Volume 10, Number 1, 2007
In this issue Leisure, Recreation, and Adventure: A multidimensional relationship • Alan Ewert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 The Risk Management Paradox for Urban Recreation and Park Managers: Providing high risk recreation within a risk management context • Neil Lipscombe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Motivations of Baby Boomers to Participate in Adventure Tourism and the Implications for Adventure Tour Providers • Ian Patterson & Rebecca Pan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Capturing Adventure: Trading experiences in the symbolic economy • David McGillivray & Matt Frew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 From Low Jump to High Jump: Adventure recreation and the criminal law in New Zealand • Pip Lynch & Paul Jonson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Instructions for Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .104
ANNALS OF LEISURE RESEARCH | Volume 10, Number 1, 2007
Annals of Leisure Research
Annals of Leisure Research publishes refereed articles of a high standard which promote the development of research and scholarship in leisure studies. The journal is published by the Australian and New Zealand Association for Leisure Studies (ANZALS). Although originating in Australasia, Annals is aimed at an international readership, and seeks articles which cover any topic within the broad area of leisure studies, including outdoor recreation, tourism, the arts, entertainment, sport, culture and play, and which may be of a theoretical or applied nature. Managing Editor John Jenkins, Southern Cross University, Australia (Managing Editor) Co-Editors Coralie McCormack, University of Canberra, Australia Ian Patterson, University of Queensland, Australia (Reviews Editor) Editorial Advisory Board Cara Aitchison, University of the West of England, England Chris Auld, Griffith University, Australia Neil Carr, University of Otago, New Zealand Grant Cushman, Lincoln University, New Zealand Simon Darcy, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia Geoff Dickson, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand Teresa Freire, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal Karla Henderson, North Carolina State University, USA Kandy James, Edith Cowan University, Australia David Mercer, RMIT University, Australia Richard Pringle, University of Waikato, New Zealand (responsibility for postgraduate papers) David Rowe, University of Western Sydney, Australia Ruth Sibson, Edith Cowan University (responsibility for postgraduate papers) A.J. (Tony) Veal, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Annals of Leisure Research Special Issue on Leisure, Recreation, and Adventure Edited by Alan Ewert
Volume 10, Number 1, 2007
Australian and New Zealand Association for Leisure Studies Annals of Leisure Research is a fully refereed journal. Each paper published has been refereed anonymously by two internationally recognised reviewers.
Š Copyright: 2007 Australian and New Zealand Association for Leisure Studies ISSN: 1174 5398 Annals of Leisure Research Volumes 1–5 were single-issue volumes. From Volume 6, 2003, each annual volume has comprised four issues. Editorial enquiries should be sent to one of the following: John Jenkins (Managing Editor) School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Faculty of Business and Law, Southern Cross University, PO Box 157 Lismore 2480 NSW AUSTRALIA Tel: 61 2 6620 3212 Fax: 61 2 6622 2208 Email: John.Jenkins@scu.edu.au Ian Patterson (Book Reviews Editor) School of Tourism and Leisure Management, University of Queensland, Ipswich, Queensland 4305, Australia Tel: 61 7 3381 1324 Email: ian.patterson@staff.uqi.uq.edu.au Coralie McCormack Centre for the Enhancement of Learning, Teaching and Scholarship, University of Canberra, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia Tel: 61 2 6201 5385 Fax: 61 2 6201 5172 Email: Coralie.McCormack@canberra.edu.au Subscription details 2007 subscription rates, including postage within Australia and New Zealand: Individual, corporate, students and international members of ANZALS: Free Individual subscription: Australia & New Zealand: A$75; Elsewhere: A$100 Individual LSA and WL members: discount available. Library/institutional: Australia & New Zealand: A$150; Elsewhere: A$175 All subscription enquiries should be addressed to: Professor John Jenkins, PhD (Managing Editor) Head of School, School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Faculty of Business and Law, Southern Cross University, PO Box 157, Lismore NSW 2480, Australia Tel: 61 2 6620 3212 Fax: 61 2 6622 2208 Email: John.Jenkins@scu.edu.au Production by Bruderlin MacLean Publishing Services Printed at Griffin Press, Adelaide
Contents Leisure, Recreation, and Adventure: A multidimensional relationship • Alan Ewert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 The Risk Management Paradox for Urban Recreation and Park Managers: Providing high risk recreation within a risk management context • Neil Lipscombe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Motivations of Baby Boomers to Participate in Adventure Tourism and the Implications for Adventure Tour Providers • Ian Patterson & Rebecca Pan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Capturing Adventure: Trading experiences in the symbolic economy • David McGillivray & Matt Frew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 From Low Jump to High Jump: Adventure recreation and the criminal law in New Zealand • Pip Lynch & Paul Jonson . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Instructions for Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .104
GUEST EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
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Leisure, Recreation, and Adventure: A multidimensional relationship Adventure: An undertaking involving uncertainty and risk. [13th C. Via French aventure from Latin adventurus, ‘about to arrive,’ the future participle of advenire. The sense of ‘exciting event’ evolved from ‘what arrives by chance’ via ‘hazardous undertaking.’] (ENCARTA World English Dictionary, 1999) At this very moment there is someone who is climbing a mountain, descending into a cave, boating down a whitewater river, expeditioning on skis, and negotiating a ropes course. In other words, a growing body of people across the globe is engaging in an ever expanding variety of adventure activities. Whether the phenomenon of adventure seeking is an inherent component of a culture’s make-up or a newly embraced genre of activities for those who choose to push their limits, adventure activities have become deeply inculcated into the fabric of our society. As suggested in the title of this introduction, adventure and society are linked in numerous ways including leisure involvement, commercial and tourism activities, therapeutic applications, and quality of life. Adventure activities have evolved across a spectrum of media sensation, reality television entertainment, extreme sports, ‘boot camps’ for troubled teens, and programs for personal challenge, growth, rejuvenation and development. Moreover, as the following articles will illustrate, these dimensions often involve a host of participants, expectations, motivations, infrastructure, societal perceptions regarding the value of the adventure activity, and beneficial outcomes. In the article entitled, ‘The risk management paradox for urban recreation and park managers: Providing high risk recreation within a risk management context’, Neil Lipscombe provides insight into the relationship between adventure ideology and adventure practice. Today, the urban recreation manager is presented with a paradox — facing a political/institutional need to make environments safe through regulation on the one hand, and the increasing public desire to be stimulated through controlled doses of risktaking on the other. By exploring the paradox through literature review, Lipscombe’s study clarified the criteria used to separate adventure and risk recreations from those activities not normally associated with risk-taking. The paper concludes with the antecedent concepts associated with risk-
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taking, and the relationship between risk participation in recreation and risk management. Dr Ian Patterson and Rebecca Pan’s article, ‘The motivation of baby boomers to participate in adventure tourism and the implications for adventure tour providers’, uses qualitative research methodology to investigate why older tourists want to participate in adventure tourism. As well, it makes recommendations for tour providers about how to improve services for older people. The results showed that the most significant motive for older people to participate in adventure tourism was the need to escape from their everyday routine. In addition, the experience of seeing different landscapes, wildlife and native plants, as well as going to places that had not before been ventured was also an important motive. David McGillivray and Matt Frew in their article, ‘Capturing adventure: Trading experiences in the symbolic economy’, explore the technologically mediated nature of the accrual of symbolic capital in adventure recreation industry. By conducting a case study investigation on a Scottish whitewater rafting company, the study concluded that experiences have emerged as ‘tradable’ commodities. Now, the experientialists know, and value, adventure activities in terms of their mediated status-value and cool fashion statements, even though they possess little knowledge of them. Whereas the adventurer of the past secured status through achievement, the adventurers of today have no such concerns as their gazing social network recognises and bestows value to displays of spectacle, style and show. Finally, in the article entitled, ‘From low jump to high jump: Adventure recreation and the criminal law in New Zealand’, Pip Lynch and Paul Jonson discuss the law of criminal nuisance for New Zealand recreation in general. It used adventure recreation as a particular case in which the threshold could have far-reaching, detrimental consequences for recreation provision and participation. Comparison with interpretations of criminal negligence in other common-law jurisdictions, and a review of the New Zealand adventure recreation culture shows that gross negligence, or a major departure from accepted standards, is the appropriate threshold for adventure recreation in New Zealand. A special note of thanks to the referees that so graciously gave of their time and expertise to review the manuscripts submitted for this issue of the Annals of Leisure Research. Also, a special thanks to Yuan-Chun Luo from Indiana University for his expertise and work as Assistant to the Guest Editor. Alan Ewert, Guest Editor, Indiana University
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The Risk Management Paradox for Urban Recreation and Park Managers: Providing high risk recreation within a risk management context Neil Lipscombe, School of Environmental Science, Charles Sturt University, Albury, Australia ABSTRACT • This discussion explores the relationship between adventure
ideology (meeting the challenge, overcoming the odds, being responsible for one’s own actions and experiencing the full meaning of freedom and choice) and adventure practice which in a social climate of individualism has not only necessitated the need to hold persons accountable but in turn has spawned the growth of a risk management industry. While risk, as a negative concept, can be applied to nearly every human action of which the consequences are uncertain, as a component of recreation it is a positive concept and represents a socially acceptable opportunity to engage in behaviours which have risk as an associated, and sometimes, important element. However, the political/institutional need to make environments safe through regulation on the one hand and the increasing public desire to be stimulated through controlled doses of risk-taking on the other, presents the urban recreation manager with a paradox. To explore this paradox through the literature the meaning of adventure and risk in outdoor recreation is clarified by reviewing the context in which we confront risk in our daily lives, the criteria used to separate adventure and risk recreations from those not normally associated with risk-taking, the antecedent concepts associated with risk-taking, and the relationship between risk participation in recreation and risk management.
A context for risk and adventure in recreation If asked to name situations that involved risk and adventure, most people would probably think first of situations that involve physical danger, such as mountain climbing or skydiving. Others might cite gambling situations such
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as horseracing, poker machines or even the stock market. It is only when we mention the more obvious situations that we are more likely to broaden our perception of risk to include common everyday activities like driving a car, crossing the road, or getting up in the morning. We take risks when we make vocational decisions (in terms of availability and pay-offs) in the same way we take risks by not making a decision at all (e.g., not to buy insurance). The concept of risk can be applied to nearly every human action of which the consequences are uncertain (Tomkins, 1971). Taking a risk then may be viewed as a selection of one alternative or course of action from among many in which the consequences of that choice could leave the individual in a worse position than if they had selected otherwise or not selected at all. While it is something ‘we’ do every day, the literature dealing with the concepts of risk and adventure has been more concerned with those pursuing leisure activities at the ‘extreme’ end of a spectrum of recreational activity. For most of human existence, danger, fear, and the need to confront fear were our daily companions. We were risk-takers because we had to be. In response, our systems adapted to two levels of risk (Keyes, 1985). The first (Level 1), is short-term and physical; the second (Level 2), is long-term and psychic. Ideally the ability to accommodate both levels of risk is balanced within each of us. We all need a blend of excitement and security, adventure and community. Without always realising why, we do seek risk. Inevitably most of us look for risk at one level more than the other (Keyes, 1985) and we become adapted to taking risks at this level. In modern urban society especially, when we talk about risk, particularly in relation to recreation, we are referring to Level 1 type risks. The characterisation, traits, values and fears that broadly separate the two levels of risk are identified in Figure 1. Most of us are far more aware of the risks we’re avoiding than those we are taking. This is why so few of us admit to being risk-takers. And because we are so aware of the risks we avoid, it’s easy to assume that others are taking bigger risks. We can deduce therefore that there are three fundamental problems for those who provide risk and adventure opportunities: ➢ How do recreationists know what’s risky, hazardous or dangerous? ➢ Will recreationists upon knowing how to identify risks (what and where) adjust their behaviour accordingly? ➢ How do individual perceptions of risk influence participation? (What, from the outside, may appear to be a major risk, doesn’t necessarily involve real risk to the person involved — yet to that person a seemingly minor risk might be so terrifying that it can’t be taken.)
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Figure 1. A Characterisation of Level 1 and 2 Type Risks
Keyes, 1985: 41–43
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The criteria separating the risky from the not-so-risky According to Ewert (1989: 6), the notion of risk and adventure in recreation is a subjective, challenging experience that occurs in the outdoors and usually in natural environments, and can be found in ‘a variety of self initiated activities utilizing an interaction with the natural environment, that contains elements of real or perceived danger, in which the outcome, while uncertain, can be influenced by the participant and the circumstance’. A number of interrelated and interdependent core qualities encapsulate these concepts which when combined, more or less guaranteed an experience with risk (Swarbrooke, Beard, Leckie, & Pomfret, 2003: 9). The qualities are: ➢ ➢ ➢ ➢ ➢ ➢ ➢ ➢ ➢ ➢
Uncertain outcomes Danger and risk Challenge Anticipated rewards Novelty Stimulation and excitement Escapism and separation Exploration and discovery Absorption and focus Contrasting emotions
A high-risk recreation participation spectrum adapted from Ewert (1989) by McIntyre (1990) and Lipscombe (1994, 1995) identifies each end as the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ experience (Figure 2). While not wishing to dismiss the significance of the hard end of the spectrum as an identifiable and legitimate recreation segment, I wish to focus at the soft end if only because it is well within the resource provision opportunity of the urban recreation manager and the ability of most people. The ‘soft’ adventurer is typically a novice to the activity and to the setting, and is looking for a carefully planned degree of novelty and physical activity while providing the opportunity to experience excitement and emotional release. The nature of the setting, the activity, and the situation promotes learning and self-discovery, within a conducive and safe environment. The model further describes the ‘soft’ adventurer as being motivated by the possibility of excitement, novelty, image and ‘socialising’ opportunities, and with the option of participation in structured programs in a variety of environmental types; where the risks and dangers are perceived more than real; and when the locus of control has been transferred from the individual to a group leader.
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Figure 2. A High Risk Recreation Participation Spectrum (Adapted from Ewert, 1989; McIntyre, 1990; Csikszentmihalyi, 1975; Lipscombe, 1992)
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Skill and experience levels, the frequency of participation, and the levels of psychological and physical involvement tend to be low. Activities and settings, while potentially hazardous to one’s health, are planned so that real risks are reduced, perceived risks are maintained, and dangers are avoided. Successful participation, therefore, is dependent more on either the capabilities of the group leader or the careful design of the setting than on the experience and skill levels of participants. Involvement is motivated by a desire to escape from mundane urban routines to relatively unknown settings (social and/or environmental), usually outdoors, of which familiarity and knowledge is very low. This level of challenge, for the most part, is well within the capabilities of the general public. The soft end of the adventure spectrum is dominated by the importance of the activity and the social setting in providing the experience, with the social setting being the main reason for participation. Participant preference is for a socially conducive atmosphere with controlled doses of risk arising from being in unfamiliar settings while doing unusual activities (Lipscombe, 2005).
Antecedent concepts associated with risk-taking Central to most definitions of risk/adventure are notions, often expressed in different ways, but essentially conveying the same sentiment — the possibility of loss, the uncertainty of loss, objective doubt concerning the outcome, unpredictability, and objectified uncertainty. It can be primarily a psychological phenomenon (subjective reality based on perception) or an objective state. It usually contains physical involvement (psycho-motor), stimulated feelings, attitudes, values, emotional and psychological traits (affective domain) and involves problem solving (cognitive domain). While it inherently includes an assumption of risk (though as Cheron and Ritchie (1982) demonstrate, not exclusively physical risk), an understanding of the role of risk in the recreation experience is increased in light of three antecedent concepts: ➢ Sensation/stress seeking: this may be closely related to personality type with those exhibiting this characteristic often being referred to as sensation seekers, stress seekers and edge-workers and involves the presence of a motive or trait potentially distinguishing ‘Approachers from Avoiders’. Based on the belief that individuals have different optimal levels of arousal which cause them to seek varying levels and types of stimulation; ➢ Gender orientation: adventure participation has traditionally been based on the view that risk recreation is associated with traits
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traditionally associated with masculinity — assertiveness, aggression, independence, dominance, autonomy, ambition. In reality, gender is not the discriminating variable for participation since participants, regardless of gender, are similar in many respects; and ➢ Environment: environmental values and attitudes may attract people to participate in activities which take place in natural environments.
De-confusing the language Professional jargon has done much to cloud and confuse the meaning of risk, and for this reason there is a need to differentiate between a number of terms commonly used to qualify risk, and therefore, the meanings associated with them. Many so-called risks are ones the risk-taker feels can’t be lost no matter what the actual odds. In reality, a risk taken with full awareness of the possible loss is rare. Many acts of apparent daring are usually motivated by a mishmash of ignorance, bravado, derring-do, carelessness, reduced stakes, peer pressure, and the desire to impress. Of those which indicate an awareness of considered possible loss or gain, the terms and descriptors presented in Figure 3 have been most used in the literature. They provide the grounds for both clarity and confusion — clarity in the sense that they attempt to demonstrate that the concept of risk is not an absolute term, and confusion because there is no universal acceptance of ‘separated meaning’ in the literature, and therefore they have been used by different authors in different ways. What is clear from the literature is that the potential goals of risk taking are realised from confrontations with perceived (subjective) risk, and not necessarily from objective risk. A novice to a particular type of risk-taking activity may or may not know what the real objective dangers (hazards/perils) are that influence the objective risk of a particular situation. In such a case the perceived risks may be low while the objective risks are actually high — the opposite may also be the case. Perceived, or subjective, risk is probably the most common source of accidents but is the one over which we can exercise most control. Even when an objective risk is present, there is usually a human miscalculation somewhere. There are, of cause, those times when even after all the precautions have been taken, things still go wrong.
What we know about risk perception At a personal level, when a person says that a particular activity or situation is risky, what do they actually mean? The term most often used to describe how we think about risk is perception. Perception, in the narrow sense, is the actual receipt of environmental stimuli by one of our five sensory receptors
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Figure 3. Commonly Used Risk Terms
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Figure 3 continued
— sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch (Cutter, 1993). Cognition, on the other hand, is the process of making sense of the stimuli which are encoded and filtered through our individual experiences, values, belief systems, and personalities, and then ultimately stored as knowledge and memories. Cognitive processing goes on without us ever realising it. For Cutter (1993: 23) ‘in relation to determining the salience of risk, how important are risk perceptions and judgements when compared to other social problems like crime and unemployment. This is not to trivialise risk perception, rather it aims to place the public’s assessment of risk in context with a host of competing social issues and concerns’. People may feel a heightened sense of risk, but compared with other social problems they confront on a daily basis, risk confronted outdoors during recreation may have a lower priority in contemporary urban societies. What seems to be clear from the literature is how little we know about how individuals and societies perceive risk, how they make decisions about what is risky for them, and how perceived risk is moderated as people adapt
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to what they perceive as risk. We have very limited knowledge on how perceptions influence behaviour and how our behaviour influences our perceptions of risk (Cutter, 1993). There have been relatively few analyses that specifically link perception of risk to some overt action. The ramifications of this paucity of knowledge to the recreation manager can be gleaned from MacCrimmon and Wehrung (1986: 23) when they state: ‘When the components of a risky situation are not explicitly stated, a person’s perception must be subjective because the components are not well defined …. But even when such risk components are explicitly stated, a person’s perception is still subjective because of the personal nature of internalising chances, loss and exposure’. Despite this situation, the risk perception literature (Fischoff, 1985) indicates that people: simplify perceived risks; tend not to change their minds once they have made a decision; remember past experiences; have difficulty detecting omissions in the risk information they receive; ➢ disagree more about what risk is than about its magnitude; ➢ have difficulty in detecting inconsistencies in disputes about risk; and ➢ have difficulty ascertaining expertise. ➢ ➢ ➢ ➢
Imposing the risk perception characterisations above on a ‘first time’ participant in adventurous outdoor recreation, when presented with data concerning past accidents, the participant may be tempted to dismiss this as unlikely to affect them personally by: ➢ discounting the possibility as a small chance and therefore worth the risk; ➢ assuming that an accident may only result in a minor injury; or ➢ concluding that the data has been based on a different situation and is therefore irrelevant. However, as individuals become more familiar with and more interested in the particular recreation activity, the level of perceived risk from participation becomes more realistic and in doing so will decline (Cheron & Ritchie, 1982; Ewert & Boone, 1987).
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The paradox Throughout history, humans as a species have constantly endeavoured to control uncertainty and to reduce risk, and major advances in human progress have been achieved by minor reductions in risk. The organising of people into tribes, the discovery of fire and its use as a tool, the domestication and keeping of animals, and the evolutionary changes in agriculture have all been a means of reducing risks — more recently the emergence of social security and the welfare state is a reflection of the desire to introduce greater certainty and make life less risky (Snider, 1967). Few would argue with the move towards becoming a more secure society. However, at a time when societies are endeavouring to become safer (which can be interpreted as being more comfortable), attraction to and engagement with risk, particularly in recreation, continues to increase in terms of participation (Buckley, 2004). While risk-taking in recreation has strong connotations of meeting the challenge, beating the odds, being responsible for one’s own actions and experiencing the full meaning of freedom and choice, at the same time it is recognised as an opportunity to be litigious when things go wrong. For Douglas (1992), to be exposed to the negative outcomes of risk taking in the social climate of individualism has necessitated the need to hold persons accountable. In this context there is a growing risk management industry which is not only biased by individualism, drawing on the notion that for every misfortune someone is blamed or sued, but that the risk management process implies restrictions to the freedoms being sought. This gives rise to a paradoxical relationship between adventure ideology which underlies capitalist economies, and adventure practice (Lynch & Moore, 2004) which, in part, seeks to identify and control the level of risk one can experience. The paradoxical relationship between adventure ideology and adventure practice becomes a concern when the element of adventure ceases to be the powerful learning tool it is because it has been made so safe so as to avoid possible litigation — it lacks the spontaneity, the stress, and the hard-earned achievements of a genuine adventure. Adventure and risk programs, no matter how worthy the aims, today necessitate risk management procedures to be in place (Standards Australia, 2004) which, rather than protecting the individual, safeguards the agency or tour operator. Risk recreation participation and risk management can therefore be epitomised by: ➢ a growth in the desire of individuals to seek out adventure (which may be a reflection of the success of our society to achieve a reasonably high level of security);
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➢ a social preoccupation for removing and/or controlling uncertainty; ➢ a greater concern for individual safety; ➢ an imposition of risk management procedures to reduce the perception of risk; and ➢ less concern for the experience being sought and greater concern for the protection of the providing agency. To an extent, the paradoxical nature of risk ideology and risk management has been recognised in work that has contrasted the element of risk necessary for an activity to qualify as adventure with the increasing technological management and minimisation of such risk (Lynch & Moore, 2004; Wurdinger & Potter, 1999; Giddens, 1991; Van Loon, 2002) — this contrast can be understood as an example of the contradictions inherent in the socalled ‘risk society’. As individuals are left to their own devices to make decisions, they are also left alone to deal with the risks associated with those decisions. Adventure therefore, becomes necessary in the lives of individuals in order for them to live any life at all and this leads to the desire both to engage with, and manage risk.
