Adventure Tourism Management PDF
Preview Adventure Tourism Management
Butterworth-HeinemannisanimprintofElsevier LinacreHouse,JordanHill,OxfordOX28DP,UK 30CorporateDrive,Suite400,Burlington,MA01803,USA Firstedition2010 Copyright(cid:2)2010ElsevierLtd.Allrightsreserved Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedinaretrievalsystem ortransmittedinanyformorbyanymeanselectronic,mechanical,photocopying, recordingorotherwisewithoutthepriorwrittenpermissionofthepublisher PermissionsmaybesoughtdirectlyfromElsevier’sScience&TechnologyRights DepartmentinOxford,UK:phone(+44)(0)1865843830;fax(+44)(0)1865853333; email:permissions@elsevier.com.Alternativelyyoucansubmityourrequestonlineby visitingtheElsevierwebsiteathttp://elsevier.com/locate/permissions,andselecting ObtainingpermissiontouseElseviermaterial Notice Noresponsibilityisassumedbythepublisherforanyinjuryand/ordamagetopersons orpropertyasamatterofproductsliability,negligenceorotherwise,orfromanyuse oroperationofanymethods,products,instructionsorideascontainedinthematerial herein.Becauseofrapidadvancesinthemedicalsciences,inparticular,independent verificationofdiagnosesanddrugdosagesshouldbemade BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData AcatalogrecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheLibraryofCongress ISBN:978-1-85617-834-1 ForinformationonallButterworth-Heinemannpublications visitourwebsiteatbooks.elsevier.com PrintedandboundinGreatBritain 10 10987654321 Dedication This book is dedicated to two remarkable athletes who have used extraor- dinary feats ofadventure to promoteconservation. To raise money for Save the Rhino, Christina Franco has run the 6-day Marathon des Sables across the Sahara, and won a ski race to the North Magnetic Pole.In2009 sheskiedsolo to the North Pole itself. Wang Shi is a highly successful property entrepreneur who has also climbed the Seven Summits, skied both North and South Poles, and rafted the Yangtze tohelp raise awareness ofriver conservation. Christina Franco, Arctic expeditionrace Wang Shi and TravisWinn ofLast Descents,Yangtze GreatBend vii Preface Peopletakeholidaysasabreakfromtheroutinefromtheireverydaylives.For some, the best kind of break is to be looked after in luxury. For others, it meansbroadeningtheirhorizonsthroughsomenewexperienceoreducation. Butformany,thebestkindofholidayisonethatbringsasenseofadventure, something exciting and memorable. Some people want all of these in the sameholiday,andindeed, that is perfectly possible. Notsurprisingly,therefore,alargeproportionofthecommercialtourism industryhasbeenestablishedspecificallytoprovidepeoplewithadventurous experiences.Differentpeoplehaveverydifferentideasofwhatmakesagood adventure, and the industry is correspondingly diverse. It is also very large, withanannualturnoversomewhere inthe regionof atrillion dollars. Unlikeothermajorsectorsofthecommercialtourismindustry,however, adventuretourismhasreceivedremarkablylittleresearchattention.Infact, it appears that there are only two previous books which address adventure tourism explicitly: one by Swarbrooke et al. (2003), which focuses on indi- vidualadventureexperiences;andonebyBuckley(2006a)whichfocuseson the structure of commercial adventure tourism products. Even including academicbooksinrelatedareassuchasthatbyRyan(2003)onRecreational Tourism and Baldacchino (2006) on Extreme Tourism, and commercial publications such as The Lonely Planet Blue List, this is still a remarkably sparseliterature for such a large field. The reasons for this lack of research attention are not clear. Perhaps adventuretourismhasnotbeenwelldefined:butthesamecertainlyapplies for ecotourism, and there is no shortage of books on that topic. Perhaps adventure tourism has been analysed under other headings: but in fact, although there is a large literature on outdoor recreation, that literature focuses almost exclusively on private individual recreational practices, with ratherlittleattentiontothecommercialadventuretourismindustry.Perhaps tourism researchers do not see any opportunities for research in adventure tourismtoadvancetheoreticalunderstandingsoftourismmoregenerally.In fact,however,surelymanysuchopportunitiesexist,ifonlybecausepeoplein unfamiliar situations behave differently than they do at home, providing significant scopefor psychological and behavioural analysis. ix x Preface Perhaps, therefore, it is simply that as a subsector of the commercial tourism industry, adventure tourism has grown to its current scale rather recentlyandrapidly.Ofcourse,thisdependsonjusthowadventuretourism is defined, but in very broad