TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE HAND IN HAND

NEW TREND IN TOURISM

Travelling for recreation, leisure, family or business purposes, usually for a short duration can be a way of defining tourism. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people “traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes”.  Different types of tourism can be recognized depending on length of stay, mode of transport used, distance travelled, purpose of trip and price paid by tourists.  International tourism, national tourism, long distance tourism and short distance tourism are a way of broadly classifying tourism. Tourism invariably involves travelling, the distance of travel either being cross-city, cross-state or cross-country.

Tourists, nowadays, have taken to a new form of tourism extensively involving adventure, hence called, Adventure Tourism. This type of tourism deals with exploration or travel with perceived risk and requiring certain skills and a lot of physical exertion.  A physical activity, a cultural exchange or interaction and engagement with nature are the components of any tourist activity that can be termed as adventure tourism.

Adventure tourists are usually people who generally want their selves to be pushed out their comfort zones and experience something that can be characterized as “rush” or “flow”. This is achieved by 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.Culture shock is the personal disorientation a person may feel when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life due to immigration or a visit to a new country, a move between social environments, or simply travel to another type of life. One of the most common causes of culture shock involves individuals in a foreign environment. Activities such as mountaineering, trekking, bungee jumping, mountain biking, canoeing, rafting, zip-lining, paragliding, and rock climbing are a few examples of activities that adventure tourists undertake. A few Types of adventure travel include : Accessible tourism, Disaster tourism, Ecotourism, Ethno tourism, Extreme tourism, Ghetto tourism, Jungle tourism, Overland travel and Urban exploration.

The list of activities for adventure tourism and the best places for them are as follows:

~Adventure Life - Africa, the Arctic, Antarctica

~Momentum Adventure - Lebanon, British Columbia and Japan.

~Canoeing -  North America, the Amazon Basin, and Polynesia

~Backpacking (travel); Backpacking (wilderness)- Australia, North America and New Zealand

~Bungee jumping - Pentecost Island in Vanuatu and Danza de los Voladores de Papantla or the ‘Papantla flyers’ of central Mexico

~Disaster tourism - the Lower 9th and St. Bernard Parish which is 1.4 miles east of the Industrial Canal.

~Ghetto tourism – New York City and Philadelphia

~Jungle tourism - Africa, Australia, and the South Pacific.

~Mountain biking - Crested Butte, Colorado and Cupertino, California

~Mountaineering -  Caucasus Mountains, Mount Kazbek

 Adventure tourism acts as a fresh breath for the tourists who want a change of scene in their static and routine lives.