Adventure Tourism The Freedom To Play With Reality
Adventure Tourism The Freedom To Play With Reality
Adventure Tourism The Freedom To Play With Reality
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article
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tourist studies
2004 sage publications London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi vol 4(3) 217234 DOI: 10.1177/ 1468797604057323
www.sagepublications.com
Adventure tourism
The freedom to play with reality
Maurice J. Kane
abstract Denitions of adventure tourism and the supposed motivators for the experience of adventure tourism focus on the concepts of risk, danger and adrenaline. Risk and danger relate to a potential for injury and loss. Tourism on the other hand indicates fun, exciting events and safe experience. The focus of this article is to explore the relationship between participants emic experiences and the adventure tourism theories prominent in current literature. This exploration is based on observation of participation, conversations and in-depth interviews with nine tourists on a 14-day white-water kayaking tour of the South Island of New Zealand in February 2002. The interpretation of these tourists experiences, their understandings, and the response to these stories expand the scope and importance of concepts prominent in adventure tourism. Participants play with the reality of their experience through stories of freedom, identity and status. keywords adventure tourism emic experience experience stories kayaking freedom play reality
Introduction
With a few strokes I was an oars length a spears length from the panicked animals [migrating Caribou on the coast of northern Canada]. I could see moisture on their noses, watch the muscles in their shoulders, feel the splash of saltwater as they ran past. In my imagination I was a Sioux riding bareback among stampeding bison; I was chasing mammoth toward a cliff with aming torches; I was in my sealskin kayak, hunting caribou. But in reality I was a tourist, so I backed away to keep my camera dry and took pictures. (Turk, 1998: 104)
This short extract demonstrates some of the ways an adventure experience can be lived, remembered, and storied. Jon Turks concluding reality that he was a tourist is an anomaly considering that this passage appears in an autobiography
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Halls denition appears to weave the terms commercialization, management, distance from home, and touristic through a generic denition of adventure recreation, retaining risk as the central experience element. As in many areas of tourism there is no denitive denition of adventure tourism, but many subsequent denitions have retained the centrality of elements of risk through active outdoors participation in wilderness or exotic, away from home locations (Sung et al., 1997; Millington et al., 2001; Swarbrooke et al., 2003). The dominant focus on risk in adventure recreation, and one would suggest also in adventure tourism, obscures some of the other experiences of those involved, such as problem solving, testing skills, meaningful social interaction, stress management, fun, exhilaration, excitement, and accomplishment (Mitchell, 1983;Vester, 1987; Robinson, 1992; Ewert, 1994).Allen Ewert (1994) a recreational theorist, went so far as to suggest that risk taking per se may play a less central role in explaining why individuals choose to engage in risk [adventure] recreation (p. 5). However, risk remains a central tenet of adventure tourism denitions, predicating that subsequent adventure tourism research has focused on this element (Berno et al., 1996; Cloke and Perkins, 1998; Morgan, 1998, 2000; Fluker and Turner, 2000). Of note is that these theoretical denitions of adventure tourism originate from the outdoor recreation area focused on its potential negative outcomes. Adventure experience, however, appears to have been an integral component in the development of travel and a prominent component in distinguishing tourist experience and products. The contextual setting of this article is within the main tenets of many denitions of adventure tourism, being of tourists participation in active outdoors (wilderness) activity.
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Methods of interpretation: art and action The participants investment in this tour was in anticipation of the future lived experience of adventure tourism, an experience that was to be a continuum of ephemeral moments. Their understanding of this experience was both constructed in anticipation, in lived action and, subsequently, in descriptive images and word stories.The stories of understanding are not perfect reections of lived experience. Lived experience, Crotty (1998: 43) would suggest, is pregnant with potential meaning which has been interpreted in stories.There is a recognition of the individuals perspective of the experience yet this is referenced to shared understanding (social constructs), practices, language and so forth (Schwandt, 2000: 197). The participants understandings and the research interpretation were and are dynamic, no one true experience or interpretation of adventure tourism was waiting to be discovered. Interpretation is more than a process, it is an art, in which the researcher has the central crystallizing role of transforming participants lived experiences and understandings into, in this case, this article (Richardson, 2000). The interpretation or voice of this article indicates that choices were made, experiences presented, others discarded, in the process of voicing a lived experience (Coffey, 1999).The value of this article its voiced interpretation is in the domain of the readers. Critical to a positive valuation is the transparency of the research