Adventure travel
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Adventure travel is a tourism, involving exploration or travel to remote or exotic areas, where the traveler should "expect the unexpected". Adventure tourism is rapidly growing in popularity, as tourists seek different kinds of vacations. According to the U.S. based Adventure Travel Trade Association, adventure travel may be any tourist activity, including two of the following three components: a physical activity, a cultural exchange or interaction and engagement with nature.
Adventure tourism gains much of its excitement by allowing its participants to step outside of their comfort zone. This may be from experiencing culture shock or through the performance of acts, that require significant effort and involve some degree of risk (real or perceived) and/or physical danger. This may include activities such as mountaineering, trekking, bungee jumping, mountain biking, rafting, zip-lining and rock climbing. Some obscure forms of adventure travel include disaster tourism and ghetto tourism.[1] Other rising forms of adventure travel include social tourism, jungle tourism and overland travel.
Access to inexpensive consumer technology, with respect to Global Positioning Systems, flashpacking, social networking and photography, have increased the worldwide interest in adventure travel.[2][3] The interest in independent adventure travel has also increased as more specialist travel websites emerge offering previously niche locations and sports.
Tour operators, travel agencies & retailers
Many organizations and companies worldwide cater to adventure clientèle. Some geographic regions are promoted by both private and public agencies as adventure travel destinations, such as the Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica, one of the worldwide leaders.
Disabled
With the trend of increasing accessible tourism, available to disabled persons around the world, some tourism areas are developing adventure tourism specifically for the disabled. Whistler, British Columbia and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada have been taking the lead with the 2010 Winter Paralympics. Adventure travel for the disabled has become a $13 billion USD a year industry in North America.[4]
Notable disabled adventurers include: Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind person to climb Mount Everest; Casey Pieretti, an amputee skater; and Caroline Walsh, founder of the Access to Marine Conservation for All International.
Some adventure travel destinations offer diverse programs and job opportunities developed specifically for the disabled.[5] Esprit Rafting, located in Pontiac Regional County Municipality, in Quebec, Canada, designs rafting trips for people with spinal cord damage, and is a rollerskate/RollerBlade free zone.
Types of Adventure Travel
Disaster Tourism
Disaster tourism is the act of traveling to a disaster area as a matter of curiosity. The behavior can be a nuisance if it hinders rescue, relief, and recovery operations.
If not done because of pure curiosity, it can be cataloged as disaster learning.
Ghetto Tourism
Ghetto tourism refers to the growing popularity of tourism in ghettos.
Ghetto tourism includes all forms of entertainment — "gangsta rap," video games, movies, TV, and other forms that allow consumers to traffic in the inner city without leaving home.
Jungle Tourism
Jungle tourism is a rising subcategory of adventure travel defined by active multifaceted physical means of travel in the jungle regions of the earth. Although similar in many respects to adventure travel, jungle tourism pertains specifically to the context of region, culture and activity. According to the Glossary of Tourism Terms, jungle tours have become a major component of green tourism in tropical destinations and are a relatively recent phenomenon of Western international tourism.
Overland Travel
Overland travel or overlanding refers to an "overland journey" - perhaps originating with Marco Polo's first overland expedition in the 13th century from Venice to the Chinese court of Kublai Khan. Today overlanding is a form of extended adventure holiday, embarking on a long journey, often in a group. Overland companies provide a converted truck or a bus plus a tour leader, and the group travels together overland for a period of weeks or months.
Since the 1960s overlanding has been a popular means of travel between destinations across Africa, Europe, Asia (particularly India), the Americas and Australia. The "Hippie trail" of the 60s and 70s saw thousands of young westerners travelling through the Middle East to India and Nepal.
Urban Exploration
Urban exploration (often shortened as urbex or UE) is the examination of the normally unseen or off-limits parts of urban areas or industrial facilities. Urban exploration is also commonly referred to as infiltration, although some people consider infiltration to be more closely associated with the exploration of active or inhabited sites. It may also be referred to as "draining" (when exploring drains) "urban spelunking", "urban caving", or "building hacking".
The nature of this activity presents various risks, including both physical danger and the possibility of arrest and punishment. Many, but not all, of the activities associated with urban exploration could be considered trespassing or other violations of local or regional laws.
Ethno Tourism
Ethno tourism refers to visiting a foreign location for the sake of observing the indigenous members of its society for the sake of non-scientific gain. Some extreme forms of this include attempting to make first contact with tribes that are protected from outside visitors.
Two controversial issues associated with ethno tourism include bringing natives into contact with diseases they do not have immunities for, and the possible degradation or destruction of a unique culture and/or language.[6]
See also
- Adventure recreation
- Hang Gliding
- Jungle tourism
- Mountain biking
- Mountaineering
- Outdoor education
- Parachuting
- Paragliding
- Rafting
- River trekking
- Travel journal
- Travel documentary
- Urban exploration
References
- ^ "Citypaper online". Retrieved 2007-11-10.
- ^ "The Flashpacker: A New Breed of Traveler". Hotel Travel News. 2006-03-24. Retrieved 2007-11-07.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ The Development of Social Network Analysis Vancouver: Empirical Press.
- ^ Stan Hagen - Tourism Minister of British Columbia
- ^ The Equity: "Esprit rafting to be featured in commercial", Wednesday, May 14th, 2008, print edition
- ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2009/jul/25/tribal-adventure-ethical-tourism-jarawa
Further reading
- "Adventure Tourism" by R. Buckley (2006) Published by CABI, Wallingford, UK.
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