The need to manage risk Risk management is now very much a part of the jargon in all industries that are in the business of providing the public with services and products. As a management tool, it is the culture, the processes and structures of managing an organisation’s potential exposure to liability, preventing its occurrence, or providing funds to meet the cost of a liability if it occurs. In other words, it is the effort to avoid, reduce or transfer liability — it is a process of reducing risk to an acceptable level (Standards Australia, 2004). A substantial body of literature now exists on the generic theme of risk management and the use of this management technique in outdoor recreation, outdoor education and adventure tourism (Hogan, 2002). While most organisations utilise ‘Standards’ developed by government initially to write risk management strategies, many agencies have since put into place procedures developed in-house. The focus of the process contained in the adopted procedures, however, has remained on the protection of the organisation from ‘something happening that will have an [negative] impact upon objectives’ (Standards Australia, 2004). In a similar vein, Hollman and Forest (1991) proposed that ‘risk management involves the protection of a firm’s assets and profits’. In risk recreation, however, there is a more important and urgent need to avoid the hierarchy of adverse consequences (serious injury to death) to participants through a risk management strategy for the activity.
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Incorporating ‘minimal activity guidelines’, the focus is not on eliminating the risks but rather planning for managing the inherent risks associated with the activity. This can be achieved through education relating to the use of the equipment and an understanding of the environment in which the recreations take place. The comprehensiveness of risk management strategies, and therefore the value to a providing agency, lies in seeking to minimise various types of risk (Fullagar, 1996: 98). These are: ➢ legal risks — losses and costs arising from legal actions for breach of a common law or statutory duty of care; ➢ physical risks — injuries to participants and the public in general; ➢ financial risks — increased insurance premiums, costs associated with injuries for business reasons, loss of financial stability and asset value, replacement costs and earning capacity, and increased external administrative costs; and ➢ moral and ethical risks — loss of quality participant experience and confidence, adverse publicity and loss of image. If litigation is a key consideration in providing recreational activity conducted in the outdoors in which liability is defined as ‘the degree of legal responsibility or obligation that people or programmes have for repairing damages for injuries to participants’ (Priest & Gass, 1997: 124), a risk management strategy is not only an important consideration, but a legal requirement. A risk management strategy ( Priest & Gass, 1997; Wilks & Davis, 2000) can be based on a simple strategy matrix based on the frequency of risk potential within an activity or setting (Figure 4). The four matrix component options allow for agencies to provide self-initiated outdoor opportunities, often with a high level of risk — but ensures that processes are in place to negate the occurrence of negligence: ➢ Risk retention: acceptance of loss by the operator/agency; ➢ Risk transfer: the use of insurance to cover infrequent but potentially costly accidents; ➢ Risk reduction: the adoption of ‘best practice’ to keep accidents to a minimum; and ➢ Risk avoidance: eliminating those things which are too risky.
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Figure 4. Risk Evaluation Matrix
Wilks & Davis, 2000: 595
Risk management, therefore, is acted out in a combination of risk-control and risk-financing techniques (Cloutier and Garvey, 2003). Risk-control techniques are intended to reduce or eliminate incidents; they include exposure avoidance, loss prevention, loss reduction, and loss sharing. Risk-financing techniques, on the other hand, deal with financial considerations and include risk transfer through insurance, risk transfer through contract, risk transfer through participant assumption, and risk retention on the part of the organisation. These techniques are carried out both before and after an incident through preventive and resource strategies. Litigation can therefore be avoided or minimised by adopting three broad measures: ➢ prevent the accident happening in the first place by adopting appropriate safety procedures — doing so would demonstrate that the operation was conducted professionally; ➢ inform participants fully of potential risks and the likelihood of accidents; and ➢ have a post-accident strategy in place, including access to first aid, evacuation to hospital procedures, keeping accurate records of accidents. The nature of the society in which we live would suggest that risk management has become an essential element of the public and private sector. It is a way of satisfying the legal requirements which have become standard in the business world. So how can we provide an appropriate range of outdoor leisure opportunities while meeting our duty of care to visitors, and our responsibility for conservation and environmental management? Based on the foregoing, and discussed below, are a number of management options that agencies can adopt which are deemed appropriate to a range of risk scenarios.
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➢ Educate participants — The ability of visitors to deal with a broad range of risks depends on the characteristics of the specific recreation, the skills of the participant, and their level of awareness of the risk. This would seem to indicate that risk mitigation strategies should be directed towards influencing visitor knowledge and behaviour, that is on-site warning signs and community education programs. The overall aim of such an option would be to change visitor behaviour so as to reduce risk. This can involve written or verbal strategies and may be on-site, prior to arrival at the site, or subsequent to departure. In addressing the risk in the recreation activity and/or environment it becomes necessary to develop in the visitor a realistic perception of the risk involved. This is best achieved prior to arrival as the visitor may then be better prepared to undertake the activity in a safe manner. Verbal communication is frequently the best approach if the site is serviced through an operator or guide. ➢ Visitor access — While the standard and condition of built assets are rarely a direct cause of injury, natural hazards (features like cliffs, strong currents, falling trees and limbs) are usually the source of risk to visitors because they are either unfamiliar with the specific environment or it is totally outside their control. This option recognises that it is more important to manage visitor access to environments that inherently contain natural hazards and to influence participant behaviour such that participation remains within ability levels. ➢ Limitation on use — This option involves placing restrictions on use and can involve a number of visitor strategies including time limits spent in an area, limiting the area which can be used, restricting the number of people in an area at any one time, and/or requesting the purchase of a permit to use an area. All of this requires supervision and monitoring. ➢ Guided activities — Allowing private companies to access an area presents an option whereby the opportunity to provide safe recreational activity is attained by using qualified and experienced guides. ➢ The use of standards and codes of behaviour — The use of approved standards for the design of facilities is a common and legally recognised option for ensuring safety in facility design. Whilst international or national standards do not exist for all those outdoor structures and facilities in parks, the use of ‘best practice’ guidelines represents a similar approach. Similarly, codes of behaviour could be developed for management and users.
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➢ Ongoing monitoring — Ongoing monitoring of the condition of infrastructure and facilities within parks is more than an option, but rather a fundamental component of risk management. It is critical to ensuring an appropriate process is in place which guarantees an electronic database for risk identification, determination of risk level and consequence, regular inspections, identification of defects, and follow-up maintenance and repair. ➢ Facility design — The design of facilities is a common option to ensure visitor safety. The approach can address risky locations and provide a means of redirecting visitors to safer options, or it can provide a safe environment in which to carry out the activity. ➢ Policy development and response planning — Reactive planning for incidents which occur in parks includes rescue and transportation planning. As an option, it requires the development of policy and response procedures for any type of accident within the system of parks and demonstrates, not only the degree of readiness in terms of procedure, but that adverse risk scenarios have been part of safety planning. ➢ Qualifications and training — This option involves employee and volunteer screening in terms of qualifications and experience. It would aim to ensure that guiding, instructing and managerial personnel are appropriate, but also that appropriate training is provided to secure industry accreditation ➢ Meeting legal responsibilities — This option ensures that the agency is fully aware of and adheres to all Acts and legal guidelines relating to risk management for all aspects of activity provision.
Accommodating the paradox We live in a capitalistic culture that prizes autonomy. Against that background, our responses to risk acquire their meaning. We respond differently to risks that we choose for ourselves and over which we believe we have some degree of control than we do to risks that we do not choose, or believe we control. In technical discussions, risks are negatives, and in calculations of costs and benefits, risks are usually considered costs. To an adventure participant, however, the risk is part of what makes participation a challenge and worthwhile. In this sense the risk is a benefit rather than a cost. The adventure participant’s attitude towards risk, therefore, is tied to the degree of control over the risks that must be borne. Judgements about when it is permissible to expose a person to risk or injury is tied to notions of individual responsibility and human agency. The source of an injury is often as
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important to us as its extent. It makes a difference to us whether the harm was due to natural causes or brought about by the action of another person. We usually want to know if they knew what they were doing, and if they did, whether they acted deliberately. These pre-occupations are reflected in our legal codes and moral practices. From a moral point of view, it is a matter of what risks we want on our conscience. In light of our commitment to autonomy, it is not unreasonable to think that consent plays a role in the legitimation of risky activity (Teuber, 1990). Its role is important in our political process, which relies on the participation of the governed for legitimacy in the marketplace where the transaction is one of voluntary exchange; and in medical procedures where the consent form obtains a patient’s informed consent. Given that our intuitions are fairly well grounded about the conditions under which we think it permissible to expose others to risk, it is tempting to take such cases as models for the justification for providing risky activity. Adopting the principle that imposing risks on people or providing opportunities to engage with risk/adventurous activity and/or environments is therefore justified if, and only if, it is reasonable to assume that they have consented to those risks. Under Queensland risk management legislation (Department of Sport and Recreation Queensland, 2005) participants engaged in such dangerous recreational activities are taken to be aware of, and agree to, the obvious risks involved in participating — there is no duty to warn a person of the risk (although there are some exceptions to this). Liability in this situation remains when the accident from participation occurred as a result of negligence on the part of the agency/operator. While this situation is an example of voluntary participation being equated with consent, it is widely reported that despite facility standards and ‘best practice’ being applied, people are notoriously poor judges of risk even after being provided with information about the risks involved — people’s perceptions frequently fail to match up with the actual dangers posed by risks (Teuber, 1990). Why is this the case? Apter (1992) theorises that every activity in life has three zones: a safe zone where one is far away from the cliff’s edge, the danger zone where one walks on the edge, and a trauma zone where one has fallen off the edge and has been hurt or killed. When people seek excitement, they put themselves in what he calls a protective frame which is built through skill, proper equipment and preparation. The protective frame allows participants to come close to the edge, but not fall into the trauma zone. What can happen when urban adventure opportunities are available to the general public is that people can be tricked into thinking they are operating within a protective frame when in reality they are not. Reinforced by what they
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perceive as appropriate to a publicly provided opportunity, what they hear and see in the media, and combined with a lack of knowledge and skill, the boundaries of the protective zone are completely obscured — it blurs the distinction of what is real and what is not real. It is that balancing act on the edge which makes high risk activities so powerful in their appeal. The potential benefits to participants are many and profound. One of the most powerful benefits is the intense personal feelings of arousal and excitement — the adrenaline rush. Everyone needs excitement but some people needing more than life’s normal forms of excitement take one further step, by participating in high-risk activities where the consequences are far greater (Leamer, 1982), and where there is a distinct possibility of stepping into the trauma zone. If this is the case, should we then not provide properly planned, socially acceptable outlets for this need? The reason people participate in risk recreation activities is probably rooted in a combination of physical, psychological and sociological structures, and the influences of society and culture as well. From a combination of difficulties associated with identifying degrees of risk, false bravado, questionable skills, and having little in the way of related experience, risk management was formalised in part as a reflection of increasing community consciousness of safety issues, and the associated exposure to legal liability (Wark, 1997). Ensuring facilities and environments comply with specified standards and providing information on the type and magnitude of risks involved in participation, however, does not guarantee that the required standard of care has been achieved — but it can be an important foundation. It should be noted that most Australian standards for built assets are based on domestic environments, Occupational Health and Safety considerations or industrial situations — they do nothing to specifically take account of natural environments where many risk activities take place. No solution will protect Councils, or any providing agency, from litigation, but careful planning, design and management will provide a technically safer facility that still provides the high-risk potential to be exploited by those with the appropriate level of skill (Geyer, 1997). Most adventure recreations that utilise the urban/semi-urban environment are initially novel and fringe activities attracting low participation rates until firmly established as core recreation activity at which time they become more formalised, structured and managed. As such, park/recreation managers have not felt the need to directly manage these activities until they start to represent an impact on ‘management’. At such time, agency policies will require the activity to be part of a risk management process. It is at this point that managers realise that they are unfamiliar with the activity and the
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participants, leaving them, the managers, not knowing what to do. When this unfamiliarity is combined with the litigation concerns, it is easy to understand why managers’ responses to such activities have been characteristically unfavourable (Saunders, 2001). What is not a part of the consideration is the value and meaning of the experience for the participant. In deciding whether to offer a range of outdoor recreation opportunities is worth the risk, we are specifically referring to the values that can be gained from providing such opportunities. The values attached to such participation are often expressed as goals or outcomes and include such things as the development of a sound self-concept, including self-reliance and self-confidence. Others might include the development of environmental awareness (through interpretation), aesthetic appreciation, cooperation, physical fitness, ability to deal with stress, and tenacity. If providing such opportunities can have a significant positive influence on such outcomes, then properly managed outdoor opportunities (controlled adventurous activities in natural and artificial environments) could offer unlimited possibilities, for the urban recreation manager. It should be noted that the above is also true for the public schools sector (through outdoor and environmental education), outdoor centres (through youth at risk, and corporate team-building programs), and mental health rehabilitation (through the use of adventure recreation as a therapeutic tool).
Conclusion The urban recreation planning and management role of improving the quality of community life through recreation opportunity provision and the legal responsibilities for doing so must be examined from a risk management perspective. Risk management is no longer a luxury but a necessity for public and private leisure service providers. In satisfying this responsibility, risk management today is recognised as an integral part of good management practice — an iterative process which supports better decision making by contributing a greater insight into risks and their impacts. In dealing with the need to rationalise the management of risk in the urban context, and at the same time provide participants with an appropriate level of risk and adventure, the recreation manager should be planning to manage for the safety of outdoor recreation participants through strategies other than removing the risk, because to do so would remove the purpose of participation. To this end a number of management options and strategies appropriate to a range of risk scenarios have been presented. Most park and recreation managers faced with accommodating greater numbers of independent recreational risk-takers would perceive high risk
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participation as an inappropriate use of a public resources and relatively difficult to manage (Saunders, 2001), despite what would probably be, low use levels. A manager’s preference would be for them to operate under a formalised structure and to transfer the onus of responsibility to the structure (club, association, etc.). This is of course, not always possible in the use of urban public open space. If the basic purpose of any recreation agency is to provide opportunities for people, individually and collectively, to engage in leisure behaviour to satisfy basic human needs, opportunities for adventure must be part of the spectrum of offering. While it may have a greater degree of risk of harm than most forms of community recreation, may be preferable to inactivity and non-activity, and may have benefits that outweigh the risks involved, the provision of risk recreation programs in such agencies is dependent on recreational professionals knowing more than the odds of success or failure as measured in terms of accidents. For all its complexity, the legal duty of care in recreation management does not require all park recreation opportunities be made totally safe and bland. It is true that a very high standard of care is expected in highly developed sites, urban parks and situations where inexperienced visitors are expected. This standard of care can be interpreted as requiring comprehensive visitor services, including facilities that conform to high standards. On the other hand, there is substantial scope to allow opportunities for more challenging recreation in natural settings. Nevertheless, effective management of visitor safety must be based on a sound and systematic approach to the provision of facilities and services. In essence, the urban recreation manager must balance opportunities for both safety and challenge, by clearly defining the level of service and standard of care being provided in different situations. As Hughes-Johnson (1997) observes, the purpose of any outdoor recreation strategy cannot be to eliminate risk but rather to identify it and plan for outdoor activities with a consciousness of it — to be supportive of the coexistence of risk opportunity provision and risk management. Use of a soundly based risk management process is probably the best way to reduce the incidence of injury to urban park visitors and decrease public liability exposure while managing or optimising the risk inherent in participation.
References Apter, M. (1992). The dangerous edge: The psychology of excitement. New York: The Free Press. Brown, T. (1995). Adventure risk management: A practical model. Australian Journal of Outdoor Education, 1(2), 16–24. Buckley, R. C. (2004). Environmental impacts of ecotourism. Cambridge: CABI Publishing.
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Cheron, E. J., & Ritchie, J. R. B. (1982). Leisure activities and perceived risk. Journal of Leisure Research, 14(2), 134–154. Cloudier, K.R. & Garvey, D. (2000) Legal liability and risk management in adventure tourism. Kamloops, B.C., Canada: Bhudak Consultants Publishers. Cutter, S. (1993). Living with risk. London: Hodder and Stoughton Publisher. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1975). Beyond boredom and anxiety. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Department of Sport and Recreation Queensland. (2005). Insurance and risk management: For sport and recreation organisations. Brisbane: Queensland Government Printer. Dickson, T. (2001). Calculating risks: Fine’s mathematical formula 30 years later. Australian Journal of Outdoor Education, 6(1), 31–39. Douglas, M. (1992). Risk and blame: Essays in cultural theory. London: Routledge. Dowd, J. (2004). Risk and the outdoor adventure experience: Good risk, bad risk, real risk, apparent risk, objective risk, subjective risk. Australia Journal of Outdoor Education, 8(1), 69–70. Ewert, A., & Boone, T. (1987). Risk management: Diffusing the dragon. Journal of Experiential Education, 12(1), 19–25. Ewert, A. (1989). Outdoor adventure pursuits: Foundations, models and theories. Scottsdale: Horizon Publications. Fine, W. (1971). Mathematical evaluation for controlling hazards, Journal of Safety Research, 3(4), 157–166. Fischoff, B. (1985). Managing risk perceptions. Issues in Science and Technology, 2(1), 83–96. Fullagar, I. (1996). Risk Management in recreation and the law. Proceedings of the Risk Management in the Outdoors National Conference, May (pp. 97–116), Launceston: Outdoor Recreation Council of Australia. Geyer, T. (1997). Risk management: Skate parks. Australian Parks and Recreation, Spring, 14–16. Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Handmer, J., & Williams, J. (2001). Managing the residual risk. Australian Journal of Environmental Management, 8, 239–244. Hogan, R. (2002). The crux of risk management in outdoor programs: Minimising the possibility of death and disabling injury. Australian Journal of Outdoor Education, 6(2), 71–79. Hollman, K. W., & Forest, J. E. (1991). Risk management in a service business. International Journal of Service Industry Management, 2(2), 49–65. Hughes-Johnson, A. C. (1997). Cave Creek and its implications. Australian Parks and Recreation, Spring, 35–39. Keyes, R. (1985). Chancing it: Why we take risks. Boston: Little Brown and Company Publishers.
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Klausner, S. Z. (1968). Why man takes chances: Studies in stress seeking. Gordon City: Doubleday and Company Inc. Leamer, L. (1982). Ascent: The spiritual and physical quest of Willi Unsoeld. New York: Simon & Schuster. Lipscombe, N. (1994, October). Adventure: An appropriate concept for the aged. Paper presented at the Third Global Classroom Conference, Montreal. Lipscombe, N. (1995). Skydiving: Towards a theory of participation. PhD dissertation, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia. Lipscombe, N. (2005). Risk and adventure in leisure: Meaning and importance explored. Australasian Parks and Leisure, 8(3), Spring, 42–47. Lynch, P., & Moore, K. (2004). Adventures in paradox. Australian Journal of Outdoor Education, 8(2), 3–12. MacCrimmon, K. R., & Wehrung, D. A. (1986). Taking risks: The management of uncertainty. New York: The Free Press. McIntyre, N. (1990). Recreation involvement: The personal meaning of participation. PhD dissertation, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia. Mitchell, P. G. (1983). Mountain experience: The psychology and sociology of adventure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Priest, S., & Gass, M. A. (1997). Effective leadership in adventure programming. Windsor, Ontario, Canada: Human Kinetics. Priest, S. (1990). The semantics of adventure education. In J. Miles & S. Priest (Eds.), Adventure education. PA: Venture Publishing, State College. Saunders, R. (2001). Balancing opportunities for adventure and risk management. Australian Parks and Leisure, March, 9–13. Snider, H. W. (Ed.). (1967). Risk and insurance, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs. Standards Australia. (1999). Risk management (AS/NZS 4360:1999). Retrieved July 2005, from Standards Australia Online database. Standards Australia. (2004). Guidelines for managing risk in sport and recreation (HB 246: 2004). Standards Australia Online database. Swarbrooke, J., Beard, C., Leckie, S., & Pomfret, G. (2003). Adventure tourism: The new frontier. Oxford: Butterworth & Heinemann. Teuber, A. (1990). Justifying risk. In E. J. Burger (Ed.), Risk. Michigan: University of Michigan Press. Tomkins, S. S. (1971). A theory of risk-taking behaviour. In R. E. Carney (Ed.), Risktaking behaviour: Concepts, methods, and applications to smoking and drug abuse. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas. Van Loon, J. (2002). Risk and technological culture: Toward a sociology of virulence. London: Routledge. Wark, D. (1997). A new standard in playgrounds. Australian Parks and Recreation, Spring, 17–20.
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Wildavsky, A. (1995). No risk is the highest risk of all. America Scientist, 67, 32–37. Wilks, J., & Davis, R. (2000). Risk management for scuba diving operators on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Tourism Management, 21, 591–599. Wurdinger, S. D., & Potter, T. G. (1999). Controversial issues in adventure education: A critical examination. Dubuque, IA: Kendal/Hunt. Zuckerman, M. (1971). Dimensions of sensation seeking. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 36, 45–52.
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The Motivations of Baby Boomers to Participate in Adventure Tourism and the Implications for Adventure Tour Providers Ian Patterson Associate Professor School of Tourism, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia Rebecca Pan, Graduate Student, Master of Business, School of Tourism, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia ABSTRACT • One of the emerging growth areas of tourism is so-called ‘adven-
ture’ tourism. Adventure tourism has recently attracted the interest of older people, including a new generation of baby boomers. This trend has been attributed to the fact that many baby boomers are generally healthier, more financially well off, better educated and have a greater desire for novelty, escape and authentic experiences than previous cohorts of older people. Many baby boomer and senior adult groups are opting for more physically challenging and adrenalin-driven activities, preferring soft adventure activities rather than passive activities such as sightseeing tours and shopping. This study investigates why older tourists want to participate in adventure tourism and makes recommendations for tour providers about how to improve services for older people. A total of 14 people who were aged 50 years and older were interviewed using a qualitative research methodology. The results found that the most significant motive for adventure travel was the need to escape from their everyday routine by interjecting it with elements of adventure. Furthermore, the experience of seeing different landscapes, wildlife and native plants as well as going to places where few people had previously ventured was also an important motive. With this in mind, adventure tour providers need to keep their prices competitive and to place greater emphasis on safety and to use experienced guides. Shorter daytrips with less intensity should also be provided for older travellers.