choices, the sophistication of conceptual understandings and the application of methods that inform the interpretation. This articles interpretation was developed from a strategy of inquiry that sought to stud[y] behaviour from inside a system, focused on the participants emic experience, which was both personal and shared (Weber, 2001: 372).The primary method for this was observation of participation, which facilitated and was complemented by the methods of unstructured conversations and more structured individual interviews.The rst author, and primary researcher in this case, had the local knowledge and skills of a guide, often participating like a tourist, yet focused on research. He was introduced to the participants as a researcher. His previous experience was from a professional perspective, as kayaking instructor, video participant and guide. He retained a high level of kayaking skill, close personal friendships with the elite hero kayakers and experience of many prestigious kayaking destinations. His understanding of the kayaking social world was more complex than that solely gained through his researcher role. The research involved travelling with the participants, sharing accommodation, meals, social events and kayaking rivers. Observation involved noting
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Just a bunch of kayakers Caras description of the group to an outsider, as just a bunch of kayakers, reects the focus of much of the social discussion, and the currency of identity formation within the group. Kayaking experience and knowledge provided the currency of identity formation within the group. Discussion and comparison to known home environments, the kayaking lore from videos and magazines and previous trip experiences dominated. There was general comment as to a new rivers size, colour or volume or comparisons, such as Roberts comment, that looks a lot like northern California, or Shanes,that river looks just like down in Chile. The discussion focused on previous tours and the potential of this tour.This corresponds to Schmidts (1979) research into guided package tours, where she found that although tourists often nd themselves in conversations with each other about home . . . A more acceptable topic of conversation among tourists is their experience as tourists (p. 461). The discussion of signiers of general social status was initially absent, as Bruce expressed: how did I do this trip with you for three days and not know what you do [profession]?. This behaviour is indicative of what Foster (1986) described as a short-lived society where a strong common interest, limited time, and a packaged daily routine, limit broader social interaction. The participants dened their intergroup identity and status based on the common focus of kayaking. There was a unique language, phrasing and understanding within the groups interactions as participants verbally and visually presented themselves as kayakers. Initial replies to locals questions often had appendage of were here to kayak, supported by displays of logo distinguishing clothes, hats, bags and the tour van topped by kayaking equipment (Celsi et al., 1993). The visual display of kayaking identity differentiated this tour group from others and highlighted their commonality. An indication of the importance of displaying the kayaking identity was in the initial rst-day activity, which was a visit to a local kayak shop to purchase New Zealand kayaking items (Donnelly and Young, 1988; Elsrud, 2001). The kayak identity was also presented through stories of past experience, many relating to relationships with famous guides and kayaking heroes, on previous tours or skills courses. Shanes experience of seeking out skills then progressing through commercial kayak tours provided a typical example:
We realized we were pretty crappy boaters, so we decided to go take some lessons. We went down to Nantahala [a Tennessee-based kayak centre and school]. We went, took the beginner, intermediate and advanced courses at Nantahala for three
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Shane went on to describe the social environment, where stories of experiencing prestigious rivers and rapids or persevering in difcult situations were intrinsic to the kayaking identity:
Kayakers like to sit around and talk about where have you been? What rapids have you done? What, you know, near escape from the jaws of death have you encountered? Its part of the experience!
The group discussions and the corresponding identity representations presented were physically legitimized on the river. The initial river experiences provided little challenge, and correspondingly had limited guide input. Although the guides and drivers coordinated logistics, with the group focus on kayaking, the social environment, inclusive of guides and drivers, was as Cara described just a bunch of kayakers.There were unique pre-kayaking routes, such as greeting the rivers, warm-ups and gear checks and, at the appropriate time, a joking banter on individuals skills, performance or lack of either. Similar social behaviours have been observed in both focused tour groups and in many sports, leisure and recreation social worlds or sub-cultures (Foster, 1986; Donnelly and Young, 1988; Green and Chalip, 1988; Lyng, 1990; Celsi et al., 1993;Wheaton, 2000; Kay and Laberge, 2002a, 2002b). The initial lived experience of this tour was focused on the social dynamic of the group, a group on a package tour, confined by the routines of a shortlived society but sharing in the unique ethos of a kayaking focused.They were expressing their sub-culture identity as kayakers and establishing their intragroup relationships, anticipating the focal challenge of this tour, the adventurous heli-kayaking.
