adventure trip

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Trekking in Quebrada de las Conchas , Cafayate , Salta Province , Argentina

An adventure travel is the risk rich company of a man who his usual spatial and social environment leaves and in the longer term to a remote destination moves . The adventure traveler is directly and responsibly involved in the company. He consciously accepts risks and dangers and needs appropriate skills and competencies as well as a robust constitution to cope with the challenges . The traveler takes a risk with his company by constantly confronting himself with an unfamiliar new environment and corresponding imponderables in order to discover and experience the extraordinary.

Definitions

According to the US Adventure Travel Trade Association , adventure travel encompasses any form of tourism that has the following three characteristics: physical challenge, cultural exchange, and closeness to nature.

Thomas Trümper defines adventure travel as a journey in which "activities with the experience characteristics characteristic of adventurous situations predominate and which are experienced for their own sake, that is, an adventure motive must exist."

According to Natascha Sverak, an adventure journey is “a hardly planned journey into the unknown, which leaves a lot of space for spontaneity and independence, challenges the body with a certain risk and allows for sport and fun. In addition, it is strongly connected to nature / wilderness and the locals, while allowing variety and the extraordinary for the practitioner. "

According to Manfred Köhler, adventure travel means “spending a vacation away from overcrowded tourist areas, walking in the footsteps of former explorers and wanting to experience a touch of adventure in the process. On the way, borderline experiences are made about your own performance, you get to know life in all its diversity, and collect knowledge that also touches people who are not interested in "adventurous" acts of strength. "

According to Heinz Hahn and Hans-Jürgen Kagelmann, adventure vacationers (A-type) are characterized “by the search for a 'unique experience', whereby this is not experienced alone and exposed to uncontrolled danger, but with controlled risk and usually in a group of like-minded people ". "To be an adventurer means, first and foremost, to free yourself from the fear of what family, friends or neighbors might say when you step out of your stuck everyday life and begin to realize your dreams."

An adventure trip is defined by its spatial (away from home), temporal (long-term), social (isolation) and cultural dimensions ( culture shock ).

motivation

The grueling long-distance trips of the merchant Marco Polo were motivated not only by trade but also by “[t] he lure of the distant, foreign and dangerous”. The Berlin travel researcher Hasso Spode cites “late adolescent identity search” for younger people and “boredom” for older people with higher incomes as the motive for extreme vacation experiences. The Hamburg sociologist Ulrich Reinhardt sees a cause in social change : "We only identify to a limited extent through our work or everyday life, but rather through the things we do in our free time." An adventurer's mark is absolute uniqueness . According to Ralf Buckley, adventure tourists are motivated to experience a mental state of "rush" or " flow " that results from leaving their comfort zone.

Types of adventure travel

Ecotourism

Ecotourism in the Arctic ( Svalbard )

Ecotourism is defined by the International Environmetrics Society as "responsible travel to natural areas in which nature is preserved and the well-being of the local population is preserved, and includes meaning and training." The aim of ecotourism is to protect the environment from harmful influences such as human travel and making educational information available by advocating for the uniqueness of the environment. In addition, ecotourism should "try to get ecotourists out of their passive roles, where recreation is simply based on the natural landscape, and encourage them to take on a more active role, where activities make a real contribution to the health and viability of this environment."

Ethnic tourism

In ethno-tourism, foreign places are visited with the intention of observing and getting to know indigenous peoples and cultures in their natural society for non-scientific reasons.

Some more extreme forms also include attempts to contact indigenous peoples who were previously isolated or protected from visitors. There are two controversies associated with ethnotourism: natives can become infected with diseases against which they have no natural defensive reactions, and in the long term cultural independence and language can be alienated and eradicated through acculturation .

Overland travel

Overland travel (Engl. Overlanding ) are long-distance trips on contiguous land masses that may first already on Marco Polo's overland expedition mid-13th century from Venice to Mongolian court of Kublai Khan decline. Nowadays, overland trips are extended adventure trips over long distances, mostly in a group. Commercial providers use converted trucks or buses for this purpose, which are usually driven for several weeks or months under the guidance of a tour guide. Since the 1960s, overland travel has become a popular way to travel between destinations in Africa, Europe, Asia (particularly India here), America, and Australia. On the “ hippie trail ” of the 1960s and 70s, thousands of young Westerners traveled from Europe via the Middle East to India and Nepal . Many of these old routes still exist, with new ones such as overland routes from Iceland to South Africa and the post-Soviet countries of Central Asia.