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Introduction Our world is rapidly aging. The United Nations estimates that over two billion people will be aged 60 years and over by the year 2050, and this will account for 22 per cent (or 1:5) of the world’s population compared to only 10 per cent in 2000 (United Nations, 2000). These demographic shifts will be seen across all continents, including Australia, where numbers of older people who are aged 65 years and older will increase from around 12 per cent in 1999, to between 24 per cent and 26 per cent in 2051 (ABS, 1999). Because of this rapid increase in numbers of older people, one of the direct consequences of this change in demography is that there will be greater numbers of older people who will want to travel, and as a result, be responsible for a larger share of overall holiday spending compared to younger age groups. For example, in 1999 over 593 million international travellers were aged 60 years and over, and they accounted for around a third of all holiday spending by this segment. By 2050 this figure is projected to increase to be greater than two billion trips (World Tourism Organisation, 2001). As a result, the tourism and leisure industry has begun to change its marketing priorities to more seriously targeting people aged 65 years and over because they are now seen as having larger amounts of free time and discretionary income to spend on travel compared to younger age groups (Javalgi, Thomas, & Rao, 1992). In addition, most baby boomers (who were born between 1946 and 1964) perceive themselves to be younger in age and in outlook than their chronological age, more in control of their lives, and increasingly self-reliant (Cleaver & Muller, 2002). Because of this, they are demanding new and different leisure experiences that are challenging and often adventure based (Hudson, 2003; Patterson, 2002). This study explores the main motivations that have led to an increased interest in adventure tourism activities in exotic locations by older people. Adventure tourism is seen as a form of tourism that has an element of risk and danger, and provides the traveller with a sense of challenge and exhilaration. Previously, the adventure tourism market was mainly made up of younger people who were typically more daring, and who constantly sought out activities that were dangerous and thrilling. However, more recently older people are becoming increasingly lured by the excitement of adventure tourism, and the reasons why this is occurring has formed the basis for this study. That is, to gain a greater insight into why older people want to participate in adventure tourism and to examine what are the implications for commercial tour providers to help them to provide for this increased demand.
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For the purposes of this study, we will be using the terms ‘baby boomers’ and ‘seniors’ interchangeably throughout. Because of this, we have defined older adventure travellers based on their chronological age, that is 50 years and older. Firstly, we will look at how adventure tourism is defined and the two main types of adventure tourism — soft and hard adventure.
Definition of adventure tourism Swarbooke, Beard, Leckie and Pomfret (2003) concluded that adventure should not be defined according to the specific activities that are undertaken, but more by the state of mind or approach of the participant. However, there is little doubt that adventure denotes action; it is not a passive experience and is generally found to be engaging and absorbing. Adventure also involves effort and commitment, and often mental and physical preparation or training is necessary. An adventure is by its very nature a risky undertaking. Sung (2004: 345) in a more recent study concluded that activity, experience and the environment were the main attractions of adventure travel: ‘That is, an individual would be engaged in adventure travel for the purpose of gaining pleasure and personal meaning (experience) through participation in leisure pursuits in a specific setting (environment)’. Furthermore, the adventure experience can differ as it is made up of a number of different dimensions such as the type of travel, group membership, and/or the amount and spectrum of risk (Ewert & Jamieson, 2003) (Figure 1). That is, the participant can engage in the adventure activity along several dimensions, such as the location (a remote wilderness trip travelling alone, versus a trip to Cancun as a member of a cruise ship), and this suggests that there are different levels and types of risk and danger that need to be seriously considered (Bentley & Page, 2001).
Types of adventure Several authors have distinguished between different types and levels of adventure activities, categorising them as either ‘soft’ or ‘hard’ adventure, and placing them at opposite ends of the adventure spectrum (Figure 2).
Soft adventure Hill (1995) defined soft adventure as activities that are usually suitable for family involvement as well as providing an introduction to new and unique experiences. This might involve whitewater rafting in oar-powered boats on class 2 or class 3 rivers, horseback riding on a guided breakfast ride, or hotair ballooning with a commercial provider. Miller (2003: 2) described several types of soft adventure type activities that older people might like to partici-
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Figure 1. The Adventure Tourism Experience (Ewert & Jamieson, 2003: 69)
Independent/ Autonomous solo
• Highly controlled • Low uncertainty • High amenities • High safety • Relatively low risk
Skindiving as part of a cruise
Group tour to Yellowstone
Solo climb of a major peak
Raft member on a remote whitewater expedition river
• Highly adventurous • High uncertainty • Low amenities • Low safety • Relatively high risk
Member of a highly regulated and structured experience
Figure 2. Differences between soft and hard adventure (Hill, 1995) Soft Adventure Refers to activities with a perceived risk but low levels of real risk, requiring minimal commitment and beginning skills; most of these activities are led by experienced guides
Hard Adventure Refers to activities with high levels of risk, requiring intense commitment and advanced skills
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pate in: ‘Hiking the Scottish Highlands, biking across France, riding [on] horseback across Mongolia, braving the rough Drake Passage to Antarctica, taking a walking safari in Zambia or canoe travel in Zimbabwe. Now they’re even paddling the coastlines of the Fiji Islands, where once the main draw was watching the scenery from a beach chair while sipping a tropical drink’.
Hard adventure In contrast, hard adventure requires advanced-level skills that are generally used when faced with dangerous situations. Participants usually participate because of a deep interest and extensive experience in an adventure activity that is usually beyond the confines of a commercial provider. This may include climbing Yosemite’s El Capitan, rafting Cataract Canyon in a private group, or hang-gliding in the Telluride cirque (Hill, 1995). Millington, Locke and Locke (2001) stated that the main difference between hard and soft adventure was that hard adventure requires previous experience and proficiency in the activity prior to the tourism experience, whereas soft adventure does not necessarily involve the need for previous experience. Table 1. Examples of hard and soft adventure activities (Ewert & Jamieson, 2003: 69) Hard Activities
Soft Activities
Rock and mountain climbing
Camping
Snorkelling/SCUBA diving
Biking
Caving
Flat water canoeing
Whitewater boating
Photo safaris
Wilderness backpacking
Day hiking
Motivations for adventure tourism Motivation has been defined in the psychological literature as ‘an inner state that energises, channels, and sustains human behaviour to achieve goals’ (Pizam, Neumann, & Reichel, 1979: 195). In other words, motives are internal to the individual and help to guide or direct behaviour so that personal goals are achieved and thereby to bring satisfaction and enjoyment to the individual. The motivations for leisure travel have received considerable attention in the literature over the past two decades (Kim, Weaver, & McCleary, 1996). Tourist motivations have been regarded as important in helping to explain
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tourist behaviour (Iso-Ahola, 1989). To Iso-Ahola (1989), tourism motivations are seen as the process of escaping personal and/or interpersonal environments and seeking out personal and/or interpersonal intrinsic rewards. Iso-Ahola based his theories on the work of Deci (1975), who was the first theorist to acknowledge that there was a distinction between intrinsic (internal drives) and extrinsic motivation (external or environmental drives). Intrinsic motivation is defined as ‘the inherent tendency to seek out novelty and challenges, to extend and exercise one’s capabilities, to explore and to learn’ (Ryan & Deci, 2000: 69). Thus to Iso-Ahola (1989: 55), tourist behaviour is the ‘interplay of forces — avoidance of routine or stressful environments and seeking recreation places for certain psychological rewards’. Therefore, intrinsic motivation is at the heart of play and leisure behaviour, offering unlimited opportunities to achieve feelings of excitement, anticipation and expectations of enjoyment. To be free to choose the leisure or travel experience, or as it is known ‘perceived freedom’, is also a critical prerequisite for travel behaviour (Iso-Ahola, 1989). Thus, when extrinsic constraining factors occur, such as being forced to travel for family obligations, or if people are on a tight travelling schedule this can become stressful, and as a result their motivation to travel will be significantly reduced as it is not seen as intrinsically motivated behaviour. Intrinsically motivated behaviour facilitates people’s attempts to pursue and achieve optimal levels of sensory stimulation and arousal, such as feelings of flow that are seen as inherently pleasurable and satisfying (Csikzentmihalyi, 1990). Tourists live for the present, a conceptualisation that explains their desire for instant gratification, thrill and ‘buzz’ of the moment such as through adventure activities (Hudson, 2003). Before delving into the major motivations that encourage seniors to engage in adventure tourism, the following diagram explains the differences between seeking, and escaping from, the leisure experience (Figure 3). Figure 3. The seeking and escaping dimensions of leisure motivation (Iso-Ahola, 1989: 262) Seeking Personal Rewards
Seeking Interpersonal Rewards
Escaping Interpersonal Environments
Escaping Personal Environments
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Iso-Ahola’s model illustrates how people can use leisure to escape from both their personal and interpersonal worlds. The former refers to escape from personal problems, troubles and failures as well as escaping from everyday routines. To run away from the interpersonal world means that one is escaping routine social contacts (such as co-workers, boss or family members). However, when escaping these worlds one is also seeking intrinsic rewards (such as friends or tour buddies) that are not the source of problems that they are escaping from. Another approach to define tourist motivations has been through studies that have been based on consumer-based research focusing on the analysis of choice sets and consumer decision making (Sonmez & Graefe, 1998). Hall and McArthur (1991) attributed the desire to participate in adventure tourism to four consumer-based decisions: adventure, safety, perception of the environment, and economic considerations. Uncertainty and risk are also highly regarded as key elements of the adventure experience; however, participants also placed a high priority on safety considerations (e.g., competence of guides, condition of rafts, past safety record with whitewater rafting) in adventure experiences. For example, Fluker and Turner (2000) discussed the role of activity risk as a main motivator for people undertaking whitewater rafting. Weiler and Hall (1992) further described the motivations for adventure tourism as improved physical wellbeing, social contact, risk seeking and self-discovery resulting from the experience. However, for a more detailed examination of the main motivations for adventure tourism it is necessary to categorise them according to intrinsic and extrinsic dimensions.
Intrinsic motivations for adventure tourism 1. To re-live their youth There is a strong desire for older people to feel younger, or at least to relive some of the experiences that characterised their youth. No matter how well people take care of themselves as they move chronologically through their lives, old age will become increasingly and inescapably more apparent with the physical changes that take place in their face and bodies (Hepworth, 2004). Adventure tourism can trigger strong feelings of longing for the past when they were younger and derived great enjoyment and satisfaction from engaging in activities that were risky or physically challenging (Hinch & Higham, 2004). Today, many older adults take a proactive approach towards ageing by embracing life by living it to the fullest, and doing as many things as possible while they are physically capable and have clarity of mind. Subjective age has become more important than chronological age for baby boomers in the
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twenty-first century. Markides and Boldt (1983) found that the main difference between felt age (or subjective age) and actual age (or chronological age) was 10.2 years. That is, seniors typically felt a decade younger than what their actual age was, and placed great deal on the importance on having fun and enjoyment in their lives, preferring to experience or enjoy vacation activities with younger people. Males have a greater desire than females to holiday with much younger age groups, and they often coloured their hair and/or underwent cosmetic surgery to enhance their appearance and to remove signs of ageing. This age difference becomes larger as one ages, as research by Menlo Consulting Group found that on average US travellers who were aged 80 years often thought of themselves as having a mean age of 65 years (Smith & Jenner, 1997). This suggests that people do not perceive themselves as old until they reach at least 75 years or older (Sherman & Cooper, 1988).
2. Provide an alternative to boredom Older adults want to ‘seize the moment’ and take holidays that are more challenging and less passive in nature while they are still mobile and fit, leaving relaxing holidays to when they are becoming older and frailer (Bierman, 2005). There are a myriad of ways that people find meaning in life and there are countless avenues to approach a ‘good life’ after retirement (Firestone, Firestone, & Cartlett, 2003). Adventure travel can provide an alternative to a boring retirement routine and by its very nature, seniors are able to receive physical and social stimulation by being in the company of different types of people, as well as discovering new destinations and experiences relatively unknown settings that are seen to be exotic outdoor locations (Golik, 1999). They want to escape from the demands of their daily life and responsibilities, and high on their agenda is fun and enjoyment as well as gaining self-respect that can be achieved through adventure tourism (Cleaver, Muller, Ruys, & Wei, 1999).
3. To provide continuity to life In many ways, older people display continuity between their past and present in their basic leisure activities, interests and values (Coleman, 1995). Atchley (1999) found that most people continue to participate in similar kinds of activities in retirement as they did when they were working (he referred to this as ‘Continuity Theory’) as it concentrates people’s energies in familiar domains. In the process of maintaining a basic level of physical and mental activity, it is not surprising that seniors still choose to take part in physically and mentally challenging adventure holidays (Swarbrooke, Beard, Leckie, & Pomfret, 2003).
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As people begin to approach the latter part of their lives, there is a strong tendency to search for self-fulfilling activities and experiences as they contemplate the reality that there is only so much time left to live. Muller (1997) predicted that because of this realignment of values and search for self-fulfilment, seniors have a greater propensity to take part in discovery tourism, of which adventure tourism is a major component. This may also help to delay the onset of ill health through leading a healthy lifestyle, which is now becoming more common among baby boomers. Feeling physically healthy may provide seniors with the feeling that they can do anything, such as adventure tourism activities that are generally more physically and mentally demanding.
4. Physically challenging and fun Others want to experience a range of new and exciting adventure experiences and are eager to combine this with overseas and/or domestic travel. This provides older adults with stimulation from receiving physical and intellectually challenging experiences as well as learning through ‘hands on’ experiences about different cultures and ancient civilisations. Adventure tourism involves stepping out of one’s comfort zone, and often requires a great deal of determination and mental fortitude as even soft adventure experiences can stretch the limits of one’s endurance, while at the same time encouraging older tourists to back for more.
5. Social support Social support has a positive effect on older people’s psychological wellbeing and mental health. For many seniors, achieving their adventure goals also results in social validation (Hudson, 2003). During an adventure tour, there will be times when older people will be tested physically and mentally, while at other times, self-doubt and fear prevent them from progressing any further. In these times, it is comforting to receive encouragement and support from one’s peer group. In addition, married couples in particular enjoy the experience of forming new friendships with older singles or couples who are similar ages to themselves (Naida, Shaw & Cook, 1997).
6. Sense of achievement The emotions that surface from adventure tourism not only include feelings of fun and enjoyment, but also a sense of achievement at having done something that no one was expecting an older person to do. Stereotypes have previously suggested that older adults were ‘over the hill’ or on the way down; generally uninterested in new things and experiences; somewhat frail
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and ailing and as a result were incapable of handling the strenuous aspects of travel, much less adventure travel (Cleaver et al., 1999). Because of these negative stereotypes, many seniors were often constrained by the expectations of others that discouraged them from having fun through challenging activities (Hepworth, 2004). However, today these stereotypes are disappearing as more older adults are actively participating in adventure tourism and aiming to ‘achieve something unexpected, perhaps even something previously unimagined’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990: 46).
Extrinsic motivations for adventure tourism 1. Better health Baby boomers are generally enjoying better health and longer life expectancies than previous generations, which has been attributed to advancements in medical science and improved health care (Ruys & Wei, 1995). There are an array of measures associated with a healthy lifestyle that many older people have adopted to prevent or postpone the onset of disease and disability. These include a balanced diet, regular exercise, adequate time for relaxation and sleep, avoidance of tobacco and drugs, moderate use of alcohol, mental stimulation and regular social contact, as well as easy access to preventive and medical services (Satariano, 1997).
2. Higher incomes Seniors are generally financially better off than previous cohorts of the same age. In Australia for example, baby boomers generally have higher incomes than the average, and are over represented in the highest household income quintile, with 63 per cent of married baby boomers being dual income couples. They also have greater financial freedom from mortgage debt and a substantial amount of savings (Muller, 1997; Patterson, 2002). Older people who are aged 60 years and older often enjoy higher discretionary incomes because they have fewer outgoing expenses. Housing is generally a major expense for the average Australian; however, nearly 80 per cent of seniors in Australia aged above 60 years of age own their own home, while only 4.9 per cent have dependent children living at home. These factors when combined reduce financial commitments and increase the amount of discretionary income that can be spent on travel (Golik, 1999).
3. More free time and discounts Seniors can make substantial savings on their travel and this has proved to be an added incentive. For example, many seniors have retired or work parttime and because of this, they are free to travel during the off-peak season
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and receive substantial discounts on travel compared to younger people with children who generally have to travel during the school holidays. Often, companies offer discounts and special deals for seniors who are aged 50 years of age and older who travel in the off-peak and shoulder seasons. For example, Thrifty Car Rentals offers a 10 per cent discount to anyone aged 55 years and older. Travellers can also purchase books of airline coupons valid for travel in a certain regions of the USA (Brooks, 1994).
Summary The research literature suggests that both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations act together as powerful motivators for adventure travel by older people. The main motivators for older people are the intrinsic rewards and satisfactions that are associated with helping older people to feel young again, and to increase feelings of achievement, fun and enjoyment, the forming of new social bonds and friendships as well as providing an outlet for older people to escape from the boredom or alienation of their work or retirement. Extrinsic motivators such as feeling fit and healthy as well as increased wealth through better pension and superannuation schemes provide the financial means to permit older people to undertake adventure travel. The process of exploring older people’s motivations is a complex one, and this study provides a comprehensive examination of older people’s motivations to participate in adventure tourism activities.
Research questions Based on this literature review the following research questions were developed: ➢ What are the main motives of older people to participate in adventure tourism? ➢ Do intrinsic motives play a more significant role than extrinsic motives in influencing older people to participate in adventure tourism? ➢ Are older people who participate in adventure tourism experiences more likely to participate in further adventure tourism experiences in the future? ➢ How well do adventure tourism providers cater for the needs of older people and what can they do to improve adventure experiences for older people?
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Methods Research design The purpose of this study was to explore different perspectives and meanings about the motives for older people’s participation in adventure tourism. This study uses a quantitative approach as motivations are seen as intangible and complex and not something that the researcher can quantify or infer by observation. In addition, tourist journeys that are motivated by just one motive are very rare (Vukonic, 1996). In order to gain deeper insights into the motivations of particular behaviours, researchers need to be able to interact and communicate with the actual person involved in the adventure tourism experience. Qualitative research uses an interpretative paradigm. The interpretive model is one that places more reliance on the people being studied, providing their own explanations of their situation or behaviour (Veal, 2006). This research tradition usually involves qualitative methods and is generally regarded as an inductive approach. This is because it asks questions such as ‘why’ and ‘how’, follows a flexible research design, explains causality, and develops theory (Gratton & Jones, 2004). The data that are collected in qualitative research are in the form of words that need to be interpreted by the researcher, and do not involve numbers, or are not based on statistics. This approach involves gathering large amounts of relatively detailed information such as feelings, thoughts or experiences from relatively few cases (Veal, 2006). The data collection used an interview schedule consisting of 19 questions that were based on the research literature, where participants were able to describe the situation in their own words and in their own time. In a qualitative study, the main aim is to have a more complete understanding of the motivating factors that influence older adults to participate in adventure tourism experiences. The objective of this study is to discover variation, portray shades of meaning and to examine complexity.
The sample A purposive sample of 14 older adults who were aged between 50 and 80 years agreed to be interviewed because they had taken part in a ‘soft’ or ‘hard’ adventure tourism experience during the past twelve months. The participants were volunteers sourced from a database that has been established by the Australasian Centre on Ageing, at the University of Queensland. The Centre has established a 50+ Registry, which is a database of people who are 50 years and older who were willing to participate in the University of Queensland’s various research projects about ageing. One hundred letters
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were mailed to these volunteers informing them about the study and asking if they would participate based on certain criteria; that is, that they had undertaken an adventure tourism experience during the last 12 months. A final total of 14 older people returned acceptance forms indicating that they fulfilled the criteria for selection, and agreed to be interviewed for the study.
Interview schedule An interview schedule was developed which consisted of 19 open-ended questions that were based on a review of the literature related to the previously stated research questions. The studies by the following researchers were used to develop suitable themes, including questions for this research study: 1. Motivations for seniors to take part in adventure tourism are mainly intrinsically motivating behaviour (Golik, 1999). 2. Reminiscence played an important role in the face of losses of role and function in older age (Coleman, 1995). 3. Older people display great continuity between the past and present in their basic activities, interests and values (Atchley, 1999). 4. People seek out experiences that provide a reprieve from the boredom or stress from everyday life (Iso-Ahola, 1989). 5. Social interaction is important for seniors as a motive for participating in adventure tourism (Naida et a.,1997). 6. Achievement motivation is important for older people to demonstrate to others their physical abilities; in doing so, seniors want to break down the negative stereotypes surrounding them (McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, & Lowell, 1953). A pilot test was conducted with three participants to test the suitability of the wording, and the time needed to complete the interview. Several of the questions were modified based on the responses from the respondents. The time needed to complete the survey varied from 40 minutes to one hour depending on how long the respondent took to answer the questions.
Data collection methods Most of the interviews were conducted at the Australasian Centre for Ageing, at the University of Queensland; however, two separate interviews were undertaken in the respondents’ homes. Before the interview began, the interviewees signed a consent form allowing the researchers to audio record the interview. The researchers stressed the confidential nature of the study and
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the right of participants to withdraw at any stage if they felt uncomfortable with any of the questions. The completed transcripts were filed in a locked cabinet to which only the researchers had access. The respondents name was not used in the research and numbers were allocated to each interview schedule to respect respondents’ anonymity.
Data analysis Analysing qualitative data is often time consuming as the procedure involves the researchers manually reading over the responses, organising the individual responses into categories, and identifying the links between the responses (Henderson & Bialeschki, 2002). The analysis followed similar procedures as suggested by Miles and Huberman (2002). The first step was to transcribe the recordings of the interviews and read through the transcripts. The next step involved reducing and organising the large amount of qualitative data by coding, discarding irrelevant data, and writing summaries of several responses that were collected. Coding is the first stage of providing some logical structure to the data. Gratton and Jones (2004) have suggested the following stages in the process of data coding that was followed: ➢ Open coding: data is carefully read, all statements relating to the research questions are identified, and each is assigned a code or category. These codes are then noted and each relevant statement is organised under the appropriate code on the computer along with any notes or memos that the researchers wished to add. ➢ Axial coding: the researchers read the qualitative data and searched the statements that fitted into the categories. Further codes were developed during this stage. ➢ Selective coding: the researchers became more analytical and looked for patterns and explanations in the codes. They also looked for cases that confirmed or contradicted the research questions. The next step was to search for patterns or emergent themes. This process involved looking for data units that illustrated or described the situation that the researchers were interested in. Conclusions and recommendations were then presented based on the researchers’ interpretation of results. Direct quotes were also used to support or exemplify the findings (Gratton & Jones, 2004).
