Adventure Travel Research

Question 1

Research has attempted to explain the behavioral pattern of tourists unsatisfactorily since they fail to address the psychological travelers’ point of view. The fact that tourists possess different interests towards travelling makes them dissimilar and they can be categorized in different groups. The article describes two types of adventure travelers namely; the hard adventure travelers (HAT) and the soft Adventure travelers (SAT) (Vogt & Schneider, 2012).

The Hard Adventure Travelers are involved in activities such as whitewater rafting, mountain biking, hang-gliding and so on. These comprise some of the mainly demanding and somewhat dangerous adventures. The HATs have been described as the kind of people who have high interests in cultural encounters, they seek adventures that will arouse them and they show interests in material resources

Question 2

Elemental trait is one of the 3M’s model main levels. Elemental trait further contains several particular personality traits. One of them is need for arousal, which is defined as the craving for stimulation and pleasure. The author states that among the main reasons for taking a travel adventure is seeking sensory stimulation. Thus, persons who possess bigger desires towards excitement have a greater inclination for adventure travelling.  Ultimately, need for arousal is fulfilled through engaging in recreational and tourism activities. Adventure travelers possess a bigger desire to engage in dangerous sports and audacious sports along with activities entailing speed and danger.  The author states that in addition states that inclination for adventure holidaying is directly associated with sensation or arousal seeking. Adventure travelers seek greater experiences via mind along with senses, travelling and non-conforming lifestyles. Arousal is therefore directly associated with numerous adventure recreation activities such as parachuting adventure tourism and mountaineering (Vogt & Schneider, 2012).

Question 3

The respondents are divided into demographic features place into groups namely HATs and SATs. A majority of the respondents are men. In the HATs group males comprised of twenty-five percent more men than women. Overall respondents’ ages ranged between fifty-five and sixty-four, which comprised of twenty-eight percent. The range follows this between forty-five and fifty-four comprising of twenty-six percent of all the respondents. As a result, the HATs average age was six years less compared to the SATs’. The bulk of sixty-five percent of the respondents were married. Additionally, nearly all the respondents’ ethnicity was white, that is, ninety-five percent SATs and HATs. Greater than seventy-eight percent possess college degrees and the incomes of the respondents range $100,000 to $149,000 (Vogt & Schneider, 2012).  

I find this study highly generalized and this could result to the results biasness. Firstly, the respondents’ gender is mainly male; I find this quite misleading towards performing the research since men are known to be least interested in travelling.  In a future research, I would include more women than men or equal numbers. Additionally, the study included more whites in the study than any other ethnicity, thus, this would be regarded as a whites travel research study. In a future research study, I would include equal ethnic numbers in order to acquire a precise result.

Question 4

Targeting will enable attract the  best suited and able HATs, thus I would target married middle-aged affluent who can afford to travel comfortably. The married middle-aged people have low commitments such as paying school fees and some have no kids but are highly inclined travelling and adventuring. The HATs are known to like cultural experiences and desire for arousal, thus, the publicity materials would include photos and descriptions of scenic landscapes such as waterfalls, beautiful beaches, escarpments and mountains. This will additionally, act as arousal elements since HATs will be motivated to visit these areas in order to engage in such activities mountaineering, water sports and deep sea diving. Additionally, HATs like cultural experiences and again photos and videos of the regions’ cultural wealth would be used to lure them to visiting (Vogt & Schneider, 2012).

References

Vogt, C., & Schneider, P. (2012). Applying the 3M Model of Personality and Motivation to Adventure Travelers. Journal of Travel Research. doi:10.1177/0047287512451134