City exploration

Sightseeing (Engl. Urban Exploration (Urbex) ) is the private research facilities of urban space and so-called Lost Places ( "forgotten places"). Often it is about exploring old industrial ruins, but also sewer systems, catacombs, roofs or inaccessible rooms of unused facilities. However, the term is also used to refer to accessible places such as parks.

The educational effect

The abbreviation “travel educates”, which can be read in travel catalogs, is incorrect in this simplification, because simply being on the move does not trigger an educational automatism. “ Travel can educate, if it is lived and reflected consciously ”, is how the venture researcher Siegbert A. Warwitz differentiates this statement. This is especially true for real adventure travel because it is associated with a high degree of personal responsibility and holistic experience intensity: “ The personality-building effect depends on the degree of concern that the encounter [with the adventure] is able to trigger. For this it is of considerable importance to what extent the adventure seeker is willing to get involved real, actively and complexly with all the consequences in the adventurous event . "

The knight Gahmuret leaves his home with a companion to go on an âventiure (Heidelberg University Library, Cod. Pal. Germ. 339, sheet 5v)

The concept of adventure ( Âventiure ) and the idea of ​​a corresponding adventure journey were coined by the poets of the High Middle Ages , in that they depicted the exit of knights in their epics , who broke away from all personal ties and the familiar environment and went out into the world, to face adventures in an honorable way. These so-called “hero's journeys” did not serve a superficial stimulus satisfaction, but the growth of the personality of the young knight who had to deal with the demands of the world and prove himself in solitary self-discovery through various wrong decisions, wrong actions and the failure of honest efforts. It was about finding and proving an ethical disposition and firmness of character. Typical examples are the résumés of the particularly distinguished knights of the Arthurian round and, above all, the gradual maturation of the young Parzival to become a knight worthy of the Grail , which Wolfram von Eschenbach impressively portrayed in his epic epic of the same name.

The educational aspect also plays an essential role in the so-called “ waltz ” of the journeymen who, since the late Middle Ages , have been prescribed a year-long apprenticeship with foreign master craftsmen by their guilds . Before they could become masters , they had to wander across Europe in order to gather different work practices and life experiences. Numerous adventures awaited them with the dangers of highwaymen, meager accommodations, unpredictable rough teachers, but also seductive love affairs before they were accepted as mature master craftsmen. In an old boys' song it says: "That must be a bad miller who never thought of hiking" (from: "Hiking is the miller's pleasure").

The “journeys” of the pupils and students of the so-called Wandervogel and the youth movement that grew out of it at the beginning of the 20th century should also be understood as educational adventure journeys . The younger generation began to emancipate themselves from the way of life of the older ones through the outward breakout "from gray city walls" into the self-determined simple life in the great outdoors and at the same time to give in to their wanderlust, which they found in their " travel songs " and the picture the romantic poets tried to transfigure the search for the " blue flower ".

Market share

Adventure tourism has grown over the past few decades as the demand for exceptional experiences has increased, but measuring market size is difficult due to the lack of generally accepted operationalization . According to surveys by the Hamburg Foundation for Future Research , around 10% of the population take extreme vacations, twice as many men as women and twenty times as many young adults as seniors over 65.

Criticism of adventure tourism

The criticism of adventure tourism has a number of starting points. They range from the accusation of widespread fraudulent labeling and self-deception through the use of adventurous vocabulary for adventure, sport, nature or cultural trips to criticism of the ecological pollution of the environment by the long-distance travel produced to the blemish of damage to sensitive natural landscapes, valuable cultural monuments and untouched ones of indigenous peoples by expanding to mass tourism , which is looking for exotic destinations as remote as possible with adventure tourism :

