Adventure travel
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.0222222
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.
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
Further reading
- "Adventure Tourism" by R. Buckley (2006) Published by CABI, Wallingford, UK.
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