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Demographic characteristics The 14 respondents consisted of 12 females and 2 males. The majority of the respondents were in the age group 50–59 years (36%) and 60–69 years (42.6%), while 14% were 70 to 79 years and only 7% were 80 to 89 years old. Half of the respondents lived alone, either because they were single or widowed, while 43% lived with their spouse, only a small per cent of the respondents lived with their children and/or grandchildren. Half of the respondents were married while 15% were widowed; 21% were single and 14% were divorced. More than half (57%) had children, while the remainder (43%) did not have children because they had never married, or chose to be single. Half of the respondents worked full-time, while 36% worked part-time, and 14% were retired. Several retirees chose to go back into the workforce on a part-time basis because they wanted to remain in touch with the working world and to keep their minds active. A total of 12 (86%) of the respondents chose to go on ‘soft’ adventure tours such as camping or hiking on gradually changing terrain. Only 2 (14%) of respondents preferred ‘hard’ adventure tours such as black-water rafting and hang-gliding. Almost a half of the respondents (43%) travelled with their spouse, while almost a third (29%) of the respondents travelled with friends who shared similar interests. Only a small number (14%) travelled alone or with others, such as in a tour group. Half of the respondents (50%) chose to tour in locations that were interstate, 21% toured within Queensland while the remainder (29%) chose to travel overseas. For those who chose to travel interstate, the Kimberley Region in Western Australia was rated as the most popular, followed by Darwin and other parts of the Northern Territory. For those who chose to tour within Queensland, the Gulf of Carpentaria was a popular destination because of its scenic beauty, while Europe and North America were the two most popular continents for those who chose to travel overseas. Over two-thirds (71%) of respondents chose to make their own arrangements for their tours by travelling in a four-wheel-drive (4WD) or finding their own flights. A total of 29% of respondents preferred that their adventure tour company make all the travel arrangements. Over one-third of respondents (36%) chose to go on tours that were between two and three weeks, while 29% chose to go on tours that were one week or less. With longer tours, 21% of respondents spent up to eight and a half weeks away, while only a small percentage of respondents (14%), went on tours that were between one and two weeks long.
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Results Research Question 1 Intrinsic motivations for adventure travel The major themes that emerged from the data were the need to escape so as to avoid boredom in their lives; to experience nature; to enjoy a sense of adventure by being physically challenged by the adventure experience. Minor themes of lesser importance were the need to form new friendships and social support; to feel younger and to be with younger people; and the need to break down negative stereotypes of older people.
Escapism and relief from boredom The most important reason was simply ‘to get away from it all’. For respondents that indicated that they needed to get away from it all, it was generally a case of getting away from the routine of their everyday lives by interjecting it with elements of adventure, or going as far away from ‘civilisation’ as possible, rather than escaping from the aspects of their lives that made them unhappy. Therefore, escapism was a major factor in influencing respondents’ decisions to participate but they felt that they were not escaping from boredom or stress, but occasionally they required a change of environment. Golik (1999) suggested that adventure travel provides an important break in the retirement routine. All but one of the respondents indicated that they did not lead stressful lives, and although their typical day was never boring, they remarked that they needed a break from their daily routine. Linda summarised a sentiment that all respondents shared: ‘I consciously choose how I live each moment of the day, be it taking a nap, watching a sunset or going on a holiday’. Lipscombe (1995) found that people were motivated by the desire to escape from mundane urban routines to relatively unknown settings, usually outdoors, of which familiarity and knowledge was generally very low. More than half of the respondents did not miss paid work and the stresses that it brought to their lives. However, several respondents missed their work mates and the camaraderie that they had developed with their colleagues. As a result, they often returned to work on a part-time basis, enabling them to keep active and in touch with the working world that had been a major part of their identity for a large part of their lives. Other respondents stated that they had taken up new hobbies during retirement, that they now had time to commit to — such as learning to sing opera, painting, writing children’s books, gardening and even new interests such as birdwatching and botany. Several of the respondents had formed new
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clubs or joined existing ones such as Mind Ventures, National Seniors, the Moreton Bay Nature Club and the Adventurers Club. All respondents did not have to take care of their grandchildren on a regular basis and if they did, many felt it would severely restrict their lifestyle because they would not be able to do what they wanted to do, whenever they wanted to do it.
Experiencing natural scenery and spiritual aspects The experience of ‘seeing different things’, ‘being one with nature’ and ‘enjoying the beautiful scenery’ was the second most important motive that influenced respondents to participate in adventure tours. This was the highlight of the trip for many respondents who enjoyed experiencing different landscapes wildlife and exotic plants as well as meeting people from all walks of life. The thrill of travelling to places that few people had been before was also a highlight for several respondents as was the adventure itself. Helen (59 years) expressed this viewpoint in these terms:‘Getting as close to nature as possible, going to where few have ventured before and seeing the wonders that nature has created such as waterfalls and rock formations, and animals in their natural environment is very important to me’. A shift in attitudes and lifestyle was also seen to be a significant factor in influencing respondents to participate in adventure tours. Many felt that participation in adventure tours helped them realise that there was more to life than just making money and spending it. Esther, who is 56 years old, stated, ‘Going on my trip really made me think twice about what is important in life. When I stand there and look into the nothingness it made me realise how short life is to just spend it worrying about things like money’. Being one with nature and meeting people from all walks of life, many of whom were much less fortunate than they were, was seen to be more important. Thus the theme of ‘feeling insignificant compared to the rest of the world’, and that they felt very lucky to have what they had, compared to others who have to live with so much less and yet still led a contented life, was voiced by several respondents.
Experiencing a sense of adventure Many expressed the fact that they still had an adventurous spirit and indicated that adventure tours were the only types of holidays that they wanted to go on. Swarbrooke et al. (2003) suggested that it is not age per se that draws the line between pleasure (passive) tourism and adventure (active) tourism, but rather a person’s attitude, or spirit of adventure and enthusiasm. Maria, 69 years old, summarised this by stating that she was ‘fulfilling her adventurous spirit’ as the best way to explain why she went on adventure
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tours. Joy (62 years) also stated that going on adventure tours still gave her an adrenaline rush that she enjoyed tremendously. Other respondents stated that they believed in living life to the fullest and wanted to participate in as many adventure holidays as possible before they became too frail, or their health did not permit them to participate anymore. This supported the research by Bierman (2005) who stated that many older people chose to ‘seize the moment’ and take holidays that are more challenging and less passive in nature while they were still mobile and fit. Therefore the views that respondents provided were consistent, in that many older people wanted to maintain a positive outlook to life and live each day to the fullest instead of worrying about issues regarding their own mortality.
Being physically challenged and enjoying the adventure experience All respondents stated that the enjoyment and satisfaction that they derived from paid work was very different from what they derived from adventure tours. The difference lay in the fact that no matter how enjoyable work was, there were still challenges, stresses and expectations to meet in their paid work, whereas adventure tours did not present the same types of problems. At times they had to push themselves physically and mentally on the adventure tour; however, they considered that this was a part of the overall enjoyment. All the respondents stated that they were now busier than ever before and were never bored in their daily lives. During a typical day many indicated that they were never bored because there were so many activities for them to do. This was because the respondents had active social lives and chose to live each moment to the fullest, whether it was visiting friends, gardening, doing household chores or going away on holidays. Swarbrooke et al. (2003) concluded that the feelings derived from taking part in an adventure activity were not unlike the feelings of achievement and self-esteem gained when working, and this type of continuity was both satisfying and comforting. However, respondents clearly indicated that the enjoyment derived from an adventure tour was far greater than the enjoyment derived from work, simply because there were no external expectations or pressures on them when they went on this type of holiday. While respondents freely admitted that they had enjoyed their paid work, they did not miss the stressful aspects of their jobs where they had to deal with demanding people and/or to meet constant deadlines. Therefore the respondents did not view adventure tours as a continuation of their working life, and this was not a significant motivation for their participation in adventure tours. All respondents indicated that when comparing the two types of enjoyment, it
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was equivalent to comparing ‘chalk and cheese’ and the feelings derived from one could not possibly be substituted for the other.
Meeting new friends and social support Older people who travelled in order to meet and make new friends were typical of only a small number of respondents. This was because many respondents did not feel that their circle of friends had diminished since retirement, as most had still maintained a good mix of friends from inside and outside their work environment. In fact, several respondents found that their circle of friends had increased since retirement through involvement in volunteer work and membership of various clubs such as Mind Ventures and National Seniors. However, several indicated that they had successfully developed new friendships during the adventure tour and had remained firm friends, even participating in other adventure tours with these people. The respondents attributed this to the fact that many of the people who went on adventure tours were like-minded people who shared similar passions for adventure, and therefore it was easier to forge friendships and to maintain them. However, others did not choose to follow up on their new friendships and allowed those friendships to wane. Esther, a 56-year-old, stated, ‘When you are in this big adventure together everyone is very close and you call all your friends everyday when you return. But those phone calls soon become an every-other-day thing, then weekly and fortnightly and soon it will just be a card at Christmas time’. Therefore, while the respondents enjoyed meeting new people and forging new friendships, this was not a major factor in their decision to participate. Janice, 62 years old, put it aptly: ‘I’m not there to make friends, I’m there because this is what I want to do’. Therefore, none of the respondents stated that they went on adventure tours for the sole purpose of making friends; it was just seen as another aspect of the trip experience that they enjoyed. All respondents reported that they shared photographs and talked to their family and friends about their adventure experiences. However, this was not a high priority and they only did this because it was a natural thing to want to share photographs of their trip with their significant others. Some of the respondents stated that they did not share their experiences with friends unless they specifically asked to, because they did not want to bore their friends especially if they were not interested in travel. Most of the respondents reported that their circle of friends had remained the same or had increased during their retirement. This was because throughout their working lives they had managed to keep a good mix of friends from both their work and external to it. Many had kept up friend-
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ships with their ex-colleagues either through regular outings or by telephone calls or email. New friends were established through membership of clubs, or by meeting other enthusiasts who shared similar interests.
To re-live their youth Reminiscing about the past when older people were more active and participated in a wide range of physical activities was not found to be a significant factor in influencing respondents to participate in adventure tourism was suggested by Synder (1991) and Coleman (1995). All respondents felt younger than their chronological age, with some stating that mentally they felt like they were still in their twenties. Others thought that their energy levels had decreased, and were more accepting of this as part of the ageing process and fully embraced it. Barney, a 74-year-old, stated, ‘I certainly don’t miss being young, I think being young is an imposition because you don’t make very good decisions and you do things that you end up regretting later on.’ Most respondents were happy with the way that they had aged and indicated that they were now more healthy and active than many others who were in a similar age group to themselves. However, many indicated that they tired more easily than when they were younger, and several stated that they missed the times when they could do physical activity without feeling the physical effects of aches and pains the next day. On the other hand, there were two respondents who felt that they were in better shape and more energy than they had been ten years ago.
Change the negative stereotypes of older people All respondents were not concerned about society’s negative stereotypes about older people as being old, frail and incapable of doing physical activity. Many felt that they did not need to prove themselves, as most of their friends and associates had positive images of older people. However, one respondent felt proud that she was breaking down stereotypes of older people through her active lifestyle, and regarded herself as fitter than many people who were half her age. Another respondent stated that she recently had taken up rock ’n’ roll dancing with her husband to show her friends that although she was getting older, she was still very active and enjoyed life. Although most of the respondents were aware of society’s negative stereotypes relating to older people being constantly referred to as being frail or useless, slower and less capable, they were not overly concerned about this, because their circle of friends were older people who were like-minded about continuing to stay active in their older years. None of the respondents had personally come across a situation where they felt that they had been nega-
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tively stereotyped or discriminated against because of their age. However, several respondents were resentful of this general stereotype, with one respondent taking exception to being seen as ‘invisible’ by younger people. Other respondents stated that they preferred to stay positive and not let it interfere with how they lived their lives, because they did not feel they needed to prove anything to anyone. As a result, this need to prove something to others was not a common motive that was stated by respondents to participate in adventure tours.
Extrinsic motivations for adventure travel The two major themes that emerged from the data were the need to remain healthy and to have the money to afford to go on adventure trips.
Perceived health status All respondents were aware of the benefits of staying physically and mentally active and strove to do so during their lives. The majority of respondents reported that they were in good health and many undertook regular exercise such as daily walks, trips to the gym, and carefully watching their diet. Several respondents indicated that they did not undertake organised exercise programs but did other activities to stay active such as gardening, general housework and walking the dog. All respondents disliked watching television as they considered it as a passive activity and generally only watched the evening news. Two of the respondents had major illnesses such as cancer and a stroke in the past five years but had completely recovered from these illnesses.
Financial ability to travel Although most of the respondents had paid off their house mortgage and did not have anyone dependent on them for financial support, they were still not as well off as expected. Several depended on their investments, superannuation or pension, or worked either full- or part-time to support themselves. Therefore, the cost of the holiday travel was a major consideration in regard to what type of trip to take, and respondents stated that adventure tours tended to be more economical than other types of tours.
Research Question 2 Intrinsic versus extrinsic motives Intrinsic factors played a more significant role than extrinsic factors in influencing older people to participate in adventure tourism. For the majority of respondents, the cost of a holiday factored heavily on the type of holiday they chose in the future as they were either living on their own superannuation,
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working to support themselves, or on a government pension. The respondents were not as financially well off as suggested by Golik (1999), Muller (1997) and Patterson (2002), even though most had paid off their mortgage and did not have dependants living at home. Many of the respondents admitted that adventure type holidays were more economical than other types of tours and fitted in better with their budgets. However, they also added that the relatively lower cost of adventure type holidays merely gave them the freedom to participate more frequently, which they enjoyed doing and was a side benefit rather than as a critical factor in their decision. Most respondents indicated that if adventure tours ever became too expensive for their budget, they would simply save for longer and take fewer trips, than give it up altogether or go on other types of holidays. As Linda, a 58-year-old, stated, ‘I see it as more of a case of perceived value for money rather than just value for money and this is something I enjoy very much and don’t mind spending my money on’. In the case of Linda and other respondents, adventure holidays were the only type of holiday that they truly gained real enjoyment from, and would spend money on even if they were not really able to afford it. Extrinsic motives such as health were less important than the cost of the trip in the choice of an adventure holiday by older people. All but two of the respondents considered they were fit, active and healthy, regularly exercised in the gym, and ate healthy foods to maintain an overall sense of wellness. Many respondents disliked watching television as it was seen as a passive leisure activity, while others preferred to read or do crossword puzzles to keep their minds active. Many indicated that they were suffering from arthritis when they chose to go on their trips, and one respondent even went camping in her wheelchair so she would not miss out. The consensus among respondents was that they would still have chosen an adventure tour even if their level of mobility declined in the future. Many respondents took photographs on their adventure tours and shared them with friends and family. However, this was not a priority and was a clear indication that the respondents did not participate for the purpose of boasting about their adventures to friends and family. Therefore, it can be concluded that extrinsic factors did not play a major role in influencing older people to participate in adventure tours, and that intrinsic factors were more important motives in their decision to participate.
Research Question 3 Repeat adventure tourism trips All respondents indicated that they wanted to go on further adventure tours in the next 12 months, with most having already made advance bookings. This was due to the fact that they enjoyed these tours so much that they
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wanted to continue participating for as long as possible. Rita (aged 80 years), the oldest respondent, put it aptly, ‘I’ll only go for those bus tours when I can’t walk on my own or need someone to push me around in my wheelchair but for now I’ll do the more adventurous things’. Another respondent, Maria, stated that, ‘When I was doing the activities that I did on tour such as hiking up rough terrain, all of my focus, energy and concentration went into completing the activity successfully and other thoughts did not enter my mind’. This could be related to one of the ‘concentration’ dimensions of flow as discussed by Csikszentmihalyi (1990) and Jackson (2000). These feelings were extremely enjoyable for Maria and were the main reason why she wanted to keep participating in adventure tours until she physically could not continue any more.
Research Question 4 Providing for the needs of older adventure tourists? None of the respondents had participated in tours that were specifically targeting older people, and most were satisfied with the level of service that the adventure tour companies offered them. However, Madeline, a 56-yearold, noted that the lowlight of her tour was the lack of emphasis on safety by her tour guide whom she felt was running a ‘one-man-show’ and almost fatally injured himself due to his own negligence. This could have left their group stranded in the middle of the Kimberley Ranges with no emergency backup plan. All respondents were very concerned about safety aspects and emphasised the need for tour companies to take the necessary safety precautions such as pre-tour training, and employing at least two guides on each tour in case something happened to one. This was supported by Hall and McArthur (1991) who stated that participants on commercial whitewater rafting trips in particular placed a high priority on safety considerations, and especially the competence of their guides. Several respondents also expressed a preference for the need to provide healthy food options and to cater for the special dietary needs of older people. They stressed that it was vital that tour companies recognise that older people had physical limitations and to cater to them by reducing the distance travelled each day, in comparison to tours for younger travellers only.
Implications for commercial providers of adventure tourism There are several implications for commercial providers of adventure tours: 1. While cost is not a motivating factor for older people to participate, it remains an issue in regard to the number of trips that older people are able to take annually. Most preferred to take at least two trips a
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year depending on the cost of the tour and as a result, it is logical that commercial providers attempt to keep their prices competitive if they want any repeat business from older people. Generally, older adults prefer to participate in adventure tours even if they are not mobile or fit, and they supported the need to place greater emphasis on ensuring that safety precautions are met, and would like tour operators to conform to the highest standards that are possible. Providing healthy food options as well as taking into consideration special dietary needs of participants was also welcomed by older people which was important in showing that the provider is making an effort to understand the specific dietary needs of older people. Older people would like to be able to enjoy a range of different experiences and landscapes on each tour. Therefore, commercial providers should provide a variety of tours to different regions that are offering a range of experiences. Many older people stated that they would like to go to places that were ‘off the beaten track’, where few people have ventured before, and commercial providers should keep this in mind when planning future tours. Many older people have physical limitations and may not be able to travel long distances in comparison to younger people. Commercial providers should carefully plan for the physical limitations of older people when they plan the schedule of adventure tours, and not to openly discuss older people’s personal limitations and disabilities in front of all people on the tour. However it is important that tour providers be aware of the physical limitations of participants and to always brief participants about any contingency plans if problems occur during the tour. Commercial providers should provide adventure tours so that older people of average fitness can participate, rather than to provide special tours for only older people. This is because older people prefer to interact with people of all ages.
Conclusion The world’s population is ageing, and older people have a greater propensity to travel because they are wealthier and healthier than previous cohorts of older people. Results from the qualitative interviews of a small sample of older adults who were aged 50 years or older, found that the most significant motive for adventure travel was the need to escape from everyday routine by interjecting it with elements of adventure and nature. However, all respon-
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dents were adamant that boredom was not a large part of their daily lives. The experience of seeing different landscapes, wildlife and native plants as well as going to places where few people had ventured previously were important motivations for older adults to go on adventure tours. Many respondents stated that they loved the thrill of the adventure itself, because they had an adventurous spirit and enjoyed the adrenaline rush. Many respondents wanted to see as much as possible before they became too old and frail to do so, and believed in living every moment to the fullest. However, other reasons stated in the research literature — the need to make new friends as their social circle had diminished after retirement; reminiscing about their youth; to ease the transition into retirement; the urge to take a positive view about ageing and the changing of negative attitudes and stereotypes about ageing — were not supported in this research as major factors in the respondent’s decision to participate in adventure tourism. In terms of the extrinsic factors to participate, none of the respondents went on tours simply because they were in good health and this was not a major consideration, as many suffered from arthritis and other mpairments. The cost of the holiday was a much bigger concern than their health because many of the respondents were on a pension or living off their superannuation savings. However, many respondents stated that the cheaper cost of adventure holiday tours compared to other forms of travel was a bonus and most participated because they gained real enjoyment from the adventure experience. Because of the relatively cheaper cost of adventure tours, this allowed them to take more than one trip per year. Respondents also indicated that if adventure tours became too expensive in the future, they would simply reduce their participation, rather than give them up completely. Adventure tour providers need to keep their prices competitive so that older people are able to afford regular trips. Tour providers should place stronger emphasis on safety, and provide experienced guides because safety is a major concern for older people when deciding which tour company they preferred to travel with. Physical limitations of older people must also be taken into consideration, especially the understanding that older people should not be expected to do the same amount of physical exercise as younger people while on the same trip. Shorter day trips of lesser intensity than younger tourists should be provided for older adults. Furthermore, tour providers should not openly discuss the physical limitations of older people on the tour, especially in front of younger people. Each tour should also have a good mix of younger and older people because older people enjoy the company of younger people. Finally, older people want to see as many things as possible and tour providers need to
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provide a wide variety of special interest tours to different locations so that older people are encouraged to take further tours with the same company in the future.
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Muller, T. E. (1997). The benevolent society: Value and lifestyle changes among middle-aged baby boomers. In L. Chiagouris (Ed.), Values, lifestyles and psychographics (pp. 299–316). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Naida, N., Shaw, C. and Cook, D. (1997). The adventure travel report 1997. Washington D.C.: Travel Industry Association of America. Patterson, I. (2002). Baby boomers and adventure tourism: The importance of marketing the leisure experience. World Leisure Journal, 44, 4–10. Pizam, A., Neumann, Y., & Reichel, A. (1979). Tourist satisfaction: Uses and misuses. Annals of Tourism Research, 6, 195–197. Ruys, H., & Wei, S. (1995). Accommodation needs of mature Australian travellers. Australian Journal of Hospitality Management, 5, 51–58. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development and well-being. American Psychologist, 55, 68–78. Satariano, W. A. (1997). Editorial: The disabilities of aging — looking to the physical environment. American Journal of Public Health, 87, 331–332. Sherman, E., & Cooper, P. (1988). Life satisfaction: The missing focus of marketing to seniors. Journal of Health Care Marketing, 8, 69–71. Smith, C., & Jenner, P. (1997). The seniors travel market. Travel and Tourism Analyst, 5, 43–62. Sonmez, S. F., & Graefe, A. R. (1998). Determining future travel behavior from past leisure experience and perceptions of risk and safety. Journal of Travel Research, 37, 171–177. Sung, H. H. (2004). Classification of adventure travellers: Behaviour, decisionmaking, and target markets. Journal of Travel research, 42, 343–356. Swarbrooke, J., Beard, C., Leckie, S., & Pomfret, G. (2003). Adventure tourism: The new frontier. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. United Nations, Division for Social Policy and Development, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. (2000). The sex and age distribution of the world populations: 1998 revision. Available at: http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/ ageing/Graph.pdf Veal, A. (2006). Research methods for leisure and tourism: A practical guide. London: Pearson Education Ltd. Vukonic, B. (1996). Tourism and religion. Oxford: Pergamon. Weiler, B., & Hall, C. (1992). Special interest tourism. London: Bellhaven. World Tourism Organisation. (2001). Tourism 2020 vision: Global forecasts and profiles of market segments, 7. Madrid: World Tourism Organization.