“Adventure” safari in the Serengeti , Tanzania 2005

The rapidly expanding adventure tourism picks up on the latent need for extraordinary experiences, which everyday work and familiar surroundings often no longer offer. The modern package tourist is fascinated by the term "adventure" which promises him this experience. At the same time, however, he does not want to forego convenient security and the usual comfort. He wants the “safe” adventure that doesn't exist. The tourism industry offers him what he wants, for example an Antarctic trip on a safe, ice-safe cruise ship , fully air-conditioned, with "all-round carefree insurance cover", comfortable salons, sauna, full board, event program, tour guide and labels it with an attractive label " Expedition " or "Adventure Travel". It is declared as “ wilderness trekking ” or “ safari ”, which after brief predator observations from the safe off-road vehicle should quickly end again in the air-conditioned lodge , under the clean shower, with a delicious three-course menu and in pest-free white sheets. Indios or Papuans dress up in their bast skirts, painted excitingly, before the tourist bus rolls up. And the medicine man positions himself in front of his hut, which is surrounded by skulls and totem poles and draped with magical symbols, to provide exotic images for the cameras. The so-called “event hopping”, promised in the program, organized by the organizer, turns tourists into “adventure consumers”. He becomes "adventurous" without effort, initiative and personal risk, as the venture researcher Siegbert A. Warwitz puts it. According to Warwitz, the “pseudo-adventure” moves away from the original idea and concept of adventure, as it was coined by the Middle High German poets with the “Âventiure” and acquired historical significance, because for it constituent moments of adventure, such as initiative, the unpredictable risk, the whole human Letting oneself in, exposing oneself to real dangers, the self-reliant venture, the willingness to deal with possible negative consequences have been lost. The package tourist with a "fully comprehensive mentality" goes only half-heartedly into the supposed adventure and only reaps a "sham adventure".

The "tourist path" Hannah-Point in Antarctica 2003

The point of criticism “damage to the environment by mass tourism” is mainly brought up by environmental protection organizations such as BUND , Green League , NABU and Greenpeace . It is denounced that the constantly expanding adventure tourism aims at particularly endangered natural regions in order to satisfy the tourists' thirst for adventure, and that long-distance trips to the remotest areas of the world increase the volume of traffic and thus the pollution and disrupt the ecological balance. The activists involved in the so-called eco-movement , for example, vehemently criticize the invasion of ever larger cruise ships into the sensitive regions of the Arctic and Antarctic .

The cultural effects of a rampant adventure tourism in exotic old cultural countries are mainly taken up and criticized by the cultural anthropologists :

The exuberant adventure tourism forces an adaptation of the countries visited to the expectations of the visitors with regard to comfort and exoticism. The "foreign" is adapted to the wishes of the guests and the requirements of the tour operator and thus ultimately becomes a mere backdrop. Local cultural traditions are often only carried on as shows and staging for the tourists. Adventure tourism is becoming a monoculture to which entire regions subordinate themselves for profit reasons. The tourists thereby contribute to the fact that the cultural peculiarities of these countries are pushed back. There is a superimposition and displacement of the autochthonous culture in the form of a " westernization " and a shift in the population structure in the tourist areas, which has a massive impact not only on the material but also the immaterial cultural heritage of the target areas. Changes in forms of expression and meaningful content also affect socio-cultural identities. The columnist Ingrid Thurner criticized ethnotourism in this sense in a magazine article.

Protective measures

Countries like Nepal or Bhutan try to counteract the alienation of their autochthonous culture through the mass influx of adventure tourists through restrictions on the number of visitors, through time restrictions and relatively high "entry fees" into their country. The large travel companies and cruise companies have also committed themselves to the concept of so-called "soft tourism" as an alternative to mass tourism. Gentle tourism makes it an ethical goal to preserve the character of the country visited as unadulterated and unaffected as possible and to influence the life of the local population and the fauna as little as possible. For this purpose, groups are formed as small as possible and the participants are given intensive information and accompanied according to the objectives.

Well-known adventure travelers

  • Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) was an Italian navigator in Castilian service who reached an island in the Bahamas in 1492 and rediscovered the American continent.
  • Vasco da Gama (1468–1524), Portuguese navigator and explorer.
  • Thomas Cook (1808-1892) was a Baptist clergyman and British tourism pioneer and founder of the travel company of the same name. The system of package tours goes back to him.
  • Rüdiger Nehberg (1935–2020) was a German survival expert and human rights activist who uses his expeditions to raise awareness of social problems.
  • Don Quixote de la Mancha is a fictional character by the Spanish poet Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616), who, supposedly the successor to the noble knights of the Middle Ages, embarks on adventure trips to accomplish heroic deeds.

literature

  • Christina Rupe: Trends in adventure sports - tourist marketing of the thirst for adventure and the willingness to take risks . Lit Verlag , Hamburg 2000, ISBN 978-3-8258-4651-0 , p. 256 .

