Adventure Tourism Research: A Guide to the Literature

Ralf Buckley
2006 Tourism Recreation Resarch  
Adventure tourism is a substantial industry sector which to date has received relatively little research attention. Most relevant research is from outdoor recreation. The major research themes are: psychological, including thrills, conflicts and norms; safety, including injuries, illnesses and insurance; impacts, whether ecological, social or economic; and participation and management. There has been rather little research on the structure of adventure tourism products or associated business
more » ... ects. Future research priorities include: operational audits; commercial statistics; client characteristics; site geography; equipment manufacture; safety and insurance; recreation ecology; adventure destination marketing; and links with amenity migration and lifestyle. Introduction Adventure tourism is a large but little-studied sector (Buckley 2004a, Travel Industry Association of America, 2005). Here, therefore, I review the principal themes addressed to date in adventure tourism research, in order to identify future priorities. This review does not attempt to summarise the findings of each individual piece of published research, but rather to discern the major directions in the research literature overall. To achieve this as succinctly as possible, clusters of related references are presented in tabular form. The number of references listed for different topics in these tables is not itself a measure of research effort, since for some topics there are recent reviews and for others there are not. Rather, the titles and structure of the tables are intended to illustrate the research themes identified, and the references are there to demonstrate the data behind these patterns. Adventure tourism has been variously defined
doi:10.1080/02508281.2006.11081265 fatcat:datrofi2fvahtgqbbuaz5dxira