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Capturing Adventure: Trading experiences in the symbolic economy David McGillivray, Cultural Business Group, Glasgow Caledonian University Matt Frew, Cultural Business Group, Glasgow Caledonian University ABSTRACT • In the early twenty-first century, participation in adventure sports
activities represents a fertile means of reinforcing personal identity and cultural distinction, secured through the quest for, and accrual of, symbolic capital. This article draws on a case study investigation of one Scottish whitewater rafting company to explore the technologically mediated nature of the accrual of symbolic capital in the adventure sports sub-field. It is concluded that experiences have emerged as new tradable commodities. An industry of commercial adventure organisations has emerged to service a demand characterised by a quest for managed instantaneous gratification and edited memories, rather than for authenticity and self-discovery. At the soft, or mass, end of the adventure market, it is perhaps now possible to talk in the language of ‘post-adventure’ whereby both producers and consumers stage a theatrical performance which produces a visual representation of authentic experience transferable to a virtual witnessing audience. The post-adventure experientialists, although possessing little knowledge of the intricacies of the adventure sports activities in which they participate, know and value them in terms of their mediatised status value and cool fashion statement. Whereas the adventurer of the past secured status through achievement, the post-adventurer has no such concerns as their gazing social network recognises and bestows value to displays of spectacle, style and show.
Introduction Leisure and tourism practices have, historically, been associated with a break from established routines and practices (Urry, 2001). As the twentieth century progressed, increases in disposable income, car ownership, free time (Hunt, 2001) and the simultaneous expansion of technological innovation
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(Swarbrooke, Beard, Leckie, & Pomfret, 2003) led to a growth in trips to the outdoors for the purpose of leisure. Whereas for most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the experience of outdoor leisure had been the preserve of a select few, the aforementioned democratising forces opened up the outdoors to a wider spectrum of the population. Moreover, during the twentieth century, changes in the social, economic and political climate brought about an intensification of expressed need for challenge, risk and adventure in the recreational choices of consumers (Hudson, 2003; Mortlock, 2000; Swarbrooke et al., 2003). One outcome of these changes was the emergence of a billion-dollar, global adventure sports industry (Bell & Lyall, 2004; Mintel, 2005; Wheaton, 2004), servicing the desires of experience-seeking (Arnould & Price, 1993; Pine & Gilmore, 1998) consumers. Unlike their pioneering forefathers, this new breed of adventurers (Foley, Frew, & McGillivray, 2002) desire commoditified (Cater, 2005, 2006; Holyfield, 1999) packaged, or ‘bite-sized’, experiences which can be accessed conveniently within rationalised (Ritzer, 1993), safe and comfortable settings befitting their dominant urban frame (Beedie, 2003). This article takes a specific feature of the emergent adventure sports phenomenon as its subject matter; how those who participate in commercialised adventure settings seek to both capture and objectify their experiences as a means to reinforce personal identity and cultural distinction from others through the quest for, and accrual of, symbolic capital. It also explores the ways in which the emotive experiences triggered by adventure sports participation are technologically verified and mediated within and through participants’ social networks. In accomplishing this task, this article offers a critical appraisal of the synergistic relationship being developed between technological sophistication and live experience through which the politics of identity is increasingly played out. Conceptually, the article draws heavily upon Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic capital to explore the ways in which adventure sports experiences are exchanged, or traded, in an increasingly influential symbolic economy. Structurally, the opening theoretical preamble is divided into two sections. First, the appropriateness of Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic capital as an analytical tool is discussed. Second, literature relating to the visual objectification of adventure sports experiences and their reinforcement of symbolic capital is critically reviewed. Following a critical outline of the study’s research methodology, the findings of the empirical enquiries are presented and analysed simultaneously. Finally, concluding comments are made and suggestions for further research proposed.
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Bourdieu and symbolic capital Bourdieu (1986) identified four forms of capital: economic (resources), cultural (access to legitimate knowledge), social (relations with others) and symbolic. In discussing the latter, which he often used interchangeably with the term symbolic honour, Bourdieu was interested in investigating centuries-old struggles for recognition, prestige and cultural distinction in social life (Jenkins, 2002). At stake is the ‘accumulation of a particular form of capital, honour in the sense of reputation and prestige’ (Bourdieu, 1990: 22). Unlike other forms of capital, which can be multi-form, symbolic capital represents the zenith of capital as it cannot be actively possessed but must be subjectively bestowed by those from within the field (Bourdieu, 1990). Symbolic capital cannot then be taken, but instead it must be freely given. From his ethnographic investigations of the Kabylia people onwards, Bourdieu was intrigued, not simply with struggles for recognition and social honour but, crucially, with the means by which symbolic capital is recognised and given value so that it ‘can be traded or exchanged for desired outcomes’ (Webb, Schirato & Danaher, 2002: 109). In other words, he was interested in understanding how those practices which provide opportunities for the accrual of cultural distinction come to find value within specific cultural fields and how the value of such distinction reproduces and reinvigorates the dominant economic system. Bourdieu, and others have identified a series of legitimate symbolic sub-fields worthy of empirical investigation, including art (Bourdieu, Darbel, & Schnapper, 1991; Fowler, 2000), sport (Jarvie & McGuire, 1994) and journalism (Bourdieu, 1998). For this particular study, adventure sports are afforded the status of a sub-field. Evaluating this subfield, like others, necessitates the identification of the voices that transmit authoritative statements about the value of particular experiences. Once these have been identified, they can be opened up for critique. With reference to the tourism sub-field, Urry (2001) and Macbeth, Carson & Northcote (2004) each contend that access to specific tourism practices is determined by the possession of economic and symbolic capital. As Urry (2001: 79) suggests: Symbolic goods are subject to a distinct economy … different social classes are engaged in a series of struggles with each other, to increase the volume of capital they possess vis-à-vis other classes and to increase the valuation placed on the particular forms of capital they happen to possess.
The adventure sports sub-field is host to a similar struggle for the volume and value of capital. Within this sub-field, the accumulation of certain forms
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of experience helps establish individuals within desired positions in the cultural hierarchy (Hirsch, 1976). Moreover, position within this hierarchy is relative to the behaviour of others. Historically, the accumulation of symbolic honour in the adventure sphere was the preserve of those people who were the first to undertake a particular activity, to master a particular technique, or to visit a specific location (Becker, 2003; Inglis, 2003; Mortlock, 2000; Walvin, 1978). The self-directed behaviour of these adventurers was concerned with an escape from the strictures of everyday life in search of a more authentic sense of being in the world (Cohen & Taylor, 1992). However, as adventurous experiences became the subject of democratising forces associated with commoditisation (Cloke & Perkins, 1998, 2002), technology, mobility and the development of a mass market, so the means of securing differentiation from others also required re-evaluation. Instead of the embodied experience of participation itself representing the fundamental building blocks of self and identity, extended commodification processes have produced a situation whereby signs and symbols (and their circulation) represent a crucial determinant of value and meaning. As Arnould & Price (1993: 182) contend, ‘identity construction is … a continuous process that depends upon both the activities of the individual and the ratification of by a witnessing audience’. This article critically evaluates the extent to which the witnessing audience for the customers of commercial adventure sports organisations is increasingly technologically mediated. However, before this evaluation takes place it is necessary to define the context of this article and outline the limits of the adventure sports sub-field being discussed.
Adventure sports: a symbolic sub-field It is now necessary to outline the key characteristics of the adventure sports sub-field, focusing specifically on how new forms of symbolic capital are accruable through participation in the magical or extraordinary experiences (Arnould & Price, 1993; Pine & Gilmore, 1999) which fuel the burgeoning mass market adventure sports industry. Goldhaber (1997) considers the competition for attention to be the defining challenge of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Extending this analysis, Pine and Gilmore (1999) argue that, as Western economies display evidence of greater affluence, the priorities of consumers also shift towards the desire for meaningful ‘experiences’ as a means of fulfilment. In traditional discourses of adventure the intense personal value of the activity as a key feature of self-improvement has tended to be stressed (Becker, 2003; Inglis, 2003). Whilst overcoming the dangers of the natural world and the experience of war provided one of the principal challenges for the adventurers of the nineteenth and twentieth
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centuries, recognition for achievement was only valued if received from a knowledgeable community of practice. As Holyfield (1999: 4) suggests, people have historically accrued ‘symbolic meaning’ from being outdoors as they practice resistance to routinised work and seek a more meaningful means of control over what Macbeth (2000) describes as an increasingly mundane, fixed, work-centred and dehumanised capitalist society. Those seeking intense personal value from participation in adventurous activities could be categorised as authentic, or ‘utopian’ (Macbeth, 2000) adventurers, engaged in a lifestyle subculture (Macbeth, 1992) which has at its core a desire to challenge the existing social order. However, Macbeth (1992) has also described the emergence of another category, the leisure subculture, which he argues desires packaged, contained and sanitised experiences. Cater (2005, 2006), Cloke and Perkins (1998, 2002), Holyfield (1999), Page, Steele and Connell (2006) and Perkins and Thorns (2001) have all focused their analyses on this new breed of adventure consumers, ‘seeking thrills and excitement’ (Cater, 2006: 18) which are, invariably, temporary and transitory; representing a sporadic ‘break’ from everyday life rather than an attempt to change it (Macbeth, 2000). The new breed of adventurers presented here exploits the outdoors as a space ripe for consumption and visual display. For a growing number of people, participation in commoditised adventure sports (Cloke & Perkins, 1998, 2002; Perkins & Thorns, 2001) provides a marker of status and symbolic value (Mintel, 2005; Tomlinson, Ravenscroft, Wheaton, & Gilchrist, 2005; Visitscotland, 2003). Elsewhere, we have argued that being seen to be adventurous has become a desired, socially valued condition (Foley et al., 2002). In response, a range of commercialised adventure products and services has emerged to satisfy consumers’ desire for activities described variously as rugged recreation, high adventure, extreme sports, thrill sports and risk recreation (see Swarbrooke et al., 2003; Tomlinson, 2001; Weber, 2001). Other labels assigned to these activities include alternative sports (Reinhart, 1996; 1998; Reinhart & Sydor, 2003), whiz sports (Midol, 1993) and, most recently, lifestyle sports (Wheaton, 2004). For this article, the more encompassing moniker, adventure sports, is employed. ‘Adventure sports’ is the label used by the UK tourism agencies responsible for creating and sustaining a mass market for these activities (e.g., VisitScotland and VisitWales). It describes a range of non-traditional sports taking place on earth (canyoning, mountain biking, mountain boarding and climbing) in air (skydiving and paragliding), on water (surfing, kite surfing, wakeboarding, whitewater rafting and windsurfing) and on ice (snowboard-
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ing). These activities have been bounded together by the Scottish tourism agency, VisitScotland, as part of their emerging brand wheel (Page et al., 2006). The defining characteristics of these activities are their promise of challenge (Csikszentmihalyi, 1991; Mortlock, 1984, 2000), excitement (Cater, 2006; Holyfield, 1999), stimulation (Muller & Cleaver, 2000) risk, uncertainty and novelty (Swarbrooke et al., 2003). On the face of it, participants in adventure sports appear to affirm a technology of the self (Foucault, 1986) in opposition to prevailing social conventions of surveillance and containment. The hedonistic (Butterfield & Long, 2001), pleasure (or sensation)-seeking individual can, it appears, satisfy their thirst for re-mystification and re-enchantment through the vehicle of adventure sports experiences. However, another feature of a growing adventure sports market is the entrance of commercial organisations providing what Holyfield (1999) has termed ‘manufactured adventure’ to inexperienced or novice participants. This industry seeks to play on the mythology of adventure (Cater, 2006), offering participants ‘the appearance of fatefulness, thus obtaining some of the glory with very little of the risk’ (Holyfield, 1999: 5). In this sense, commercial organisations can be said to be selling staged experiences which deliver excitement and thrills in a relatively contained and controlled environment. Several authors have considered the relative merits of these scripted and staged adventures and their relationship with discourses of authenticity (see Cater, 2006; Holyfield, 1999; Jonas, Stewart, & Larkin, 2000; Bricker & Kerstetter, 2002; Cloke & Perkins, 1998, 2002), but few (perhaps with the exception of Macbeth et al., 2004) have investigated the dynamic transfer of capitals which takes place within the commercial adventure sports environment. Moreover, apart from the work of Cloke and Perkins (1998, 2002) the importance of the technological medium has also been noticeable by its absence from recent explorations of the adventure sports sub-field. As the adventure sports phenomenon grows year on year (Mintel, 2005; Tomlinson et al., 2005), access to its activities, equipment and lifestyle aspirations requires significant investment in economic capital. However, whilst the availability of financial wherewithal continues to exert an influence on the composition of the adventure sports market (see Wheaton, 2004), it provides only a partial explanation for the inner dynamics of the sports culture itself. To more fully understand the accrual, exchange and maintenance of symbolic capital within the adventure sports sub-field, it is necessary to draw attention to the pivotal role played by various visual (and sometimes, virtual) technologies. Bourdieu (1990) argued that an individ-
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ual’s fund of symbolic capital can only be increased when shared with a knowing peer group. Kyle, Bricker, Graefe and Wickham (2004), building on the work of McIntyre and Pigram (1992), argue that self-expression is a key component of leisure involvement. By self-expression they mean the symbolic value accruable from being represented in a positive manner, ‘the impression of oneself that individuals want to convey to others through their leisure participation’ (p. 125). Elsewhere, Foley et al. (2002) have argued that the act of display is a crucial component of involvement in lifestyleoriented adventure sports. Display is a form of communication which utilises the power of visual imagery and signifying practice as a means of deliberately reaching out to certain targets (Page et al., 2006) with an intentionally chosen message. In the case of adventure, this message is often framed in the language of alterity and uniqueness (Cloke & Perkins, 2002). The ‘kinetic’ (Bell & Lyall, 2004: 21) consumption experience underpinning adventure sports participation is now easily shared with others through the instantaneous transfer of visual imagery: New digital camera technology means that the jumpers can instantly send the stills of themselves jumping via laptop and modem to the folks back home on the other side of the world. (Bell & Lyall, 2004: 30)
Technological innovations in visual and virtual communications are not restricted to the verification of the participative element of the adventure sports experience itself. Instead, new technologies permit commercial experience-stagers (Pine & Gilmore, 1999) to promote a self-perpetuating cycle of cultural consumption which facilitates the accumulation of symbolic capital before, during and after the jump or, for this article, the river run. Over the last decade in particular, the pace of technological change has revolutionised the symbiotic production-consumption relationship found in the adventure sports sub-field. Commercial adventure sports operators in the UK (Page, Bentley, & Walker, 2005; Page et al., 2006), Australia (Cloke & Perkins, 2002), Canada (Cloke & Perkins, 2002) and, in particular, New Zealand (Cloke & Perkins, 1998, 2002; Perkins & Thorns, 2001) have become adept at utilising the technological medium to create the conditions within which consumers can demonstrate alterity, distinction and difference — and use these to secure recognition, prestige and cultural distinction within their social network. For example, Cloke and Perkins (2002: 537), discussing the role of technology in promoting adventure tourism in New Zealand, argue that ‘the image of adventure may be seen to be overtaking the material objects’ producing the ‘reduction of reality to appearance’.
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Commercial organisations have tapped into consumers’ technological familiarity and desire to capture, mediate and, crucially, to re-live the memory of embodied emotional experiences (Holyfield, 1999) secured through adventure sports participation. This is particularly true at the novice, or ‘soft’, end of the adventure specialisation spectrum, where the desire for ‘choreographed’ events (Holyfield, 1999: 18) and commodified fear experiences (Cater, 2006) is most pronounced. Moreover, the necessity to capture, record and communicate displays of adventure sports participation has become a central feature of constructing personal identity — especially for consumers at the mass end of the market. As Wheaton (2004: 11) has argued, participants in these sports practices ‘are self-consciously aware of “being seen”, and presentation of self to others — whether in lived settings or mediated forms — seems to be part of the experience’. This reinforces the importance of the witnessing audience (Jonas et al., 2000) for those seeking meaning from their adventure sports experiences. Merchandising souvenirs have also been widely used as a means of verifying commercial adventure sports experiences (Holyfield, 1999; Cloke & Perkins 2002; Bell & Lyall, 2004) but, until recently, the potential uses and impacts of virtual, or more accurately, viral (Helm, 2000) technological souvenirs has been underplayed. Interactive mobile devices (e.g., web cams and online galleries, mobile phones, digital and video cameras) now enable experiences to be captured and transported in real time to an external network of family, friends and work colleagues. Cloke and Perkins (2002: 540) reinforce this view, arguing that the ‘commodification of memories of experiences’ is now a crucial element of the adventure experience; technological advances enable ‘souvenirs of the immediate’ to be produced, circulated and enjoyed in the longer term as an ongoing episode of an individual’s electronic autobiography. It is this instantaneous technological (re)production and mediation of the live emotional experience of adventure sports participation that represents a new direction in the analysis of this realm. The remainder of the article evaluates the ways in which both experience stagers and experiential consumers alike utilise the technological medium to produce and, ultimately, trade with their symbolic capital. This is achieved through an empirical investigation of a commercial whitewater rafting organisation located in Scotland.
Methodology Bourdieu (1986, 1990) tried to bridge the widening chasm between objectivism and subjectivism in his own empirical endeavours. Whilst often accused of having latent structuralist tendencies, his philosophy of research
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extended beyond either pole of the structure-agency debate. Much of his empirical research efforts focused on the objective conditions within which people were embroiled, demonstrating the powerful influence of material disadvantage on individuals’ life chances. The focus on objective conditions directed his work towards a quantitative analysis, but he remained a fervent critic of instrumental positivist approaches (Webb et al., 2002) for their maintenance of power relations and tendency to label and regulate populations. In retaining a reflexive and dynamic ethos in his research work, Bourdieu was committed to tracing the more subjective elements of social life, specifically how individuals might navigate an alternative course through their lives working with and against his core concepts of habitus, field and capital. Whilst there is merit in investigating the characteristics of those individuals who inhabit the world of adventure sports, this particular study explored the ‘meaning’ that individuals assign to their apparently ‘extraordinary’ adventure experiences, especially those related to the capture and circulation of images to a network of friends, family and peers — essentially participants’ social milieu. In order to gain access to the ‘voices’ of the chosen target group, whitewater rafting participants and producers, a qualitative research strategy was selected. A form of experiential sampling (McIntyre & Roggenbuck, 1998) was employed to secure access to more in-depth commentaries on the adventure experiences of a select user group (i.e., those accessing a commercial adventure sports experience). Whilst this research design precludes discussion of representativeness, this was not the primary aim of the study. Rather, the intention was to secure access to individuals’ own sense-making and experiences (Alasuutari, 2004) of an adventure sport activity (i.e., whitewater rafting). Like other recent qualitative investigations of the adventure phenomenon (see Holyfield, 1999; Cater, 2006), this study avoided the traditional Leisure Sciences focus on the measurement of individual motivations for participation. Instead, it sought to explore the meaning individuals accrue from participation in adventure sports experiences before, during and after the act of consumption itself. In order to secure a better understanding of the dynamic operation of symbolic capital found within the adventure sports sub-field, a focused, qualitative case study methodology was designed (Hammersley & Gomm, 2000; Yin, 1994). As ‘an empirical enquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real life context, when the boundaries between the phenomenon and context are not clearly evident and multiple sources of evidence are used’ (Yin, 1994: 13) a case study represents a useful vehicle for making abstract theoretical propositions appear like more concrete phenom-
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ena. A case study was selected as it allowed for an in-depth investigation of one organisation which produced a set of rich narratives from both the consumer and producer alike. The researcher was also embedded in the context for a longer period than is normally possible with other research methods. The research investigation focused on one end of the adventure sports participation spectrum — what we term the ‘experientialists’. These experientialists are likely to be found at the early stages of recreational specialisation models (see Bricker & Kertstetter, 2002; Kyle et al., 2004 for more discussion of this literature) and in Macbeth’s terms would be defined as the ‘leisure subculture’. The key characteristics of members are that they are likely to displace, or abdicate responsibility to, an expert provider (Cater, 2006) which then purposively creates or stages (Pine & Gilmore, 1999) an event to create thrills and excitement, in a relatively safe and controlled environment. Experientialists are also likely to come from social networks with little previous knowledge of, or experience in, adventure activities. As a result, they will invariably be more interested in the sporadic and transitory nature of the experience and its excitement than with an investment in skills development and competence. The nature of their attraction to commercial organisations is that the act of monetary exchange eliminates the barriers associated with time, space, skill and preparation. Operationally, a commercial organisation offering guided whitewater rafting experiences predominantly to the experientialist element of the outdoor market in Scotland was contacted and access to customers and employees secured in March 2005. The selected organisation, like others in its field, advertised a selection of experiences which are, using Ritzer’s (1993) terminology, predictable, efficient, calculable and controlled. The case study organisation represents an external enabler of adventure sports experiences, providing packaged offerings to those people lacking the skills, equipment and commitment necessary to progress to a more specialised relationship with the activity. The chosen organisation is the epitome of Macbeth’s (2000) ‘expertocracy’ as it depends on customers handing over responsibility to experts to provide advice and service. The chosen adventure sports operator was based in Aberfeldy in the southern Scottish Highlands. Splash White Water Rafting had been in operation for four years at the time of contact. One feature of its selection for investigation was its well-developed and distinctive web presence and its engagement in the aggressive marketing of adventure sports activities to a mass market with little previous experience of the activities on offer. The town of Aberfeldy is located within the administrative boundaries of the
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Perthshire Tourism Board. Splash White Water Rafting was a prominent contributor to the development of a unique Perthshire Adventure brand, marketed to a UK domestic and international audience alike. This regional branding approach is in keeping with the identification of Scotland as an adventure tourism destination (Page et al., 2005; Page et al., 2006). Scotland’s national tourism agency, VisitScotland, has been surfing this particular zeitgeist by promoting the country as a natural playground. Cloke and Perkins (1998, 2002) argue that New Zealand has also used adventure tourism in this way in its place-promotion strategies. Through the virtual medium of an Adventure Scotland website, experience-seeking consumers are urged to explore a ‘mind blowing landscape of extremes — but not just for chilling in — it’s for playing in’. Splash White Water Rafting sought to exploit the opportunities emerging from this ongoing place-branding exercise to position itself as the operator of choice for adventure experientialists. Within the case study organisation itself, three qualitative sub-methods were implemented. First, two group forums (Wolff, Knodel, & Sittitrai, 1993) were conducted with customers over one weekend and one weekday in March 2005. Video clips, photographic images and adventure sports magazine cuttings were shown to the groups to stimulate discussion about the importance of visual imagery and the technological medium in their decision to attend the site and in their subsequent customer experience of the visit. The group forums provided a collective platform through which customers discussed the meanings associated with their whitewater rafting experiences. Customers were encouraged to discuss their pre-, during and post-consumption experiences, in line with the cycle of cultural consumption outlined earlier. Secondly, both customers and employees were observed as they participated in whitewater rafting trips over the course of the fieldwork period. These observations focused on the performance of the experience-stagers (employees) and experience-seekers (customers) in constructing, and participating in, a whitewater rafting trip. Unlike Holyfield (1999), the authors were not active participants in the experience itself, but they did capture images (video and photographic) which are commented upon in the forthcoming findings. The authors themselves could be classified as experientialist whitewater rafters having only once previously participated in a river run. Like several of the customers observed in this study, this previous whitewater rafting trip was the outcome of a gift, emphasising the growing incidence of experiential consumption (Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982) as a phenomenon. The second sub-method utilised within the research was the individual interview. Interviews were conducted with Splash White Water Rafting
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customers (n=10) and employees (n=6) on completion of their whitewater rafting trip. In seeking to understand the importance of ‘anticipatory images’ (Cloke & Perkins, 2002: 523) in creating adventurous expectations, customers were asked how they came to know and be interested in whitewater rafting. Employees were asked to comment on the intention underpinning the presentation of whitewater rafting in their promotional materials. Customers were also asked to comment on their use of technology before, during and after their whitewater rafting experience. Similarly, employees were asked to explain the organisational rationale for providing customers with the opportunity to use and purchase visual memories of their experiences. This study represents a narrowly focused investigation of one commercial adventure sports organisation and a specific user group (i.e., the experientialists). The forthcoming discussion represents only one part of the picture when considering features of the adventure sports terrain. Nevertheless, the part of the picture which is presented does provide additional critical insight into the commercialised and commodified adventure sports industry and builds on the work of other authors in the field (see Holyfield, 1999; Cloke & Perkins, 2002; Cater, 2006).