terms we might recognise three historical pha- ses.Intheearliestphase,thereweresomehighlyadventuroustravellers,but notmanyofthem.Inthesecondphase,theexpansionofmasstourism,the number of tourists grew enormously, but most of them were not very adventurous. It is only in this current third phase, as mass tourism has evolved from its model-T beginnings to its highly customised current structures, that commercial adventure tourism has had the opportunity to expand its economic scale, with the proliferation of adventure equipment, clothing,infrastructureand lifestylesas well as retail tours. Irrespectiveofthereasons,itdoessurelyseemthatadventuretourismhas receivedagreatdeallessacademicattentionthatitdeserves;andtheaimof thisvolumeistocontributetoovercomingthisdeficit.Aswiththeprevious volume (Buckley, 2006a), this book focuses on commercial adventure tourism,wherepredefinedproductsandpackagesaresoldultimatelytoretail consumers, through a range of different marketing mechanisms. The approachtaken,however,isquitedifferentfromthatpreviousvolume,which provideddetaileddescriptiveanalysesofauditedadventuretourismproducts from around 20 different subsectors, defined by the principal activity concerned. Thisvolume,incontrast,examinesgeneralfeatures oftheentireadven- ture tourism sector simultaneously, with only a few activity subsectors considered in detail as case studies. Individual adventure tourism products are referred to on occasion as examples, but are not described in any detail. Someofthepatternspresentedherehavebeenderivedfromfurtheranalysisof data published previously in the 2006 volume, whereas others are entirely new. At the time of going to press, one of these 13 chapters had also been published as an article in the journal Tourism Management, and part of another overlaps a submission to the journal Annals of Tourism Research. Theremainingmaterialisnotavailableelsewhere. Thisbookiswrittenforavarietyofdifferentreaders.Itincludesreviews andanalysesofresearch dataand previous publicationswhicharegenerally intended to be reliable, representative, and up-to-date. It is written in astraightforwardstyleusingnon-technicallanguage,forusebypractitioners anduniversitystudentsaswellasresearchers.Itwillbemostvaluableifread in conjunction with the 2006 volume which presents detailed case studies. This follows the same approach as a 2009 book on ecotourism (Buckley, 2009a), which can usefully be read in conjunction with a 2003 book on ecotourism case studies (Buckley,2003a). Preface xi The material presented in this book is intended for readers who already have a general understanding of the tourism industry, whether through practice,researchinterests,oranundergraduatecourseintourismortourism management. There are many textbooks and research volumes on tourism management more generally, and this book assumes that the reader under- standsthebroadstructureofthetourismindustry,includingmarketingand distributionsystemsandthevarietyofbusinessmodelsincommonuse.My aimhereisnottoreviewthebasicsoftourismstudies,buttoshowhowand where adventure tourism fits, both inthe commercial industry itself and in the various relevantresearch disciplines. The 13 chapters are organised into three sections. The first section, chapters 1–3, presents a global overview of the scale and scope, geography, andproductandmarketingpatternsintheadventuretourismindustry.The second section, chapters 4–8 inclusive, addresses four major operational management aspects, namely, risk, communications, access, and environ- ment. Climate change is also considered in this section. The third section, chapters 9–12 inclusive, presents four different subsectors representative of different components of the adventure tourism industry: wildlife, marine, boardsports, and helicopter adventure tourism, respectively. In conclusion,chapter 13identifies keytrends and patterns for future practice and research. About the Author Ralf Buckley is Professor and Director of the International Centre for Ecotourism Research, established in 1993 at Griffith University, Australia. Hehasover700publicationsincluding185refereedjournalarticles;andhe has written and edited a dozen academic books, including seven on ecotourism and related topics. He has several decades of experience in various forms of adventure recreation and used to work as a tour guide for a US-basedinternationaltour company.Hisresearchfocusesprincipally on the various interactions between the tourism industry and the natural environment. His 2006 book on Adventure Tourism assembled over 100 auditedcasestudiesfromover20activitysubsectors.Thisvolumebuildson