Home Study Adventure Tourism
This course cover the scope and nature of adventure tourism in the current market. It examines sources and types of opportunities available within this rapidly growing industry. The course covers a range of topics including outdoor adventure and management training, the target audience, use of artificial environments, supply, geography, sustainability and possible environmental impacts of adventure tourism activities.
COURSE AIM
Develop your knowledge and capacity to plan and manage the provision of adventure tourism.
COURSE STRUCTURE
There are 8 lessons as follows:
- Scope and nature of Adventure tourism
- The Product: Sources and Types
- Management
- The Customer
- Locations & Facilities - Artificial environments
- Locations & Facilities - Natural
- Ethics, Sustainability and Environmental impacts
- Risk management & Insurance
Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.
Aims:
- Define the nature and scope of adventure tourism
- Identify types of adventure tours, and sources of information on them.
- Consider the requirements of managing an adventure tourism destination or service.
- Identify potential customers, customer needs and requirements in planning and conducting adventure tours.
- Identify various kinds of artificial environments for adventure tours, and the facilities typically provided at them.
- Discuss the requirements and problems associated with using natural locations for adventure tours.
- Identify ethical and environmental issues related to adventure tourism.
- Identify kinds of risk and strategies for reducing their negative impacts on customers and operators.
WHAT THE COURSE COVERS
You will learn a wide variety of things, through a combination of reading, interacting with tutors, undertaking research and practical tasks, and watching videos. Here are just some of the things you will be doing:
- Define Adventure Tourism in your own words.
- List target groups for marketing adventure tourism.
- What type of adventure tourism do you consider to have the greatest potential for financial success in your region.
- Summarize brochures on 5 different adventure tourism attractions, services or tours.
- Submit a list of Adventure Tourism attractions
- Analyse the potential of adventure tourism in the region in which you live.
- Compare the attractions and disadvantages of three different locations or destinations in adventure tourism.
- How does Adventure Tourism differ to other types of Tourism?
- How does the media influence Adventure Tourism in your Country?
- Explain licensing requirements for three different types of adventure tourism activities in your country.
- Describe ways in which the adventure tourism market might be segmented.
- How are consumer trends changing in adventure tourism?
- Explain the difference between soft and hard adventurers.
- Based on your research, discuss the relationship between adventure and risk.
- What kinds of people are most likely to go on adventure tours?
- Differentiate between artificial and natural adventure tourism destinations.
- List as many types of different artificial tourism attractions as you can conceive of (they do not have to exist), and indicate beside each what you believe is its likely target market.
- Arrange a list above into soft & hard destinations.
- Report on the environment, facilities and services at the two different adventure tourism destinations. in two columns: one column hard & one soft
- List different types of natural adventure tourism activities
- What areas of natural adventure tourism have experienced growth in recent years?
- What issues should management consider when planning to use natural adventure tourism destinations?
COURSE DURATION: 100 hrs
There are two main components to adventure tourism:
- Where you go (ie. the destination); and
- What you do when you get there.
Adventure tourism could be strongly focused on only one of these things, or perhaps on both.
A destination-focused product is frequently a remote or undeveloped area, where adventure is going to be found in the nature of the location, irrespective of what the tourism industry seeks to provide.
Isolated wilderness areas will offer challenges to simply access places that are inaccessible (eg. climbing mountains; hiking into forests or deserts that do not have roads, or venturing onto an ocean that is located beyond the reach of civilisation). Some destinations may be inhabited, but relatively under-developed (eg. primitive cultures, poorer societies). Other destinations may be developed, but sited in or near an inhospitable location (eg. on the edge of a mountain, in an arctic climate, or beside an ocean).
The adventure in isolated and inhospitable places can be found by simply getting to and being in those places. The fact that the tourist needs to forego luxuries such as a warm shower, toilet or air-conditioning can, in itself, be an adventure for some people. The fact that a person needs to walk instead of ride a car might also be an adventure for some.
Not all destinations need to be such a trial in order for a holiday to be an “adventure holiday”. If the product focus is on “what you do”; rather than “where you are”, the adventure holiday could be located virtually anywhere. Consider a popular tourist destination, providing lots of five-star resorts, transport to and from on large jets, and a range of restaurants that suit the culinary delights of anyone. Such a location may still develop a market for adventure tourism by simply developing a range of “adventure activities”. For example:
- Adventure fun parks with roller coasters and other rides
- Bungy jumping
- Scuba diving
- Para gliding
- Skydiving
- White water rafting
- Thrill seeker joy flights
- Paint ball wars (ie. Skirmish-type activities).
Different regions of the world are associated with particular types of adventure tourism. For example:
- Nepal offers some of the best climbing and trekking in the world.
- North Queensland, Australia, is the site of one of the most magnificent barrier reefs (The Great Barrier Reef) in the world for scuba diving and snorkelling.
- Antarctica provides the opportunity to explore one of the most uninhabitable continents on earth by boat, or by foot for the brave and prepared adventurer.
An individual country can also include a wide variety of different types of adventure tourism. For example, India offers jungle and mountain adventure tourism destinations, religious retreats, beach locations, and cultural tourism destinations. Australia also offers a variety of tourism choices including outback adventures, reef and beach escapes, mountain and rainforest tours, city highlights, and quiet country escapes.
