Nothing but the adventure

Pavia

Salsomaggiore

Mantova

Europe has great opportunities to become an ecotourism destination.

Here some suggestions from the other countries:

AUSTRALIA needs to creatively promote itself as a green getaway to create long-term demand for travels, says a leading travel trendspotting institute.

New research from New York-based travel marketing and publishing firm Avant-Guide Institute, has revealed green travel as “the biggest trend of our lifetime”.

“I think Australia is in a unique position in that at least from outside people perceive it as being a more natural place than Europe or the US,” said Daniel Levine of Avant-Guide Institut in the Australian Newspaper.

Avant-Guide’s research also revealed travellers are looking for new destinations their neighbours haven’t visited and virgin experiences.

It’s not a new most green tourism is the new way of travel. Actually luxury travel is going green and in 5-10 years I think that green travel will be the new form of “mass tourism”.

Europe has a great green patrimony to develop and start promote.

According to the World Tourism Organization’s World Tourism Barometer, international tourist arrivals reached an all-time record of 760 million – an increase of 10% over 2003. “Growth in 2004 was found in all regions, with strongest performance in Asia and the Pacific (29%), something that leads to hope that the region will recover quickly from the effects of the tsunami.”1 In the United States, tourism is now the third-largest retail industry, behind car dealers and food stores.

According to the WTO, ecotourism accounted for 20% of all travel in 1998. Adventure travel has grown 12% annually over the last five years (1998). In 1997 ecotourism was worth $20 billion a year. Adventure travellers are more likely to be young, single and employed.

Nature and adventure travel is growing by 30 percent each year.

1999 revenues were estimated at $362 million, an increase of 119 percent on 1993. 52percent came from sales of guided adventures and 22 percent from sales of self-guided adventures with equipment rentals. Fifty-four percent of travellers were male and aged between 20 and 44. Fifty-seven percent were from the domestic market.

The Mintel Report 2001 on the European Adventure Travel Market suggests that the adventure side of the package tourism business in Europe accounts for something in the region of 25% of the total package sales. This indicates that, excluding domestic travel, the total size of the European Adventure travel market is some 443,000 holidays per year. (Adventure Travel. European Report. October 2003. Mintel International Group. Cited in Niche Tourism; Edited By Marina Novelli; Elsevier, Butterworth, Heinemann; 2005)

In Europe there are 5000 adventure vacations available.

The WTO found that adventure travel formed 10 percent of the market in 1989 and was increasing by 30 percent a year.

In 1989 world tourist arrivals were 426.5 million and receipts were 2213 billion. Using the figure above of 10 percent, this means that there were approximately 42.6 million participants in adventure travel, generating $221 billion.

By 1999 over 200 million people took part in adventure travel, a $200 billion industry.

According to the WTO the adventure travel market grew 30 percent in each year in the early nineties.

These data represent a continuos grow of this industry. Europe can’t lose this opportunity to attract this numbers of travelers.

The latest trends in this markets:

• GIRLFRIEND GETAWAYS: More women are leaving the men at home. More than 50% of adventure travelers are women.
• VOLUNTEER VACATIONS: Combining volunteerism with vacation continues to be a growing trend;
• EXPEDITIONARY TRAVEL: More people are helping researchers through the Earthwatch Institute, an international volunteer organization supporting science.
• CHARITY TRAVEL: Think an extreme version of a walkathon.
• ACTION-PACKED VACATIONS
• FAMILY ADVENTURE VACATIONS: Some families (including multigenerational) are forgoing theme parks and all-inclusive resorts for more genuine nature-based, cultural, and education and learning excursions.
• SOFT ADVENTURE VACATIONS: An increasing number of people are choosing a vacation that centers around a theme, such as a culinary tour in Asia or wine vacation in Israel. Yoga has also seeped into the mix.
• EXPEDITION CRUISING: Look for more people to take expedition cruises to Antarctica, the Galapagos and Alaska.
• ROOTS VACATIONS: With an increasing number of people swabbing their cheek to find their roots, some are taking it a step further and traveling to the places where their ancestors lived.

Thanks to tourism Marketing

As You can clearly see new trends in dventure and Green tourism are activity based and not destination based.

This can give Europe the opportunity to re-invent its territory to attract these tourists.

Starting from this point of view the European destinations that could be already prepared for this tourism are:

• France: A Private Tour de France
• Norway: An Arctic Safari You Can Eat
• Scotland: Sea Kayaking From Loch to Loch
• Switzerland: Haute Glaciology
• Italy  and its parks

During my daily news digging I’ve found this interesting post in Care2 about 3 interesting eco-tourism destinations:

A coastal pearl on the Arctic Circle
Sisimiut lies just north of the Arctic Circle. It is the northernmost town in Greenland and at the same time the southernmost town in Greenland. Here it’s possible to drive on a dogsled in winter and spring.

Redwood National Park born on 02 October 1968 and expanded on 27 March 1978. Redwood National and State Parks protect old growth coast redwoods, some of the world’s tallest trees. Not well-known are the prairies and oak woodlands and the coastal and marine ecosystems.

La Gran Sabana (The great plain) is found inside Venezuela’s biggest national park: Canaima, in the Bolivar state south. It is a unique place with views that you will not see anywhere else in the world.

Continue reading the full post here

I’m a big fan of lists of useful websites. Here you are a list of sites that list the top outdoor recreation and adventure travel websites.

1. http://www.geocities.com - The Outdoor Recreation Resources Directory has recreation, backpacking & low impact resources organized by topics.
2. http://gorp.away.com - Outdoor Resources for People with Disabilities…
3. http://www.azgfd.gov - The links are related outdoor recreation and wildlife organizations.
4. http://www.tripadventure.org - Italy’s guide to outdoor adventure travels and activity holidays
5. http://www.bigvolcano.com.au - A directory to useful adventure, outdoor recreations, education and general tourism and hospitality research sites worldwide.
6. http://www.bullz-eye.com - If outdoor recreation is your idea of time well spent, then you’ve come to the right place. The following sites contain general information for every type of outdoor recreation imaginable.
7. http://www.hikerscorner.com - This is a listing of sites to help you have a safer, more enjoyable outing
8. http://www.funoutdoors.com - List of sites dedicated to the protection and enhancement of everyone’s right to health and happiness through recreation.
9. http://reviewing.co.uk - Start your outdoor adventures with this A-Z guide to portal sites for outdoor adventure activities
10. http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu - We are happy to provide you with some outdoor resources (links) that we have found useful.