Adventure tourism as I understand it is . . . The participants understood adventure as a spectrum of experiences from routine to extreme.The middle period of the tour in which the two heli-kayaking rivers were kayaked was anticipated as providing the extreme component of the tour experience. On their spectrum of experience they were kayakers having an adventure experience, more extreme and close to the edge than routine. The heli-kayaking rivers of the West Coast epitomized this, the hottest extreme kayaking destination and the pinnacle of their adventure.These two heli-kayaking rivers differentiated them from tourists, from adventure tourists, and from kayakers at home. They were travelling adventure kayakers. It was paradoxical then that this was also the kayaking experience during which they were not just a bunch of kayakers, but distinctly tourists controlled by the tour guides. A paradox inherent in the concept of adventure tourism. It was at this pinnacle of the tour experience that the interpretations of adventure and adventure tourism were most observably delineated.The partici-
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Reecting an adventure difference The concept of difference unique, distinct and separate was integral to the participants understanding of themselves, their kayaking social world and their experience on this adventure tour. The descriptive adventure tourist was not one the participants identied with, as Rachels negative tone and phrasing in describing adventure tourists demonstrates: a bunch of middle-class, middleaged people out somewhere they wouldnt normally get to go.Yet this description was representative of the tour participants. A feature Rachel jokingly acknowledged with a like us shortly after the previous comment. The kayaking activity and the prestige of the tour destination provided the perspective of adventure difference. It was a difference valued and contrasted against two distinct audiences: their peers in the kayaking social world and non-kayakers (Donnelly and Young, 1988; Green and Chalip, 1988; Wheaton, 2000). As Phil commented: I dont look at myself as, you know, as an adventurer, ah . . . but I know because of where I go and what I do I would be looked upon in that way. Phil was commenting on the perspective non-kayakers have of him, yet as a kayaker he was not adventurous. As Cara commented considering her kayaking peers perspective:I wouldnt say that they think of us as adventurers, oh no, they think were lucky. Within their kayaking culture, differentiation was constructed from the mythical prestige of the destination of the West Coast of the South Island.The image of this destination provided status, as Shane described as he anticipated returning to his kayaking club:everybodys antenna goes up and they start grilling you about what it was like. The images participants were retaining on their digital
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These descriptors were considered positively by participants. It differentiated them and characterized their identity and association with a distinct social world (Celsi et al., 1993; Kay and Laberge, 2002a, 2002b). As Rachel explained: they say Oh yeah Rachel went to such in such, oh she was stupid to do that . . . but you know she went! They want to live vicariously through me. The participants stories to non-kayakers are of the traveller, providing images of experiencing uncertainty, danger and risk. In the discourse of tourism differentiation as a traveller is valued.The stories for both kayaking peers and non-kayakers were not to be stories of a package tour.They were stories that focused on kayaking and especially on the pinnacle of West Coast heli-kayaking. They were stories that authenticated the anticipated and prestige myth of the destination, and were constructed around a narrative of adventure. They were stories of travellers who, as Phil autobiographically phrased it, take the chance and go out and do something different. They were stories that were just forming in the latter stages of the tour but were to be the memories retold in the future.
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Play provided the ability to imagine, playing with their tour experience, the roles played and the images presented. Feifer (1986: 270) had described this aspect of the late-20th century tourist, the post-tourist, as playful behaviour. The aspect of play was further theorized by Urry (1990) as behaviour within tourism [as] a game, or rather a whole series of games with multiple texts and no single, authentic tourist experience (p. 100). This idea of a playful game did not have all the freedom Robert suggests. For a tourist, like a child at play, there are constraints, rules and notions of a successful game. It was an experience played out within the context of the game of tourism where fun, excitement and safety are the foundations of success. These are expected experiences in tourism, the creativity of the type of game or style of play differentiate this tourist success. This was a game of adventure tourism where the creative playfulness of the participants was in playing adventure roles.As travelling adventure kayakers, within the insulation structure of the package tour, differentiated themselves from other tourists.This playful game of differentiating, yet retaining the foundations of tourist experience, is at the core of niche tourism products such as this tour. Participants sought multiple experiences; package tourist, kayaker, adventurer and traveller, in the roles they played.The playing of these roles facilitated a freedom in the storied images to be presented in the future. In the storied images of this tour the participants freedom was in what was told and what was left untold. In the roles they had played they could not relive the authentic experience of their heroes, the elite kayakers. They were always within the context of a package tour, although playing the roles of travelling adventure kayakers. Their freedom came in discounting the packaged nature of their tour experience, the controlled routine and limiting social interaction. Their stories instead were emphasizing the participation, challenge and control of kayaking. It was a freedom that differentiated them from the ordinary and routine of tourist experience. It even differentiated them from the tourists who adventured through bungee jumping or rafting. Through kayaking the participants portrayed themselves as active, purposeful, in control and free adventurers. Yet this portrayal could be misunderstood as crazy, insane, [and] extremely dangerous by non-kayakers. It was mainly in their kayaking social world that the
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Conclusion
Adventure tourism is now, as it possibly was in the initial expansive growth of modern tourism, a signier of who you are, who you would like to be and who you are not. The package adventure tour provides the opportunity to be, or appear to be, adventurous within the packaged safety of being a guided tourist. At its core the experience allows for the construction or importantly in this case, reafrmation of identity, through presenting stories of experience. The audience of these stories will see them as tourist stories in contrast to normal life; differentiating tourist stories in contrast to others tourist experiences or kayaking stories of belonging that afrm status in the kayaking social world. The interpretation of this article is that participants in package adventure tours are free within a touristic discourse to playfully construct experience
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