Discover Adventure Tourism

All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware

Adventure tourism is defined as travel outside a person’s normal environment for more than 24 hours and not more than one consecutive year. The Adventure Travel defines adventure tourism as a trip (travelling outside a person’s normal environment for more than 24 hours and not more than one consecutive year) that includes at least two of the following three elements: physical activity, natural environment, and cultural immersion, different forms of adventure tourism: archeological expedition, attending local festival/fairs, backpacking, bird-watching, camping, caving, climbing, cruise, cultural activities, eco-tourism, educational programs, environmentally sustainable activities, fishing/fly-fishing, getting to know the locals, hiking, horseback riding, hunting, kayaking/sea/whitewater, learning new language, orienteering, rafting, research expeditions, safaris, sailing, scuba diving, snorkeling, skiing/snowboarding, surfing, trekking, walking tours, visiting friends/family, visiting historical sites, and volunteer tourism.  With growth of the industry comes the move towards increased professionalization of the sector; in destinations around the world, adventure tourism companies are striving to improve their business practices and impact and interaction with the environment. Safety and responsibility are key themes at industry meetings and within companies. It is an opportunity to conduct more widely relevant and recognized research, publishable in tourism journals yet also cite able in other disciplines. Adventure tourism, particularly for more highly skilled and practiced exponents, can involve high risks, difficult decisions, stressful social situations, and considerable investment of time and money, in order to create chances to enjoy particular types of brief, emotionally intense and very highly valued experiences associated with the competent performance of a learned skill under highly challenging circumstances. It is argued here that this provides opportunities for research in geography, economics, psychology and human social behavior which are not readily available elsewhere, and whose results may prove relevant well beyond the confines of adventure tourism itself and that adventure tourism can provide a tool which can help to extend both the practical and the academic relevance of tourism research into other disciplines. It is suggested that such approaches are worth taking, not only in adventure tourism but also in other subsectors of tourism research. Today, Adventure Tourism is a vibrant, dynamic, and fast-changing sector with new variants routinely added into the possible experiences. Individual companies are often small, owner-operated businesses led by entrepreneurs with a drive to share their favorite places and passions with others. Adventure offers opportunities to entrepreneurs in rural areas around the world to do the same. In many destinations, adventure tourism has been developed without extensive new infrastructure. It can also deliver benefits, from creating local jobs rapidly to relying on traditional knowledge of local people for guiding and interpretation. Sustainable tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities. Responsible Tourism is tourism “that creates better places for people to live in, and better places to visit”. Responsible tourism can take place in any environment, and many cities have adopted responsible tourism policies. Adventure tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors of the tourism sector, attracting high value customers, supporting local economies, and encouraging sustainable practices. Thus, the continued growth of this sector creates net positive impacts not only for tourism, but also for destination economies, their people, and their environment. Adventure tourism trends will be examined in the next chapter. The ideas and topics outlined above are all intended to illustrate a single rather simple theme. To take part in adventure tourism, an individual must possess both the opportunity, and a personal motivation to devote time and money to experience a particular type of activity, which may also involve risk. This indicates that such tourists place high value on the adventure tourism experience. This value may be derived either from a social experience during the tour itself, or from social capital as a consequence of the tour experience, or from the personal physical and emotional experience of the activity itself. This provides opportunities to conduct research on all of these aspects.

Article Submit By: Vikas Acharya