Adventure Tourism

Active Tourism should not be confused with Action Tourism, which envolves many sports activities like mountain bike, cross country rally, speed boat riding, bungee jumping and extreme sports. Indeed, many these activities are already offered as part of Mass Tourism infrastructure. The main motivation is excitement and amusement. The production and delivery of adrenalin to the body is the desired result. Often, some of the activities involve high personal risks and dangers. Action Tourism does not necesarily require a close or authentic interaction with intact nature and it can be delivered in amusement and recreation parks and in artificially reconstructed environments. The main clientele is formed by predominantly male teenagers and young people in the early 20's. 

Adventure Tourism offers also exciting experiences that are physical demanding. Adventure travel is personal accomplishment through the thrills of dominating dangerous environments. White-water rafting, ocean canoeing, horse riding, free climbing, hicking and trekking through natural areas are some examples. Adventure Tourism is linked to an intact nature with a minimum of civilization influences. The search is for personal redemption through challenge and sacrifice, and nature is the backdrop to an intensely personal experience. Nature dictates the rules and provides a stage for the human play. Typically, it is carried out in remote places renowned for their natural beauty and physical attributies.
Most pure adventure activities appeal to the animal instinct by trespassing the limits of muscular strength and survival. Active tourism, has a much more intellectual focus, since it follows the idea that we are not primitive animals that strive to compete only, but that our intelligence is what makes us so special in nature. 

Active Tourism does offer some activities of Action and Adventure Tourism but it excludes activities and practises that are harmful to the environment and pose a threath to biodiversity and local culture. Most important is the attitude and the practices and guidelines by which an activity is carried out. Mountain bike, free climbing, river rafting and hicking can be done in a responsible way, but it can also be very harmful for the natural environment if not done properly. Thus, is not so much of what it is done, but how it is done. 

Active Tourism adds a intellectual component to the travel experience. It takes into account that there is a fundamental attitude difference between nature conquering and nature study. Recreation is a legitimate use for nature, yet subordinate to the goal of education and environmental preservation. Active Tourism parts from the conviction that natural Biodiversity is the most precious value on earth, and we as Homo sapiens sapiens should be fully commited to protect this legacy. 

To guarantee protection of the environment, Active Tourism activities are carried out by local professional personel and under strict scientific supervision. The tour guides of Active Tourism have an academic degree in ecology, biology, ethnology, arquitecture, arqueology, history or sociology. This also guarantees the quality of the learning experience, and the validity of the biological or cultural information based on scientific knowledge and transmitted by academic standards. Active Tourism works in close cooperation with universities, and helps to finance scientific expeditions and promotes biological research.
The activities offered by Active Tourism are more motivated from the learning experience point of view, and are less motivated by pure adrenaline production. They require muscular as well as greyish mass neural activity. The main clientele is formed by couples between 25-54 years old of high educational background. 

Source: http://www.active-tourism.com/Questions1ActTour.html#Top