Staging experiences: the business of emotional embodiment The research findings demonstrate that Splash White Water Rafting is exploiting an experientialist market by fostering an emotional connection with the activities it offers. Others have identified that trading on emotional embodiment is a key component of delivering adventure experiences (Holyfield, 1999; Cater, 2006) and it is clear that this is a dynamic, rather than static, process. For example, Splash White Water Rafting engages its customers emotionally before, during and after the river run itself. The stimulus underpinning this cycle of cultural consumption is the desire to attract and sustain attention so that the opportunity for ongoing commercial exploitation is extended from immediacy of an adventure experience to postexperience symbolic gains. Those operating within the auspices of the attention and experience economies (e.g., Splash White Water Rafting) are in the business of staging spectacular experiences for would-be consumers. Commercial adventure sports organisations, as with other suppliers of leisure activities, need to convert the attention secured into a host of consumption acts. At the same time, discerning consumers desire specialised niche products which can help them accrue social distinction in the emerging experience economy. So, whilst commercial adventure sports organisations utilise a variety of visual techniques to create anticipatory expectations
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(Cloke & Perkins, 2002) to attract customers, these self-same consumers simultaneously desire experiences in order to solicit attention from their valued social networks. As a means of illustration, before customers actually engage in a whitewater rafting experience, Splash White Water Rafting attracts their attention through its interactive advertising promotions, utilising the power of the visual in contemporary, media-laden cultures (Page et al., 2006). Peter and Stuart, the company’s two directors, explain the rationale underpinning this approach: The idea is to sell the experience at a number of levels. The use of images is central to the sell . . . the image hits them, they hit their pals and away you go. Image clips are visual reminders. It keeps the enthusiasm fresh. (Peter, interview) The website helps sell the place . . . unless they have looked at the website they don’t want to do things — they see it on the website and it looks great . . . so the website reinforces and raises anticipation of the experience. (Stuart, interview)
The main tactic employed by Splash White Water Rafting is to trade on the emotive elements of the experience, enabling the prospective customer to visualise themselves in the consumption experience of others. This is achieved through the circulation of interactive marketing materials which contain attention-grabbing representations of key moments in previous customers’ adventurous escapades. As Peter, the managing director, suggests, the most effective strategy to secure attention is to ‘go for the drop moments. Get them when they’re on the edge, just going over — that’s the drop. You can see the fear, then the exhilaration’. The success of this strategy depends upon exploiting the increasingly ocular-centric nature of consumer capitalism (Frew & McGillivray, 2002), whereby attention is most easily captured through spectacular imagery (Cloke & Perkins, 2002). This is particularly true of the adventure sports field where, as Bell and Lyall (2004: 21) suggest, ‘only a moving image can adequately encode the white water, bungee, paragliding experiences’. Crucially, the images circulated are invariably of an ‘embodied thrill’ (Cloke & Perkins, 2002: 538), of a body in full control immersed in an extraordinary experience. However, this ocular-centric strategy is only effective if customers then pass their souvenir images on to others, raising anticipation and expectation of the value of participation in challenging, (apparently) risky and, ultimately, rewarding adventure sports experiences. The research findings indicate that the experientialist market
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attending Splash White Water Rafting does use technology to share their feats in this way. As one customer, Charles (group forum), comments: My mates take them [cameras] everywhere. They always take pictures on their mobile to send to their mates.
The circulation of photographic images and, even more effectively, moving video clips to participants’ social networks both enhances the individual’s reputation and plants a seed of expectation, or what might be termed an emotional embryo, in the recipients of that image. This specially re-mastered embryo contains the valued components of fear, thrills, excitement and fun (Holyfield, 1999; Cater, 2006) and the officially sanctioned organisational narratives reflect these values. The circulation of technologically mediated souvenir images also permits the extension of the commodification process as the importance of the physical is reduced in favour of the image of adventure (Cloke & Perkins, 2002). However, whilst the potential commercial exploitation of visual imagery is evident there remain commercial threats in relying too heavily on capricious customers used to exercising their extensive consumer sovereignty to sample an array of leisure experiences. Splash White Water Rafting’s response to this danger is to create and commodify magic moments which customers can trade for symbolic capital whilst enabling the business to accrue its economic equivalent.
‘Being seen’: the circulation of magic moments Several authors have commented upon the importance of display and identity as prominent features of the late capitalist or postmodern social context (Butterfield & Long, 2001; Cloke & Perkins, 1998, 2002; Foley et al., 2002; Kyle et al., 2004; Macbeth, 1992; Wheaton, 2004). Those commenting on the specific features of the experientialist or novice (Holyfield, 1999) adventure market have argued that participants are conscious of their status and, like Urry’s (1990) post-tourists, are ‘willing to proceed in order to gain the distinction of other aspects of the commodified exchange: place, spectacle, embodied experience and memory’ (Cloke & Perkins, 2002: 541). Whilst magic moments are visual representations of selected aspects of the adventure experience, such as ‘the big crash or the perfect jump’ (Kyle, customer, group forum), ‘on the edge of a big jump or kicker’ (Charles, customer, group forum), they are also, crucially, carefully distilled or condensed excerpts drawn from a more extensive narrative. The ‘boring bits’ or flat-water segments rarely appear in the edited images of adventure sent to participants’ social networks. This reinforces the view expressed earlier that
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being self-consciously aware of personal display and performance — of being seen — is afforded symbolic value in an increasingly mediated world. Quoting Cloke and Perkins (2002: 544) ‘participation in the signs as well as the experiences of adventure’ is of growing significance to the experientialist market. Contrived magic moments are more easily commodified than the real experience itself. When captured, edited and circulated to others, these magic moments can have a powerful influence as they provide the witnessing audience with an instant (and, apparently, authentic) representation of a memorable experience which is more likely to solicit a positive response from the target audience. In commercial terms, customers are put to work (Ritzer, 1993) as they perform the role of ‘carriers’ (Helm, 2000: 159) actively promoting the business in an almost unconscious manner so that ‘whilst the work of the experience stager perishes upon its performance, the value of the experience lingers in the memory of any individual who was engaged by the event’ (Pine & Gilmore, 1999: 13). In essence, the consumer becomes the content, in effect extending and deepening the commodification process. The subliminal natural backdrop (e.g., the whitewater or the deep gorge) also represents a useful resource for commercial adventure sports organisations to ensure that the subjective value of the experience is carried successfully and communicated to others. A significant literature exists on the importance of place attachment (Bricker & Kerstetter, 2002; Kyle et al., 2004) and place promotion (Cloke & Perkins, 1998, 2002; Page et al., 2006) to developing tourist markets, but for this article it is sufficient to say that the subliminal backdrop is invariably incorporated, or planted, into official adventure-marketing materials and opened to commodification processes in the form of collectable (and transferable) souvenirs. Moreover, the backdrop within which experiences are framed also provides irrefutable evidence of the participant’s accomplishments, ‘convincing others that this is indeed the ultimately exhilarating experience’ (Bell & Lyall, 2004: 31). So, it makes good commercial sense for organisations to frame the customer experience in such a way as to guarantee a (selected) memorable and spectacular portrayal of their trip — whether it is the emotion-laden facial expressions of the participants (Holyfield, 1999) or the spectacular backdrop within which the image is captured. To ensure the framing of customer experiences was in keeping with the company’s corporate identity Splash White Water Rafting employed a professional cameraman. His job was to capture and edit the magic moments before, during and after the whitewater rafting trip ready for immediate sale to customers. Gill, a rafting guide, articulates the commercial context for this investment, arguing that:
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Essentially we want to leave the consumer on a high; we want to leave them with a selective recollection of the memorable moments. You do not want customers to fix in memory the flat, uninspiring and action-less elements of their experience.
Playing on emotional embodiment (Holyfield, 1999), Splash White Water Rafting has produced an interactive DVD containing the edited collection of magic moments available for a premium exchange value. Here, individual experience is condensed into a burst of high emotion — focusing on occasions when customers look like ‘they have seen God’ (Stuart, managing director). With willing consent, the overall event is accelerated and the customer electronically transformed into a montage of high-impact experiences with carefully selected music, colours and allusions of aspirational lifestyle associations. As Bell and Lyall (2004: 30) contend, the new adventurers become ‘an instant walking billboard for their own action video’. Crucially, the faces of participants — embodying their smiles, fears, and anxieties — are emblazoned across the panoply of advertisements. The influence of technological mediation further emphasises the changing relationship between production and consumption in relation to experiences. Although the transition to dominant service economies in the West introduced the idea of simultaneity between production and consumption as both parties encounter each other in real time, the experience economy amplifies this relationship, locating the consumer in a productive and performative role. In the experience economy, consumers are agents of labour as they represent one of the key cogs in the production of staged adventures. This feature of the adventure sports environment has been recognised by Cater (2006), Jonas et al. (2000), Holyfield (1999) and Cloke and Perkins (2002). Following Urry (1990) it is our contention that participants are ready and willing to accept their role in the play dynamic of commodified adventure experiences. In fact, at Splash White Water Rafting, customers were acutely aware of their lead role in producing the experience itself. As a result of preparatory marketing and related activity (e.g., safety talks, introduction to the video cameraman) customers were continually reminded of their stake in acting out the anticipated expectations of happiness, fear and excitement — in the full knowledge that it was in their own interests to perform to ensure the final outcome — their own personal movie — could help them accrue the desired symbolic capital from their social network. Splash White Water Rafting encouraged customers to perform the role of embodied experientialists, fully immersing themselves in what have been described by others as contrived (Cohen, 1988), controlled and contained
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adventure experiences. The pre-event priming created an interesting paradox — that of the active experientialist (smiling, laughing, screaming) performing within a heavily scripted show. Hilton, the professional cameraman, confirmed that customers were ready to perform on the touch of a camcorder button: They always wave and you get the big beaming smile at the bottom. Those are the keepers, the ones they buy coz its like ‘hey that’s me, I did that’ . . . everybody wants a magic moment they can show their mates.
The observational data also show that Splash White Water Rafting customers were eager to view images of their trip immediately they emerged from the river. Comments like ‘I need to see that again’ (James, customer) and ‘I need to see what I looked like’ (Ashleigh, customer, group forum) were commonplace. Thoughts also turned immediately to the final destination of the endlessly changeable images produced for their own consumption and the consumption of future customers as the logic of commodification extends to memory (Cloke & Perkins, 2002). Several customers talked about how they would share their experience with those people to whom they were looking to trade symbolic capital. The flexibility of digital images was deemed to be an important element, enabling individuals to construct a slide show of their daytrip or vacation experience relatively easily — producing their own, selective autobiographical adventure history or transferable story (Cloke & Perkins, 2002: 540), edited to reflect their preferred form of self-identity. It’s definitely important, you want to keep these times, show your mates. (James, customer, group forum) There were hundreds of cameras there. This week we’ve pretty much been online finding pictures of ourselves. (Kyle, customer, group forum) I think it’s got to do with the bragging rights thing that Paddy was talking about earlier. (Scott, customer, group forum)
Trading with this electronic and visual autobiography, customers are also able to validate the magnitude of their experience, to verify that a particular experience did happen, not that it was said to have happened. It provides a sense of authenticity that provides an avenue to social distinction and exclusivity not possible elsewhere. This helps explain why Splash White Water Rafting customers were so eager to check that they had been caught on
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camera and had a visual reminder of their trip. They gathered round, looking at photographs on the wall, asking ‘will we get one like that?’ (James, customer, group forum), ‘we could blow them up and take them home and put them on our walls’ (Gary, customer, interview) and ‘I’ll be able to take that and show the guys at work’ (Harry, customer, interview). Digital images are infinitely portable, enabling experiences to be re-lived again and again via the digital camera, digital camcorder or online gallery. These customers are cashing in on their experiences immediately (via camera phones) and ad infinitum (via the CD or DVD player), accruing the appropriate symbolic capital along the way. The principal analytical point here is that customers, like those attending Splash White Water Rafting, can accrue symbolic capital from others on the basis of their electronic autobiographies and from their (apparently) sophisticated and authentic consumption of adventure experiences. As Arnould and Price (1993) have argued, the ratification of a witnessing audience is a crucial element of identity construction.
Experientialist consumption and symbolic capital To this point it has been proposed that the consumption of commercial adventure sports is about more than simply the embodied experience or the sense of enjoyment that emanates from ‘just doing it’. Instead, it has been claimed that aspects of display and posturing are evident in the consumption behaviour of a specific market of adventure sports participants, especially for those people classified as experientialists. That is not to say that there is no authentic or embodied element to the activities. To the contrary, Holyfield (1999) has argued convincingly that emotional engagement can be an outcome of commercial experiences, albeit this engagement remains structured by organisational scripts and regulatory mechanisms. Like Cater (2006), Holyfield (1999: 26) sees a continuum between ‘overly rationalized consumerism and felt adventure’ and Splash White Water Rafting did confirm that some visitors do progress to more advanced levels on occasion. However, whilst being broadly in agreement with these commentators, it is our contention that the experientialist, or weekend warrior (Wheaton, 2004; Tomlinson et al., 2005), is more interested in the capturing and circulation of specific extracts of their adventurous experiences because they provide an avenue to the accrual of valuable symbolic capital within their social network. The technological medium enables the instant transfer of kudos, despite revealing very little of the actual components of the activity itself. Splash White Water Rafting advertises a team of experience-stagers (Pine & Gilmore, 1999) who are ‘dedicated to the thrill of running wild rivers’ and ‘combine our experience to offer you the adventure of a lifetime’ (www.raft-
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ing.co.uk, retrieved 25 July 2006). However, the characteristics of the experientialist participant include low competence levels, an externally abdicated locus of control and expectations based on the circulation of superficially constructed images. Drawing on an analysis of customers as agents of labour, it is apt to consider the whitewater rafting experience as a staged event which is ideally suited to the consumption needs of a mass-market audience. The experientialist is a collector of experiences and is happy to pay for ‘the theatre, or spectacle’ (Pine & Gilmore, 1999: 1) as ‘something akin to a visit to Disneyland or the carnival’ (Watters, 2003: 259). This is unsurprising when considering Cloke and Perkins’ (2002) view that ‘operators of alternative adventurous sites . . . adopt tried and tested techniques of branding, marketing, pricing, ancillary product sales, safety, staff (or “cast”), performance and the like’ (525). To illustrate, during each Splash White Water Rafting river run, the guides stage a well-orchestrated, and relatively safe, raft flip. The flip provides a theatrical reminder of the apparent perils of adventure sports participation — it keeps it real (Wheaton & Beal, 2003). Of course, what is actually taking place is a performance — both by consumer and producer — reinforcing the experience as a memorable one worthy of being shown to the customer’s social network. The enactment of the flip is captured on camera and, if necessary, repeated to ensure the best ‘shot’ is secured. The salient aspect of this performance is that the spectacle portrayed by the image is, by itself, sufficient for the participant to be bestowed symbolic capital. The act or appearance (Holyfield, 1999; Cloke & Perkins, 2002) of display is becoming ever more central to adventure consumers’ attempts to create distinction through their participation. The routine ownership of material possessions and of standardised (or productised) service offerings means that in order to create distinction and accrue symbolic capital consumers need to do more. Crucially, the sense of embodied authenticity so central to the consumption experience of the specialised adventurer (Kyle et al., 2004) is replaced by the image and appearance of adventure for the experientialist. If the target audience has little or no knowledge of the level of competency required to guide a raft down a stretch of white water, then it is unlikely to be impressed by a detailed account of risk-reduction strategies, paddling techniques and codes of conduct. Instead, this audience is impressed by image, style and glamour — the signs of adventure (Cloke & Perkins, 2002) as much as the experience of it. This transition from substance to style marks a shift in the attainment of capital and its ultimate symbolic derivative. Previously, the accrual of capital demanded a concomitant substance that would allow those knowledgeable
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cultural interpreters within the field to bestow the sought-after symbolic capital. The growth of the experientialist market has brought with it a challenge to the Bourdieusian conceptualisation of symbolic capital itself. For the experientialist, performance matters primarily for others and especially for the camera. It is a performance directed for, and to, an external social network and is designed to ensure their attention is captured (Goldhaber, 1997). Experientialist consumption is, however, invariably fleeting and transitory and the symbolic capital accruable from it can be perceived as unsustainable. Whereas Bourdieu (1986) focused principally on forms of symbolic capital which were long lasting, once accrued (e.g., elevated social positions) the defining feature of the symbolic capital accruable from experientialist consumption of adventure is its short-lived and ephemeral quality. For Splash White Water Rafting customers, the cachet gained from the images of whitewater rafting is quickly erased as members of their social network compete to circulate even more memorable experiences of their own. The logical outcome of this escalating battle for the most memorable experience is that some previously extraordinary experiences (Arnould & Price, 1993) could themselves become a matter of routine — upping the ante for those trying to attract the attention of consumers and for those seeking to secure enhanced reputation, recognition and cultural distinction in their leisure consumption.
Conclusion The massification of, and demand for, adventure sports is one intrinsically connected to technological advance and a growing consumer desire for the accrual of memorable experiences in their leisure pastimes. In an increasingly rationalised and homogenous global leisure economy, experiences have emerged as the new tradable commodities. An industry of commercial adventure organisations has emerged to service a demand characterised by a quest for managed instantaneous gratification and edited memories, rather than for authenticity and self-discovery. Whilst this article represents a commentary upon only a small part of the burgeoning adventure sports industry, it has generated some critical insights which should be the basis of further enquiry. At the soft, or mass, end of the adventure market, it is perhaps now possible to talk in the language of ‘postadventure’ whereby both producers and consumers stage a theatrical performance which produces a visual representation of authentic experience transferable to a virtual witnessing audience. The post-adventure experientialists, although possessing little knowledge of the intricacies of the adventure sports activities in which they participate, know and value them in
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terms of their mediatised status value and cool fashion statement. Whereas the adventurer of the past secured status through achievement, the postadventurer has no such concerns as their gazing social network recognises and bestows value to displays of spectacle, style and show. Interactive digital technologies permit these post-adventurers to celebrate the act of display with their social networks, creating distinguishing qualities of personal identity in the process. In this sense, identity and cultural distinction are bound together in the synergy of technology and embodied reality. Moreover, technology enables the infinite re-telling (and selling) of the tale, preparing the ground for extended commodification processes to take place. Here, a residue is left over after the adventure sports experience ends which can be retold again and again and eventually becomes part of mythology as it moves further away from the original staged experience itself. Second-hand accounts told to a network of peers, friends and family further reinforce the aura of the adventure experience. Whilst we acknowledge that experientialist adventurers do secure some degree of emotional engagement during their experiences, we contend that these are secondary to the importance of the signs of adventure being displayed. As a result, these signs take on an exchange value which will, come time, be exploited by commercial organisations and move adventure into the world of the virtual.
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Webb, J., Schirato, T., & Danaher, G. (2002). Understanding Bourdieu. London: Sage. Wheaton, B., & Beal, B. (2003). ‘Keeping it real’: Subcultural media and the discourses of authenticity in alternative sport. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 38(2), 155–176. Wheaton, B. (2004). Mapping the lifestyle sport-scape. In B. Wheaton (Ed.), Understanding lifestyle sports (pp. 1–28). London: Routledge. Wolff, B., Knodel. J., & Sittitrai, W. (1993). Focus groups and surveys as complementary research methods. In D. L. Morgan (Ed.), Successful focus groups: Advancing the state of the art (pp. 118–136). London: Sage. Yin, R. K. (1994). Case study research: Design and methods (Vol. 5). London: Sage.
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From Low Jump to High Jump: Adventure recreation and the criminal law in New Zealand Pip Lynch, Lincoln University, New Zealand Paul Jonson, University of Technology, Sydney and Sport Knowledge, Australia ABSTRACT • Until recently, New Zealand law set a very low threshold for culpability under criminal nuisance or criminal negligence — namely carelessness — and this threatened to impact negatively on the provision of adventure recreation. In 2004, a new interpretation of criminal nuisance — recklessness — was introduced and this, too, is potentially damaging for adventure recreation by raising the bar to criminal culpability too high. In this paper, we consider the implications of the law of criminal nuisance for New Zealand recreation in general, and we take risk recreations (also known as adventure recreations) as particular cases in which the threshold could have far-reaching detrimental consequences for recreation provision and participation. Comparison with interpretations of criminal negligence (and civil in Australia) in other common law jurisdictions and a review of the New Zealand adventure recreation culture shows that the swing from a low jump to a high jump for culpability is not in the best interests of recreation in New Zealand, and that gross negligence or a major departure from accepted standards is the appropriate threshold.
Introduction New Zealand has a tradition of, and now a worldwide reputation for, high levels of participation in physical recreation in general, and access to a wide variety of sporting opportunities and outdoor adventure recreational activities (Callander & Page, 2003). Mass participation in competitive sports and outdoor recreational events has recently emerged as an expression of this physical recreation culture. However, the recent cases of R v Andersen [2003] and R v Andersen [2005]1 involving the organiser of a major sport 1 The Court of Appeal hearing was conducted in 2004 (hence reference to this date in the abstract and the conclusion of this paper) but not reported (published) until 2005.
