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Disadvantages Of Adventure Tourism

Decent Essays

Introduction

Adventure Tourism is a type of niche tourism involving exploration, where the traveller should expect the unexpected. Adventure tourism is rapidly growing in popularity as tourists seek unusual holidays, different from typical beach vacation. Mountaineering expeditions, trekking, bungee jumping, rafting and rock climbing are frequently cited as examples of adventure tourism.
Characteristics

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 is broken into two major subcategories of adventure tourism: hard adventure and …show more content…

Allocentrics are people whom seek adventure through travel. They are innovators who seek out new locations and activities and prefer high activity levels. (Polytechnic, 2013) Thus, Allocentrics are considered hard adventure travellers due to their desire for adventure, higher levels of risk, higher activity levels and other characteristics consistent with hard adventure travellers. Near- allocentrics are considered to be soft adventure travellers. (Goodnow, 2005)
Destinations

The Inca Trail is the most famous trek in South America and rated by many to be in the top 5 treks in the world. In just 43km, it combines beautiful mountain scenery, lush cloud-forest, sub-tropical jungle and, a stunning mix of Inca paving stones, ruins and tunnels. Peru’s Ministry of Culture, which administers sites of archaeological importance such as the Inca Trail, caps the total number of permits for the trail at 500 tickets per day. Everyone who enters the Inca Trail, trekker, guide or porter must have one of these 500 permits. (Less, 2014)

Permits for the popular season months of June, July, and August sell out quickly. Thus, this indicates that despite the capped amount of tickets sold, many soft adventure travellers are curious about the scenery and what the destination has in hold to capture so many …show more content…

Environmental conservation efforts are currently being undertaken throughout Chile, not only by the Chilean government, but also the concerned individual citizens, grassroots organizations, international non-profit organizations promoting sustainable growth and environmentally responsible tourism. These organisations work with indigenous groups to prevent deforestation and develop sustainable use of Chile's native forests. (Society, 2012) Countries could adopt the conservation measures which Chile has done to ensure the environmental sustainability of adventure tourism.

As mentioned above, adventure tourism is a fast growing industry resulting in many business opportunities in this industry. Due to the increase in awareness about adventure tourism, there has been an increasing demand for adventure tourism. This growth will enable adventure tourism to be economically sustainable.

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