that foundation bytaking a more analytical approach. xiii List of Tables Table 2.1 ProportionsofOutdoorTourOperatorsinEachAustralianState and Territory Table 3.1 Adventure Tour Operators Audited Table 3.2 GroupSizes and Client-to-GuideRatios Table 3.3 Marketing MethodsforAdventure Tours Table 4.1 Participant Attitudes and Perceptions in Particular Adventure Activities Table 4.2 Guides’ Roles inRisk Management Table 5.1 ToursUsedforParticipant Observations Table 5.2 Major Subjects ofRoutine Communications Table 5.3 Key Characteristicsof Communication Case Studies Table 6.1 Case Studies, Monitoring Tourism in Parks Table 9.1 AnimalsinAdventureTourismProducts:SelectedCaseStudies Table 10.1 Marine Adventure Tours Table 10.2 Distribution ofShark SpeciesWatched byDivers Table 12.1 Structureof Heliski ProductPackages Table 12.2 Key Featuresof HeliskiProducts andMarketing xv List of Figures Figure2.1 Global distribution of adventure tour destinations for surfing, heliskiing, and whitewater rafting. Figure2.2 Distribution ofoutdoortour operatorsin Australia. Figure3.1 Pricesanddurations foradventure tourism products audited. Figure3.2 Pricesperday, means andstandard deviations. Figure3.3 Skill requirements andremoteness. Figure6.1 Sale prices perha, 1985–2005, AlpineShire,Victorian Alps. Figure13.1 The adventure tourism product pyramid. From Buckley (2007a). xvii CHAPTER 1 Scope and Scale Exploding wave, Colorado River,USA KEY ISSUES CONTENTS Scope Key Issues - defining adventure tourism Chapter Summary - related terms andsectors Research Review - history ofthe concept Big Picture - activities involved Looking Back - structure ofthe sector - review ofacademicand greyliterature Scale - howto estimatethe economic scale of the adventure tourism sector - components andboundaries - valuation and estimation measures and methods - review ofactual estimates forparticular sectors andplaces - range ofestimates forthe global industry - adventure tourism as a trillion-dollar sector - add-onssuchas amenitymigration and associated property markets AdventureTourismManagement 3 Copyright(cid:2)2010byElsevierLtd.Allrightsreserved. 4 CHAPTER 1: Scope and Scale CHAPTER SUMMARY Scope Adventure tourism is a broad term which encompasses all types of commercial outdoor tourism and recreation with a significant element of excitement.Itiscloselyrelatedtonature-basedtourism,withsomeoverlap. Whilst nature-based tourism products focus on seeing, however, adventure tourism products focus on doing. A wide range of outdoor recreation activities have been packaged as commercial adventure tour products, from short, low-key hiking trips to expensive and equipment-intensive tours involving helicopters and expedi- tion cruise vessels. Adventuretourismissometimesalsotakentoincludeindependenttravel which provides or is perceived by the travellers themselves as providing, an adventurous experience. At the other end of the spectrum, it may also be takentoincludelarge-scale,fixed-siteoutdoor sportingfacilitiessuchasski resortsandyachtmarinas,andassociatedretailandresidentialcomponents. Here,however,thefocusisonpackagedcommercialretailadventuretourism products purchasableby individual consumers. Scale Therearebasicallytwodifferentapproachestoestimatetheeconomicscale of the adventure tourism sector: top-down or bottom-up. The former relies oncalculatingwhatproportionofthetourismindustryasawholeconsistsof adventure tourism. The latter relies on estimating the economic scale of every individual adventure tourism operation or at least subsector, and aggregatingtheseintoacumulativefigurefortheadventuretourismindustry as a whole. With perfect data and unambiguous definitions, these two approaches should yield the same result. In practice, since both data and definitions are rather incomplete and unreliable, the two approaches can yield quite different results. The degree to which they correspond, however, can provide anindicationofhow reliable theymay be. Itisonlyinrecentdecadesthatcountrieshavebeguntoestimatethescale of their tourism industries at all, since historically this was not included as one of the calculation components for GNP. Tourism satellite accounts are nowwidespreadinanumberofnations,butstillnotparticularlyprecise.Itis notable, for example, that the peak international tourism industry associa- tion, the World Travel and Tourism Council, estimates global tourism turnoverataround$7trillionperyear,whereasthepeakintergovernmental body, the UN World Tourism Organisation, gives a considerably smaller
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