Web links

Wiktionary: Adventure travel  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ATTA values ​​statement. (PDF; 315 kB) In: adventuretravel.biz. Adventure Travel Trade Association, February 2013, p. 2 , accessed July 27, 2015 (English).
  2. ↑ Thomas Trümper: The touristic development of the risk and adventure sports. In: Axel Dreyer, Arndt Krüger: Sports Tourism: Management and Marketing Handbook . R. Oldenbourg Verlag , 1995, ISBN 978-3-486-23099-4 , pp. 221 .
  3. ↑ Natascha Sverak: Trends and Development in Tourism . Diplomica Verlag , 2011, ISBN 978-3-8366-9794-1 , p. 179 .
  4. ↑ a b Manfred Köhler: Simply set out on the road: life experiences of globetrotters and adventurers . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf Verlag , Berlin 2000, ISBN 978-3-89602-335-3 .
  5. ^ Heinz Hahn, Hans-Jürgen Kagelmann: Tourism Psychology and Tourism Sociology. A Guide to Tourism Science . Quintessenz Verlag , 1996, ISBN 978-3-86128-153-5 , p. 630 .
  6. ↑ Eno Beuchelt: Exotic Journey . In: Hermann Pollig, Susanne Schlichtenmayer, Gertrud Bauer-Burkarth (eds.): Exotic worlds. European fantasies . Pp. 98-105, here p. 101. 1987. Stuttgart- Bad Cannstatt . Hatje Cantz Publishing House . ISBN 978-3-922608-65-3 .
  7. ↑ Martin Fuchs: Travel Study: The Charm of Extreme Adventure Travel. In: Marco Polo travel guide . July 29, 2012. Retrieved July 24, 2017 .
  8. ^ Peter J. Brenner: The travel report in German literature . De Gruyter, 1990, ISBN 978-3-484-60365-3 , p. 664 .
  9. ↑ Ralf Buckley: Rush as a key motivation in skilled adventure tourism: Resolving the risk recreation paradox . In: Tourism Management . tape 33 , no. 4 , August 2012, p. 961-970 , doi : 10.1016 / j.tourman.2011.10.002 (English).
  10. ^ The International Environmetrics Society (TIES). 2015.
  11. ↑ Mark B. Orams: Towards a more Desirable form of ecotourism . In: Tourism Management . Volume 16, Issue 1, February 1995, pages 3-8. (English)
  12. ↑ a b Ingrid Thurner: Half so wild. In: The time . September 16, 2010, accessed on May 1, 2020 (paid).
  13. ^ A b Christiane Martin: Lexicon of Geography - Ethno-Tourism. In: Spectrum of Science . 2001, accessed May 1, 2020 .
  14. ^ Siegbert A. Warwitz : Adventure . In: Search for meaning in risk. Life in growing rings. Explanatory models for cross-border behavior. 2nd, expanded edition, Schneider Verlag , Baltmannsweiler 2016, p. 30.
  15. ↑ ibid p. 31
  16. ^ Wolfram von Eschenbach : Parzival . Study edition, 2nd edition, Middle High German text by Karl Lachmann , translation by Peter Knecht, Berlin, New York 2003.
  17. ↑ Lukas Buchner: About the life of journeymen on the "Walz". An empirical analysis (series field research , volume 10). Lit Verlag , Berlin, Münster, Vienna, Zurich, London 2017. ISBN 978-3-643-50798-3 .
  18. ↑ Ulrich Aufmuth: The German migrant bird movement from a sociological aspect. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1979. ISBN 978-3-525-31820-1 .
  19. ↑ Ulrike von Leszczynski: Higher, deeper, further - the extreme pleasure in traveling. In: The world . May 7, 2012. Retrieved July 24, 2017 .
  20. ↑ Siegbert A. Warwitz : Is it worth taking a risk - Or do we prefer to let ourselves be adventurous? In: Magazine OutdoorWelten . 1 (2014), p. 69. ISSN  2193-2921 .
  21. ↑ ibid p. 68 ff.
  22. ↑ Burkhard Schnepel, Felix Girke, Eva-Maria Knoll (eds.): Culture all inclusive. Identity, tradition and cultural heritage in the age of mass tourism . Transcript Verlag , Bielefeld 2013, ISBN 978-3-8376-2089-4 , p. 350 ( online [accessed September 15, 2017]). Culture all inclusive. Identity, tradition and cultural heritage in the age of mass tourism ( Memento of the original from December 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.transcript-verlag.de
  23. ↑ Torsten Kirstges: Gentle Tourism. Chances and problems of the realization of an ecologically oriented and socially acceptable tourism by German tour operators . 3rd, extended edition, Oldenbourg, Munich and Vienna 2003.
  24. ↑ Martin Zips: With knife and harmonica. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . April 3, 2020, accessed May 1, 2020 .