holidays. Scavenger hunts for children, rally trips for families with their own cars, classic car rallies for hobby fans, raft trips for singles who want to socialise, theatre and opera trips for single women or skittles tours for bachelors would then be offered by commercial institutions. The local clubs are dying of a loss of members, because all the local improvisation can now be purchased cheaply, at graduated individual and group rates, in evening, weekend and annual subscriptions and with concentrated expertise. And yet another piece of personal initiative and self-experience/self-discovery would be cancelled out.
The fact that such predictions for the future are not in fact far-fetched or visionary is demonstrated by the holiday chaos on the roads from year to year. And the concrete silos on holiday beaches, the mass tourism that floods entire countries. Or the unstoppable rise in petrol prices. The constant fear of oil boycotts, rationing of per capita petrol consumption and rising public transport prices as a secondary consequence. It's time to rethink.

If there were such a thing as a Hippocratic oath for entertainers, it would read: "Never act against the interests of your counterpart. See your partner in every person. Recognise that your fears and inhibitions are human. Take each participant as he is. Encourage their strengths and do not demand that they conceal their weaknesses. Pick up on each participant's inclinations, interests and abilities. Trust them to have skills, knowledge and to make their own decisions. Help them to recognise their needs and interests so that they can later realise them on their own."

The 80 or so animators from Germany, Austria and France who met for three days at Hamburg's FABRIK from 19 to 21 May 1980 to share their problems and experiences agreed on this "maxim".

Prof Dr Horst W. Opaschowski, Scientific Director of the BAT Leisure Research Institute and Professor of Education at the University of Hamburg, initiated and chaired the meeting. He explained the work of an animator as a mixture of pedagogue, community worker and artist. He is a contact person, motivator and interest counsellor at the same time. In any case, not a clown or entertainer. His job is to encourage people and help them to make contact with others for joint activities in their leisure time and at work.

The Hamburg workshop was organised by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Erziehungswissenschaft, the Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft and the Studienkreis für Tourismus. This was the first time in the German-speaking world that animators from a wide range of practical fields came together to discuss their own work and to inspire themselves and the other participants with practical examples.

"District animation in Altona" - "Munich play mobile" - "Animation theatre" - "Collective painting" - "Animation on holiday" - "Animation in educational work with the elderly" - "Circus Bambini, a play-along theatre for children" were some of the topics of this "marketplace" for new animation methods in leisure education and cultural work.

The future demand for entertainers in the leisure, tourism, education and culture sectors cannot yet be determined in terms of numbers. However, an increasing demand for full-time and part-time entertainers can be observed. Even the number of volunteer entertainers is rising rapidly. This is the case in Dortmund, for example, where pensioners are being trained as entertainers at the Academy for the Elderly in order to work as voluntary entertainers in leisure activities with senior citizens.

Come time, come bike - thought most German citizens on car-free Sunday. Car-free - they certainly didn't want to give up their favourite leisure vehicle, the symbol of freedom and independence. In terms of leisure habits, car-free is proven, in terms of rethinking, emphatically immobile - this is the quintessence of the first voluntary car-free Sunday.

From the point of view of leisure research, the result was pre-programmed, at least not a surprise: the voluntary car-free Sunday was a Sunday like any other! It was not the car that was to blame, but the existing discrepancy between mobile leisure behaviour and immobile leisure thinking. This should be a signal for politics and public awareness to plan and promote self-reflection on alternative leisure options more purposefully and consciously.

Habit, inertia and comfort seem to be a good way to live during leisure time, as long as there are no more attractive leisure activities that are just as much fun and enjoyable. A clear leisure conscience is no guarantee of traffic calming.

What we need in the future is not only mobile leisure behaviour, but also mobile leisure thinking: a rethink of our leisure lifestyle, openness to social change, openness also and especially to necessary changes in what are, in the truest sense of the word, "entrenched" habits.

The external alternative "Get out of the city" or "Into the city" is not enough. Sticking to old leisure habits or being open to new leisure options is the inner alternative. This has something to do with flexibility of thought, the ability to change and a willingness to innovate. We are only at the beginning of developing a leisure awareness that is open to learning and stimulation.

Idleness is the beginning of all vices, says an old proverb. So said the great-grandparents to the grandparents, the grandparents to the parents, the parents to the children... and so on. Leisure and idleness were and are frowned upon, discredited, even condemned: "Those layabouts who do nothing all day but are 'on our backs'!" Judgements that are by no means new. A leisure study carried out by the BAT Leisure Research Institute shows that we have forgotten the art of idleness. All too often we equate leisure with empty breaks, laziness and meaningless idleness. We lack the capacity for oriental indolence, the idleness that has developed into the art of living, the feeling of having time and enjoying it. To remain in peace and to laze around with pleasure without getting bored still contradicts our life practice of being constantly busy. Perhaps we can learn from the Orientals.