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and recreation event have highlighted the difficulties that exist for adventure event organisers, participants and the courts when this culture clashes with the criminal law. The Andersen cases arose from a fatal accident that occurred during Le Race, 2001. Le Race is an annual (since 1999) 100 km cycling event for recreational riders beginning in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand and finishing in the harbour town and one-time French settlement, Akaroa. The event is organised commercially by a private professional (Astrid Andersen) and in 2001 it attracted approximately 1000 participants. The event organiser set out event rules and conditions which included staying on the left-hand side of the road (correct in New Zealand) at all times. This rule was repeated several times in instructions given to participants. It was also stated in the pre-race literature and immediately prior to the commencement of the race by Andersen, that there was ‘an official road closure on the Summit Road’ (Le Race Starter Pack information sheet, 2001; emphasis added). There are two roads on the Le Race course that carry the name ‘Summit Road’, although it is not clear that participants were aware of this at the time. These two roads are some 40 km apart. The ‘official road closure’ was on the first (commonly recognised) Summit Road, near Christchurch and the accident occurred on the second Summit Road, near Akaroa. ‘Road closure’, as became clear in the trial (R v Andersen, [2003]), was intended to mean an area 200 metres long at the top of the first Summit Road where cyclists would be checked as to being officially entered and then allowed to proceed. However some witnesses gave evidence in the trial that they (variously) understood the phrase to mean that the whole of the first Summit Road, or the whole of both roads bearing that name, was closed. Participants could ride the entire distance or compete in two-person or four-person teams. One cyclist (the final member of a four-person team) commenced her ride along the second Summit Road and had a winding hilltop road to pedal before a steep descent to the finish. The first straight section of road in her leg of the event was approximately 100 metres long and just before the end of this straight she collided with a car that had come around a blind right-hand bend. The cyclist was travelling on the wrong side of the road at the time of impact and died as a result of the collision. The event organiser, Andersen, was charged and convicted of criminal nuisance under sections 145 and 156 of the New Zealand Crimes Act 1961 for giving what was found to be a misleading and therefore negligent instruction regarding the road closure (R v Andersen, [2003]). The decision however was reversed on appeal (R v Andersen [2005]).
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This paper will consider the law of criminal nuisance and criminal negligence in New Zealand and its implications for recreation provision. At issue are the distinctions drawn under New Zealand law between criminal nuisance (or ordinary negligence), which is defined as carelessness; gross negligence, which is defined as a serious or major departure from accepted standards of care; and recklessness, which is defined as a wanton disregard for the safety of others (McMullin, 1995). We will argue that the interpretation of the law of criminal nuisance (ordinary negligence, or carelessness) made by the Andersen conviction, as it pertains to the organisation and provision of adventure recreational events, was not only out of step with other common law jurisdictions, but more importantly, it was out of step with New Zealand society and New Zealanders’ values in relation to leisure because it created too low a bar for criminality. Empirical evidence from an informal survey indicates that it created a situation whereby persons who provided facilities and opportunities for physical recreation, including risk or adventure activities, had reason to fear that they could be found guilty of a criminal offence for an inadvertent error of judgement in contexts in which risk is sought and encouraged. We further argue that the Andersen appeal decision (R v Andersen [2005]), in which the conviction was overturned, is also problematic because it raises the bar for criminality too high (beyond gross negligence to recklessness). In our view, as a result of the Andersen cases, the law in New Zealand has swung from creating too low a jump to too high a jump for criminal negligence and that further change is needed — a shift to the midpoint of gross negligence (a serious or major departure from accepted standards of care). We first discuss adventure recreation in the New Zealand context then reflect on the leisure, and accident, theories that inform our critique of the Andersen cases and their effects or potential effects on New Zealand adventure recreation.
New Zealand sport and recreation culture New Zealanders are among the most physically active nations in the Western world. This fact is illustrated in Table 1, which compares the best available data on overall physical activity rates in the four common law countries relevant to our analysis of criminal nuisance and negligence in law. The table shows reported participation in physical leisure activities for adults in each country. Method-related and statistical limitations may account for some of the differences between nations, but are unlikely to alter the result markedly: New Zealanders are significantly more physically active than are Australians, Canadians and Britons.
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Table 1. Level of physical activity — comparison between countries
New Zealand1 (data from 2001) Australia2 (data from 2002) England3 Canada4
(data from 1998)
(data from 2001)
Physically or Moderately Active
Participate at least once over 12 months
Physically Inactive
% adult population
% adult population
% adult population
68
98
2
59.5
77.8
12.2
30
62
38
44
–
56
Sources: 1 Van Aalst, Kazakov, & McLean, 2003; 2 Standing Committee on Recreation and Sport, 2003; 3 Rowe, Beasley, & Adams, 2004; 4 Craig & Cameron, 2004. Note: The 4-year span within which the data sets were collected is of little consequence for our purposes here; overall recreational physical activity has been declining in all these countries over the past two decades so the oldest data provides, if anything, a statistical advantage over the more recent data, but to no useful effect.
It is worth noting in a little detail two of the method-related issues embedded in the participation data, for they further illustrate the main point. First, definitions of ‘physically active’ differ between countries. In the New Zealand and English surveys, respondents were considered to be physically active or moderately active if they had taken part in at least 2.5 hours of physical activity in the 7 days prior to interview. The Canadian definition was also based on 30 minutes of exercise per day but it is not clear if this was taken over a one-week period or longer. Australian adults were categorised in three levels of physical activity based on the number of times they participated in physical leisure each week. The minimum level of activity for inclusion in the ‘active’ categories was one activity session per week, of any duration. This leaves open the possibility that the level of physical activity among Australians would decline if the New Zealand or English categorisation were applied. Importantly, the New Zealand definition is at least as demanding as those of other nations, thus underscoring the primary observation. Second, there are differences between the surveys with regard to age of respondents and this has an impact on comparability of the survey results. For example, in the Canadian statistics, adults are defined as being 20 years of age or older, compared to 15, 16 and 18 in the Australian, English and New Zealand statistics, respectively. As a general rule, younger people are
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more active than older people, in part due to the effect of compulsory physical education and, in some cases, compulsory sport in school. Given this, it is reasonable to expect higher overall participation in physical activity in countries where surveys included younger respondents. The Australian and English figures are all the more remarkable, then, especially when compared to those for New Zealand. Even with the younger age groups included, participation does not match that of New Zealanders. On the other hand, the Canadian picture may be somewhat bleaker than is really the case but it is unlikely that the difference is of a magnitude to disrupt the main point being made here — that New Zealanders are, in general, relatively highly physically active. It is this level of activity that the New Zealand Ministry of Health and Sport and Recreation New Zealand want to maintain and increase, for physical welfare reasons. Our argument regarding the recreational culture in New Zealand goes beyond participation by putting the case that New Zealanders have a high participation rate in a particular type of recreation — that is, risk, or adventure, recreation. The terms ‘risk recreation’ and ‘adventure recreation’ are used interchangeably in this paper because adventure, in any sense of the word, involves risk. Internationally comparative data is not available for a wide range of risk recreation activities, but some comparisons with Australia, and to a limited extent with England, are possible. Table 2 lists a selection of physical recreations, some of which are general (aerobics/fitness, golf, netball, soccer, swimming, walking) and some of which are risk-related (cycling, fishing, equestrian/horse riding, ice/snow sports, motor sports, running, sailing, surf sports, triathlon, bush-walking/tramping). The general recreations serve as ‘indicator’ recreations to further illustrate the relative participation rates between countries. The risk-related recreations are indicators of the extent to which New Zealanders have access to, and willingly engage in, activities in which injury is an obvious and potential outcome and inherent risk. The participation rates shown in Table 2 are by proportion of the physically active adult population. Cycling, running and motor sports involve proximity to motor vehicles, with potential for collision with those vehicles. Cyclists and runners often use roads for training and/or competitions and are therefore at risk of being hit by moving vehicles, even when participating in organised events (as was the situation in R v Andersen ([2003]). Triathletes are similarly exposed to road-related risks. Fishing, sailing and surfing inevitably involve the risk of drowning. Horse riding of any sort exposes participants to injury from falls and from the animals themselves. Falling is a common risk in snow and ice recreations, too, and in snow there are added
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potential hazards in the stability of the snow pack and in weather conditions. Inherent risks involved in bush walking in Australia include snake or insect bite, lightning strike, bush fires, dehydration and hyper/hypothermia. In New Zealand, trampers have to weigh up risks in river crossings, falls, and hypothermia. Table 2. Participation Statistics — Percentage of adult population participating in selected activities for period given prior to survey NZ1
Australia2
England
Last 4 weeks
Last 12 months
Last 12 months
Activity
%
%
%
%
Aerobics/fitness
4
10
14.6
124
Cycling
8
94
Country
15
9.3
Fishing
25
2.3
Golf
18
8.7
Equestrian/horse riding
5
1.2
Ice/snow sports
6
1.6
Motor sports
6
0.9
Netball
7
4.1
Running
14
7.6
Sailing
5
0.9
Soccer — outdoor
5
7.4
Surf sports
7
2.2
36
14.9
1
0.4
Swimming
16
Triathlon Bush walking / tramping Walking (other)
64
12
5.6
72
30.8
Last 4 weeks
144
453
Sources: 1 Van Aalst et al., 2003; 2 Standing Committee on Recreation and Sport, 2003; 3 Rowe et al., 2004; 4 Rowe & Moore, 2004.
As Table 2 shows, a greater proportion of physically active New Zealanders than physically active Australians participate in selected risk recreations. The reasons for this are not obvious but may include access to venues for those
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recreations, and a culture of risk-taking which, if not actually encouraged, is at least not discouraged by the legal environment itself through the accident compensation legislation. One of the positive consequences of this state of affairs appears to be a high level of physical activity participation, including participation in adventure activities. Our argument is that risk recreations should be viewed contextually in the law. This view is informed by the leisure theory and by understanding the nature of recreation and the purpose of risk in recreation.
Leisure theory, recreation and risk in New Zealand Recreation is understood as a state of mind, central to which are perceived freedom and intrinsic motivation (Neulinger, 1981). Values associated with physical recreation and sport participation include physical health and fitness, skill mastery and excitement (Kelly, 1990). Additional to these are values associated with outdoor recreation pursuits that include locus of control, sensation-seeking, challenge and risk (Ewert, 1989). Arguably, New Zealanders have embraced a culture of recreational adventure whereby active risk seeking is normalised at the level of culture and, for some, at the level of the individual. Recreational events involving physical challenges, we suggest, have become like outdoor recreation in terms of the values (motivations) associated with them. Le Race, for example, is a challenging cycling event through which participants may seek physical fitness, skill mastery, excitement, risk-taking/controlling, and sensation-seeking outcomes. Recreation has become a taken-for-granted aspect of life for most Western peoples. According to developmental, social identity, and humanist theorists of leisure, some people want or need something more than re-creation or rejuvenation; they strive to create a particular persona (Kelly, 1990). For some people, this socio-psychological development occurs through deliberate engagement with risk. Sensation seeking (Zuckerman, 1990) drives risk-taking, at least initially. Experienced participants may return to the same risk activities for the ancillary benefits they accrue, such as social interaction, pleasure from physical exertion, proximity to nature and ‘high-risk identity’ (Creyer, Ross, & Evers, 2003: 242; and see Fluker & Turner, 2000: 385; Eiser, 1994; Eiser, Cleisson, & Loose, 1998; and Pidgeon, Kasperson, & Slovic, 2003), while for beginners and veterans alike, adventure outcomes result from matching risk with competence (Mortlock, 1987; Ewert, 1989; Ewert & Hollenhorst, 1989; Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1999; Priest, 1999). Ewert (1989) succinctly sums up this argument: Risk “emerges when there is a loss of control or predictability. Control becomes an important fact in distinguishing between something that is difficult and something
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that is foolhardy” (p. 3). Risk or adventurous recreationists, then, seek situations in which to test their ability to control the outcomes of participation, and New Zealand has become a haven for adventure recreation. Recreational activities in backcountry areas have been a feature of New Zealand’s history and economy since colonisation in the nineteenth century (Devlin & Booth, 1998), and both outdoor/backcountry recreation and adventure tourism have grown rapidly since the 1970s. Cloke and Perkins (1998: 274) give as an example of this growth the fact that ‘before 1976 there were fewer than 10 professional rafters operating on New Zealand rivers but this had increased to 50 by 1986’. Further, the available data on adventure activities suggest that participation by international visitors to New Zealand in these activities has increased over 600 per cent since the early 1990s (Table 3). Table 3. International visitor numbers participating in selected adventure recreations Activity Bungy-jumping Mountain/climbing Caving
1992/3
2004
Combined
770 472
total of
814 122
50,000–100,000
820 867
Mountain biking
906 782
Rafting
731 226
Jet boating
200,000+
649 652
Source: Cloke & Perkins 1998: 274. Tourism Research Council website
During the past 20 years, branding of New Zealand as a young, fresh, unspoilt and innovative tourist destination has provided strong cultural as well as economic elements in the growth of adventure tourism (Cloke & Perkins, 1998; Callander & Page, 2003). This strategy has promoted a view of New Zealanders as risk-takers and innovators within and beyond the realm of recreation and has driven continual experimentation with bigger, better and more exciting thrills in the outdoors environment (Cloke & Perkins, 1998: 282). The adventure imperative has also influenced sport and more traditional recreations. The growth of freedom recreations such as snowboarding, mountain biking and skateboarding, the rise of commercial and professional sports, and the advent of events in both the recreation and tourism domains
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have given rise to an adventure recreation event sector in New Zealand. Adventure recreation events typically comprise strenuous physical activity, usually involving considerable endurance and various levels of risk, in outdoor settings. They include ultra-long distance running and cycling, multi-sport and extreme triathlons such as ironman competitions, endurance orienteering (rogaining), extreme skiing and snowboarding, bungee jumping, base jumping, whitewater rafting, and high-altitude mountaineering. Strenuous endurance events have arisen as the recreation fashion of the 1990s and early twenty-first century (Creyer et al., 2003). Comprehensive listings of events in any one country are hard to find, as many events are run by small, local clubs on a not-for-profit basis. A web search2 using keywords ‘multi + sport + Zealand’ provided evidence of the popularity of competitive physical endurance events in New Zealand. ‘Runnersweb’ listed over 130 links to multisport events, tours, directories, equipment suppliers, advisers and the like in the Americas, Europe, Britain, Australasia and Asia. The Multisport Calendar for the South Island of New Zealand included 22 multisport events, 34 triathlons and duathlons, 15 kayaking races, 1 sea kayaking event, 23 road or mountain run/walk events, 8 rogaining events, and 38 mountain bike or cycling events scheduled for the period September 2003 to May 2004. One of the cycle events listed was Le Race. Many events provide for relay teams as well as individual competitors. Typically, these events attract both novice and experienced athletes, although those involving kayaking (such as the Coast to Coast) and/or remote backcountry travel (as in the Southern Traverse) usually require evidence of proficiency before entry is confirmed (see websites, Coast to Coast and Southern Traverse). Mass participation is a characteristic of these events in New Zealand; this feature makes events financially viable and provides commercial opportunities for entrepreneurial event organisers. Endurance eventing in New Zealand draws on popular national (pakeha) myths of pioneering spirit, outdoor living, toughness, independence and valorisation of wilderness. The annual Coast to Coast multisport event involving over 200 kilometres of cycling, running and kayaking from one side of the South Island to the other, for example, began when outdoorsmen Robin Judkins and Peter Tocker conceived of a summer (February) race through terrain and landscapes they had learned to love both for the physical challenge of the travel and for natural beauty (McKerrow & Woods, 2 Search conducted on 13 October 2003. Data from 2003 and 2004, rather than more recent years, are used here to be provide contextual consistency with the criminal prosecution discussed.
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1994). McKerrow and Woods (1994: 9) encapsulate the spirit of multisport eventing in New Zealand with this reflection from the 10-year anniversary of the inception of the Coast to Coast: there is no denying the event has become incredibly popular because it fits the shape and character of the New Zealand psyche. It’s a rugged, physical, successful thing to do. It’s New Zealand’s own, crossing from one side of our small but beautiful country to the other.
The physical challenge and the unpredictability of the natural environment are intrinsic to the endurance racing ethos.
Adventure and accountability for accidental injury The risks involved in adventure recreations include physical injury and fatalities. According to Cloke and Perkins (1998), New Zealanders have learned to accept that death or injury is part of outdoor life but recent applications of criminal law suggest that that acceptance may have begun to weaken as contemporary public attitudes towards accidents and accountability change. As numbers of participants in adventure recreation events have grown, so too has the numerical risk of serious injury or fatality (Creyer et al., 2003). However, this alone does not fully explain the recent emergence of criminal prosecutions for negligence under (criminal) nuisance. The way in which accidents are conceptualised has also had an effect. Until recent decades, according to Christoffel and Teret (1993), accidental personal injuries were viewed as ‘random, uncontrollable’ (p. 3), ‘unpredictable, unavoidable’ (p. 6) occurrences resulting from carelessness between individuals. It is only since the 1960s that a socially oriented view of accidents has emerged (in the USA and, arguably, in NZ) and this view seeks to understand injury events more holistically. (The 1960s also spawned victimhood, according to Furedi [1997]; he claims that it has now come to ‘acquire the character of a permanent identity’ [p. 98]). ‘Multiple-causation’ (Christoffel & Teret, 1993: 7) models of injury direct attention towards prevention and stimulated development of scientific approaches to predict and control accidents and to manage the risks of accidental injury. Two further catalysts of the social-policy view of personal injury are public expectations of health, and public concern for accountability. Twentieth-century improvements in general health care, sanitation and medical technologies have given most Westerners not only longer life expectancies but expectations of uncompromised, sustainable physical wellbeing (Jones & Hood, 1996). One consequence of this appears to be that
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people are more willing to seek legal redress for personal injuries than they used to be (see Campos 1998 for an American view on this), and they may have greater expectations that the authorities will punish those whose actions or inactions result in physical harm to, and therefore the diminished well-being of, others. New Zealanders’ concern for accountability appears to have increased markedly since the 1970s. Learned explanations for this apparent shift are elusive but some distinct possibilities can be identified. First, the economic difficulties of the decades since the 1970s in New Zealand (Hawke, 1992) have fostered general concern about costs of public services, including health care (Rice, 1992). This has led to close scrutiny of avoidable costs, such as accidental injury related costs (Campbell, 1996; Duncan, 2002; Rennie, 1995). Additional demands for accountability for the consequences of accidents have erupted in the wake of two mass tragedies — the Erebus disaster of 28 November 1979 (Mahon Report, 1981) and the Cave Creek tragedy of 28 April 1995 (Noble Report, 1995). The latter, in particular, stimulated closer scrutiny of risk-management procedures in the government sector (see, e.g., Department of Conservation, 1995; Isaac, 1997; State Services Commission, 1998; Hunt, 2005) but both contributed to a general distrust of corporate risk management by the NZ public. This is consistent with trends elsewhere, as noted by Wells (1995: 178): ‘An increased tendency toward greater legislation has accompanied a decline in confidence in major institutions, business and government’. All of these factors have combined to produce in New Zealand a paradoxical situation in which accidental injury is arguably less well tolerated than in the past despite the rise of a risk recreation culture. During the 1990s and since the turn of the millennium, this reduced tolerance for injury began to extend into the recreational arena and since New Zealand’s accident compensation scheme bars tort (civil law) remedies for personal injury, and the country’s health and safety legislation often does not cover all recreational situations (i.e., it deals with workplaces), criminal prosecution has become an obvious mechanism for public admonition of those found to be responsible for accidents. The nature of recreation provision and management in New Zealand, though, is such that criminal proceedings have caused substantial alarm and, as we will show below, there has been concern about long-term repercussions for the recreational culture of the nation.
Criminal nuisance and criminal negligence In R v Andersen ([2003]), the defendant was accused under section 156 of the New Zealand Crimes Act 1961, of being in charge of a dangerous thing
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— the cycling event — and therefore having a legal duty to take reasonable precautions to avoid danger and under section 145 she was accused of having omitted to fulfil that duty. Section 156 of the Act sets out the ‘Duty of persons in charge of dangerous things’ and states: Every one who has in his charge or under his control anything whatsoever, whether animate or inanimate, or who erects, makes, operates, or maintains anything whatever, which, in the absence of precaution or care, may endanger human life is under a legal duty to take reasonable precautions against and to use reasonable care to avoid such danger, and is criminally responsible for the consequences of omitting without lawful excuse to discharge that duty.
Section 145 of the Act states, under the heading ‘Criminal Nuisance’: Every one commits criminal nuisance who does any unlawful act or omits to discharge any legal duty, such act or omission being one which he knew would endanger the lives, safety, or health of the public, or the life, safety, or health of any individual.
According to Simester and Brookbanks (2002), ‘dangerous thing’ can be interpreted widely, but at the time of the trial this had only been applied to tangible entities including motor vehicles, motor boats, firearms, explosives, toxic substances, a can of petrol, an unclean (human) food factory, bodily fluid containing HIV (but, interestingly, not a human person) (pp. 555–557) and jet-skis (The Queen v Tomasi [1998], The Queen v Hare [1999]). In R v Andersen ([2003]) the interpretation of ‘dangerous thing’ was broadened to include intangible things, namely recreational events. This application of the criminal law to the sport and recreation domain caused significant consternation amongst organisers and leaders of sport and recreation events and activities (as we later discuss). However, as indicated, what is more worrying for sports and recreation leaders in New Zealand is the standard of care which a sport and recreation organiser is required to maintain to avoid a criminal conviction. Both the standard required at the time of the Andersen trial and the change to that standard brought about by the subsequent Appeal are the focus of this paper. In 2003, based on the trial court decision in R v Andersen ([2003]), for offences under section 145 in connection with section 156 (and section 155) (NZ Crimes Act 1961) the law only required mere carelessness or inadvertence (ordinary negligence) to establish a guilty finding for criminal
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nuisance. In his comments on sentencing Andersen (R v Andersen, [2003, Unreported]), the judge acknowledged that the degree of negligence found in the accused ‘was neither reckless nor intentional but was merely careless’ and that, overall, Andersen had been ‘very concerned about the safety issues relating to Le Race 2001’ (at paragraph 72). It is worth restating here that there is a distinction to be drawn between: ‘mere or ordinary’ negligence — carelessness; ‘gross’ negligence — a really serious or substantial (major) departure from accepted standards; and ‘recklessness’ — a wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of other persons (McMullin, 1995: 21–23). After the trial, then, a mere mistake or act of carelessness made without any intention to cause harm and which could be a minor departure from recognised best practice could result in a prison term. In our view, this was too low a bar for criminal liability, especially in the context of adventure recreation events. The trial judge in the Andersen case acknowledged the difficulty raised by the conviction and noted (R v Andersen, [2003, Unreported], at paragraphs 63–65) that the ‘outcome of this case could responsibly result in further debate’ about Sir Duncan McMullin’s (1995) recommendation to extend the definition of negligence to gross negligence under criminal nuisance. McMullin, a retired Appeal Court judge, compared New Zealand law with regard to manslaughter to relevant law in other jurisdictions and his findings usefully inform our discussion regarding recreation. Sir Duncan noted the divergence of New Zealand law from the law in England, Australia and Canada. Significantly, he noted (1995: 19) the comments of the English Law Commission (made in its Consultation Paper on Involuntary Manslaughter, No. 135, 1994): It described the New Zealand law as a ‘very severe law’, couched in terms of mere civil negligence, the effect of which was sought to be mitigated by the hope that juries would not often convict and, if they did, a purely minimal penalty could be imposed. It said, ‘We cannot accept that this degree of uncertainty, and hazard for defendants, is a proper way of formulating offences of homicide’. Most other jurisdictions have equally found such a rule unsatisfactory.
The position for ‘involuntary manslaughter’ in England was then (and still is) ‘that there can be no conviction unless gross negligence is proved. In practice, this will mean a really serious or substantial departure from accepted standards’ (McMullin 1995: 21, emphasis added). Sir Duncan (McMullin 1995) further noted that the ‘Common Law in Australia is that carelessness or simple negligence is insufficient to warrant a
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conviction of manslaughter . . . [there is a] requirement of gross negligence’ (p. 22) and in Canada ‘Everyone is criminally negligent who (a) in doing anything or, (b) in omitting to do anything that it is his duty to do, shows wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of other persons’ (p. 23) and concluded ‘a person may be convicted in New Zealand of manslaughter by negligence for being “not very” careless. Other jurisdictions require much more’ (p. 24). We argue, as did Sir Duncan (see below), that the issue in relation to criminal nuisance was the very same as that for manslaughter in New Zealand. In Australia, recent legislation (e.g., the Civil Liability Act, NSW 2002) has made it harder for sport and recreation event organisers to be sued for civil negligence such that those persons will not be liable for any harms arising from inherent or obvious risks or for dangerous risks of which they have given notification. This raises the possibility that a person in New Zealand could be found guilty of a criminal offence for behaviour which, under Australian law, they would not even be found civilly liable. For example if a rugby referee allowed scrums to continue to collapse and after one scrum collapsed late in the game a person in the scrum died as a result of an injury sustained due to that collapsed scrum, it is probable that in Australia the deceased party’s estate would have no claim for compensation under the civil law of negligence, yet in New Zealand the referee could end up in prison! Sir Duncan accepted that ‘the need for accountability is important [and] the public have the right to expect that people who take on responsibilities . . . are accountable if death or injury result from their negligent acts or omissions’ (McMullin,1995: 39). But he nonetheless felt that there was need for changes to the law and that for negligence to be established in a criminal context there should be ‘a “major departure” from the standard of care expected of a reasonable person in all the circumstances’ (p. 45, emphasis added). McMullin’s recommendations went beyond just those sections of the Act that he was asked to consider. He recommended ‘that the “major departure” formula should be adopted for all crimes in which negligence is an element’, including sections 145 and 156 (McMullin, 1995: 50). One of his reasons for this recommendation was that it would foster ‘the maintenance of good health’ (McMullin, 1995: 48). Although he was referring to the community health consequences of New Zealand’s ‘harsh law’, stifling medical misadventure disclosures and therefore investigations, the point also applies to the sport and recreation management profession. To paraphrase Sir Duncan into the context of sport and recreation management, his suggested amendment would lead to the maintenance of an appropriate risk environment, and avoid the trend for less risky and indeed fewer recreational opportunities, the latter
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potentially diminishing the maintenance of physical health. Because the fear of prosecution would be reduced, improved accident reporting was likely to occur leading to greater accountability and an improvement in services. (On the latter issue, regarding blame, see Horlick-Jones 1996 and Johnston 1996). As Sir Duncan (McMullin 1995: 48) went on to say, ‘Risk must be balanced against the gains which far outweigh them’, and he quoted the venerable Lord Denning (Roe v Ministry of Health; Woolley v Same [1954] 2 All ER 131): But we should be doing a disservice to the community at large if we were to impose liability . . . for everything that happens to go wrong . . . Initiative would be stifled and confidence shaken . . . We must insist on due care . . . but we must not condemn as negligence that which is only misadventure.
As Sir Duncan notes, while Lord Denning was referring to ‘a fear of liability in civil cases [it] is of even more importance when considering liability to criminal prosecution’ (1995: 48). In the outcome, McMullin’s recommendation in respect of section 145 was not accepted (Simester & Brookbanks, 2002). Sport and recreation organisers, then, were still vulnerable to prosecutions for ordinary negligence. With regard to the sporting and recreational culture in New Zealand, this seemed curious. As noted above, risk and adventure were openly encouraged in New Zealand, in recreation and other spheres. What the law appeared to ignore was that risk, by definition, gives rise to loss. We are not arguing that recreation event organisers should not take care to prevent loss, rather that in activities in which risk is positively sought, the degree of negligence that should be required for a criminal conviction should be gross negligence. That is, criminal liability should reflect the nature of the society and the culture of recreation.
Impacts on recreation Criminal law is a means by which the State protects the fundamental rights of its citizens: ‘Criminal laws are deployed to control behaviours and events because there is a public and political interest in doing so’ (Simester & Brookbanks, 2002: 3). The Andersen prosecution, and before it, a motorsport prosecution (see Molloy, 2001), illustrate that in New Zealand the law is being applied in novel contexts as recreation participation patterns, recreation management practices and societal attitudes to risk, change. The response of the District Court (R v Andersen, [2003]) in the Le Race case was to signal that adventure recreation events come within the ambit of the crim-
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inal law and that event organisers found to have behaved negligently will be punished. The prosecution and conviction had the effect of enhancing the awareness of an already nervous recreation and sport community in New Zealand to its liabilities under criminal law, with both positive and negative impacts on recreation provision. An informal survey of event organisers and participants in the wake of the Andersen prosecution and conviction illustrated that many event organisers were reconsidering staging their events. The survey was undertaken by one of the authors after receiving several unsolicited comments from event organisers and participants. It was intended to elicit information on the range of effects of the Andersen conviction for the purpose of informing future potential formal empirical investigation. The potential for the information gathered to be used in future investigations of law reform was also signalled in the email message sent out. For the purposes of this paper, the survey results merely illustrate the point that concern about the effects of the conviction was expressed by event organisers, leaders and participants. The survey involved a search for relevant New Zealand newspaper articles for the period March 2001 to June 2004 and a ‘snowball’ email questionnaire in June 2004 to known event participants, organisers and their contacts. This method was required because there was no comprehensive database of commercial and non-commercial event organisers in NZ and because the best way to contact event participants was via event organisers. A drawback of the method is that it may have elicited more responses from those who considered the law too strict than from those who considered the law appropriate, but this limitation does not diminish the validity of the information gained on events affected. The questionnaire requested three pieces of information: first, the name or type of event; second, the contact details for the event organiser; and third, how the event had been affected by the Andersen conviction. Positive and negative effects were sought. The email ‘snowball’ elicited 55 responses. Forty-seven newspaper articles were found and an additional two articles were received from respondents, one from a national events newsletter and the other from the national weekly education gazette. The articles and emails were filtered for factual information about effects on events. Substantiation between published and unpublished sources was sought; where discrepancies occurred none of the information relating to the event was included in the final list of effects. Effects on sport and recreation events were not created only by the Andersen case. Costs of compliance with increasingly rigorous traffic management regulations, and changes to the Health and Safety in Employment legislation were also factors, but in each case the Le Race acci-
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dent and its repercussions were cited as features of the context within which event management decisions to cancel were made. Not all the effects reported were entirely negative. Many respondents referred in general terms to increased attention being given to risk management planning and procedures and this may have accident prevention outcomes. The social utility of the majority of effects reported, though, is less obvious. Among the specific effects was cancellation of 39 events, including a cycle race that had, until 2003, run for 106 years. Events cancelled were predominantly cycling, running, multisport and triathlon events, while kayaking, rafting, horse racing, snowboarding/surfing, boxing events, a Christmas parade, a vintage car parade and Masters ocean swims were also cancelled. Among these cancellations were fundraising events to assist community and school projects. It is not clear that all these events were cancelled permanently but anecdotal evidence is that some were not run again. At least four events or projects were postponed in the wake of the Andersen decision (R v Andersen, [2003]) and these included a marathon event, a cycling event, a ‘duckboat derby’, and the provision of a place for ‘boy racers’3 to congregate. Some events were modified to either reduce organisers’ liability or comply with local authority traffic management requirements. Modifications included changing running and cycling routes, cancelling the kayak leg in a multisport event, turning a Christmas parade into a non-vehicular street festival (in one case) or a walk (in another), handing out sweets in a basket rather than by the traditional method of a lolly scramble, and having children sit on a chair rather than on Santa’s knee. It was not only event organisers (volunteer and professional) who reacted to the new awareness of liability in sport and recreation events. Several volunteer kayak club instructors withdrew their services and leaders of tramping and mountaineering club trips expressed concern about their vulnerability to criminal prosecution. From the participants’ point of view, physical recreation opportunities, especially those available via adventure recreation events, were at stake. Among the more general effects expressed by respondents to the survey were increases in compliance costs for road-using events, increases in insur3 ‘Boy racer’ is a colloquial term for those who engage in unauthorised street and drag racing, wheel spins (‘donuts’), and/or who pour petrol, diesel and other substances on roads to effect wheel spins, etc. On 1 May 2003, the Land Transport (Unauthorised Street and Drag Racing) Amendment Act came into force (www.police.govt.nz/service/road/boyraceract.php) and the Christchurch City Council considered how to provide for the recreational needs of this group (Christchurch Press, 9 December 2003).
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ance costs, difficulties in finding volunteers to organise and assist with events, difficulties in gaining access to land (e.g., for mountain biking and paragliding), and increases in entry fees. For two cycling enthusiasts, the latter effect barred them from participating in one event. The survey results conflicted markedly with the trial judge’s comments on the effect of the Andersen conviction: since the verdict there have been a number of wild pronouncements in the media and by sporting organisations and event organisers that the verdict on the criminal nuisance charge . . . is the death knell to the sporting culture of this country as we know it. This is utter nonsense. Nothing could be further from the truth . . . there is no reason whatever to suggest that people who are involved in organising sporting or other events have any justified cause for alarm as a result of the verdict in this case. (R v Andersen, [2003, Unreported], paragraphs 39–40)
The evidence of cancellations, modifications, consternation and fear suggests that Judge Abbott’s comments were, with respect, probably incorrect. Event organisers certainly appeared to feel justified in their alarm.
Autonomy, adventure recreation and the law The reactions to the Andersen prosecution and conviction indicate that the criminal law, by responding to changes in society, can itself have both positive and negative effects on society. In the New Zealand context, we argue that in respect of the Andersen conviction, the criminal law initially responded more to the rise of a new social cost (accidents from adventure recreations) than to the rise of a new social benefit (recreational and health values associated with adventure recreations), and that this is problematic. As we have illustrated above, one of the central values of recreation is freedom and one of the central values in adventure recreation is autonomy in facing risk. It is our view that because adventure recreations involve voluntary risk-seeking for recreational purposes, accidents ought to be investigated with a view to balancing the risk-management responsibilities of both event organisers and event participants. That is, investigations ought to consider the autonomy of the participant as well as the responsibilities of organisers because the overall effect of the criminal law, if applied too strictly, may be that event organisers either do not run adventure events at all, or run them with rules that restrict participants’ freedom to control their own destinies within the event. Either way, in a wider sense, autonomy to run one’s life as one wishes is diminished. As Simester and Brookbanks (2002: 10–11) argue,
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the criminal law should not unnecessarily restrict the individual autonomy that is the basis of liberal democratic societies: Within the limits of harm and offence, individuals should be left free by the State to pursue their own goals and priorities. There are a number of reasons to oppose the overuse of criminal law . . . The most important consideration is autonomy . . . if the law is to respect the right of citizens to control their own lives, it should not deprive them of that control without good reason . . . There are already thousands of things the State forbids. Autonomy requires us to have good reason before extending the reach of the criminal law.
We suggest that, as in Le Race 2001, all accidents in adventure recreation events will necessarily involve actions and/or inactions by both organisers and affected participants. In the Le Race case, for example, the organiser’s choice of event route, her traffic management arrangements and written and verbal instructions to participants, among other things, contributed to decisions participants made about how they would ride the race and therefore to event outcomes. On the other side of the coin, participants’ desires to obtain recreational values from the event by either riding fast or at a more leisurely pace, by cutting corners to gain race advantage or not, by abiding by the race rules or not, also contributed to event outcomes. Being free to make decisions about how they participate is a major part of the attraction of adventure recreation for participants. Without individual decision making in the face of uncertainty (risk), there would be no adventure. In order to safeguard the recreational values of adventure recreation, then, it seems reasonable to seek criminal justice only in cases where event organisers can be proven to have departed in some major way from reasonable event management practice, and not when they have made only a mere error. In other words, we are saying that it is appropriate for event organisers to only be criminally liable when they are grossly negligent. If simple negligence is the test, then event organisers may understandably restrict or withdraw their services because a mere error on their part, combined with the behavioural contribution of the participant, could produce accidents and result in criminal liability. A gross negligence test would require that the organiser had behaved in a way that made an accident likely, regardless of the behaviour of participants, and that would not be in the best interests of recreational participation nor society in general.
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Bar too high The Andersen conviction perturbed not just the recreation community but some in the legal community as well. This became evident during the Appeal Court hearing (R v Andersen [2005]) when the judges prompted the appellant to return to an argument previously made at the pre-trial hearing: that section145 of the Crimes Act 1961 required proof of recklessness rather than negligence. The technical legal arguments surrounding the wording of section145 are beyond the scope of this paper but in broad terms what the Court of Appeal decided was that the phrase ‘knew would endanger’ was properly interpreted to mean that a defendant must have actual knowledge that a specific act or omission on their part will create a danger to others. That is, they must know that their act or omission will expose others to danger and go ahead and do the act or omit to do the duty anyway. This constitutes recklessness, a wanton disregard for the health and safety of others. The Court of Appeal held that having a general awareness that one’s acts or omissions could cause danger but not knowing that one had actually done such an act or made such an omission, does not constitute an offence under section 145. For Astrid Andersen, then, because the Crown could not prove recklessness, the conviction was overturned. Event organisers throughout New Zealand may have felt relieved at this decision but it is worth considering whether or not participants are well served by it. We have argued, above, that gross negligence is a more appropriate requirement for criminal nuisance in recreation contexts, and particularly in adventure recreation contexts, in New Zealand. By raising the criminal liability bar from mere negligence to recklessness, we suggest that the Appeal Court judges may have tipped the balance of responsibilities too far in the opposite direction. To be criminally liable under section 145, event organisers now have to know that they are taking risks with other people’s lives and take those risks regardless — a level of irresponsibility that we argue is detrimental to New Zealand recreation and society in that it may exclude behaviour which ought be discouraged by the criminal law. We favour a midpoint between mere negligence and recklessness: gross negligence. Event organisers, particularly those organising adventure recreation events, should face criminal prosecution if their behaviour constitutes a major departure from the behaviour expected of event organisers in general. As the law stands at present, event organisers may make gross errors, albeit unknowingly, and not face penalties under the Crimes Act. As an example, an organiser could unknowingly completely fail to warn participants of traffic conditions, or river conditions, then have a serious accident or fatality in their event and
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not be prosecuted for a crime. We cannot agree that this is a satisfactory state of affairs for New Zealand recreation. The recommendation made by Sir Duncan McMullen in 1995 in respect of section 145 was one pathway that could have been taken to remedy the problematically low bar to liability, but this pathway has been closed off by the Andersen Appeal decision. By making their interpretation of the statute, the Appeal Court judges have precluded the possibility of liability for gross negligence under section 145. As a challenge to their decision in the Supreme Court (the highest court in New Zealand) is unlikely, an act of Parliament to alter the wording of section 145 or to create separate legislation for recreation will be required to bring New Zealand law of criminal nuisance into line with what we argue is a reasonable level of culpability for recreation event organisers.
Conclusion In this paper we have argued that the New Zealand law regarding criminal nuisance and criminal negligence was too restrictive for sport and recreation until 2004 and is now not tough enough. We have taken a particular position on this issue for the purpose of engaging debate in an area of law that is becoming increasingly problematic for sport and recreation in New Zealand. We argue that New Zealand law was out of step with that of comparable countries, but we are not suggesting that New Zealand simply follow the law elsewhere. In the other common law jurisdictions of England, Canada and Australia mere carelessness and inadvertence are not culpable and there is more onus being placed on the participant and less on the organiser to take care and to assess the risk. The decision to change New Zealand law, however, should not be based on what the Australian, English and Canadian courts and parliaments are doing but on what is appropriate for New Zealand society and its sporting and recreational practices. If the threshold of criminal negligence is reduced to gross negligence or ‘major departure’, we suggest it will encourage careful management of sport and recreation provision and punish ‘sloppy’ management practice. It will require recreation managers to adhere to standards that are deemed acceptable by the society in which they operate and that change as that society changes. This will be in the best interests of sport and recreation, including adventure recreation, in New Zealand.
Cases R v Andersen [2003] DCR 506. R v Andersen, Unreported. (DC, Christchurch, T 021347, 29 August 2003, Judge TM Abbott).
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R v Andersen [2005] 1 NZLR 774 R v Mwai [1995] 3 NZLR 149 R v Yogasakaran [1990] 1 NZLR 399 R v. Tomasi. Unreported. (HC, Wellington, AP 255–97, 3 July 1998, Goddard J.) R v. Hare. Unreported. (HC, Hamilton, T 990677, July 20 1999, Penlington J.). See also: R v Hare, Unreported. (CA, CA332/99, 19 November 1999, Elias CJ, Keith and Pankhurst JJ).
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Websites: ‘Runnersweb’ (www.runnersweb.com), accessed 13 October 2003. Multisport Calendar for the South Island of New Zealand (w3.to/calendar), accessed 13 October 2003. Coast to Coast website (www.coasttocoast.co.nz/kayak_regs.htm), accessed 7 May 2004. Southern Traverse website (www.southerntraverse.com/southerntraverse/2004/2004_ event_info.html), accessed 7 May 2004. Tourism Research Council website (http://www.trcnz.govt.nz/Surveys/International+ Visitor+Survey/Data+and+Analysis/Table-Travel-Style-In-NZ.htm), accessed 25 April 2006.
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Annals of Leisure Research: Instructions for Authors Submission of articles Submission of a paper will be taken to imply that it presents original, unpublished work, not under consideration for publication elsewhere, and that the author agrees that the copyright is transferred to ANZALS if and when the paper is accepted for publication. Copyright covers the exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute the paper, including reprints, photographic reproductions, microfilm or any other reproduction of a similar nature, and translations. Articles should be submitted by email attachment or on disk, using Microsoft Word for Windows, Rich Text Format (IBM compatible) or ASCII, to the Managing Editor, Dr John Jenkins, at: John.Jenkins@scu.edu.au or School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Faculty of Business and Law, Southern Cross University, PO Box 157, Lismore NSW 2480, Australia.
Format Submissions should be in English, typed in A4 page format, with a 2.5cm margin all round, and in 12pt Times Roman font. Papers should normally be 5000–7000 words in length and should be accompanied by a 100–150 word abstract, setting out the objectives, methods and main findings of the paper. Shorter research notes of around 1000–2000 words and book reviews of around 600–1000 words are also accepted and longer review articles may be considered in consultation with the Editors. Sexist language should be avoided, as should jargon or highly specialised language where possible. All tables must be discussed in the text, not merely inserted. Each table/figure/illustration should be numbered and placed at the end of the text file or in a separate file; a clear note in the text should indicate the appropriate position. The author/date system is used for referencing. In the text, make reference to authors in the following manner: Greig (1982); (Glyptis and Chambers, 1982: 42–3). If there are more than two authors: Henderson et al. (1989). References should be collected at the end of the paper in alphabetical order, by the first author’s surname. If references to the same author have the same year, they should be differentiated by using 1990a, 1990b, etc. The style should follow the examples below. Rojek, C. (1995) Decentring Leisure: Rethinking Leisure Theory. London, Sage. Batten, J. (1989) Art and identity. In D. Novitz and B. Willmott (eds) Culture and Identity in New Zealand. Wellington, G.P. Books, 221–42. Hamilton-Smith, E. (1992) Work, leisure and optimal experience. Leisure Studies, 11(3), 243–56. Veal, A. J. & Toohey, K. (2003) The Olympic Games: A Bibliography. On-line Bibliography No. 5, School of Leisure, Sport &and Tourism, University of Technology, Sydney, available at: www.business.uts.edu.au/lst/research/bibs.html (Accessed Dec. 2004).
For further details please consult the ANZALS website at: www.anzals.org.au.
Annals of Leisure Research publishes refereed articles of a high standard which promote the development of research and scholarship in leisure studies. The journal is published by the Australian and New Zealand Association for Leisure Studies (ANZALS). Although originating in Australasia, Annals is aimed at an international readership, and seeks articles which cover any topic within the broad area of leisure studies, including outdoor recreation, tourism, the arts, entertainment, sport, culture and play, and which may be of a theoretical or applied nature. Managing Editor John Jenkins, Southern Cross University, Australia (Managing Editor) Co-Editors Coralie McCormack, University of Canberra, Australia Ian Patterson, University of Queensland, Australia (Reviews Editor) Editorial Advisory Board Cara Aitchison, University of the West of England, England Chris Auld, Griffith University, Australia Neil Carr, University of Otago, New Zealand Grant Cushman, Lincoln University, New Zealand Simon Darcy, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia Geoff Dickson, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand Teresa Freire, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal Karla Henderson, North Carolina State University, USA Kandy James, Edith Cowan University, Australia David Mercer, RMIT University, Australia Richard Pringle, University of Waikato, New Zealand (responsibility for postgraduate papers) David Rowe, University of Western Sydney, Australia Ruth Sibson, Edith Cowan University (responsibility for postgraduate papers) A.J. (Tony) Veal, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Volume 10, Number 1, 2007
In this issue Leisure, Recreation, and Adventure: A multidimensional relationship • Alan Ewert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 The Risk Management Paradox for Urban Recreation and Park Managers: Providing high risk recreation within a risk management context • Neil Lipscombe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Motivations of Baby Boomers to Participate in Adventure Tourism and the Implications for Adventure Tour Providers • Ian Patterson & Rebecca Pan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Capturing Adventure: Trading experiences in the symbolic economy • David McGillivray & Matt Frew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 From Low Jump to High Jump: Adventure recreation and the criminal law in New Zealand • Pip Lynch & Paul Jonson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Instructions for Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .104
ANNALS OF LEISURE RESEARCH | Volume 10, Number 1, 2007
Annals of Leisure Research