Connecting destinations to information: the Adventure Travel Development Index Philippe Duverger, PhD Towson University PATA, Luoyang 2017
Is travelling to LUOYANG an adventure?
What is Adventure?
What is Adventure?
Definition of Adventure Travel (1) From Merriam-Webster: ad ven ture noun \əd-ˈven-chər\ : an exciting or dangerous experience 1: danger or excitement a : an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks b : the encountering of risks <the spirit of adventure> 2: an exciting or remarkable experience <an adventure in exotic dining> 3: an enterprise involving financial risk
Definition of Adventure Travel (2) From the Adventure Travel Trade Association: The ATTA defines a trip as adventure travel if it involves two of the following three elements, with the core of an adventure trip involving all three: connection with nature interaction with culture a physical activity
Academic definition(s) of adventure travel (3) The sum of the phenomena and relationships arising from the interactions of adventure touristic activities with the natural environment away from the participant's usual residence area and containing elements of risk in which the outcome is influenced by the participation, setting, and the organizer of the tourist's experience (Sung, 1996). A trip or travel with the specific purpose of activity participation to explore a new experience, often involving perceived risk or controlled danger associated with personal challenges, in a natural environment or exotic outdoor setting. (Sung, et al., 1997)
Adventure is on a continuum Hill, 1995 Soft Adventure: high perceived risk, low level of actual risk, minimal commitment and beginning skills, guided Hard Adventure: high level of actual risk, intense commitment and advanced skills
ATDI Purpose A tool that could assist national governments in the identification, development and management of an alternative tourism strategy for the destination, A support for destination branding and consumer communication (beyond just the wealthiest of countries).
The focus of ATDI is to develop a means of measuring the competitive advantage a country might have in a specific niche area of adventure travel.
Developing the ADTI : 2 phases Phase 1 A modified Delphi method (Brown, 1968): a panel of industry experts, researchers, and tourism destination consultants Phase 2 Purpose was to develop a set of pillars representing the different aspects of adventure from a destination point of view.
ATDI 10 Pillars Sustainable Development Policies Entrepreneurship Image & Marketing Humanitarian Safety Health Cultural Resources Adventure Activity Resources Natural Resources Infrastructure
ATDI Methodology Existing Data (21 indicators) The pillars were matched with variables extracted from well-known databases (e.g., World Bank database, World Health Organization, World Resources Institute) Expert Surveys (460 T.O., Travel experts, writers) Using ATTA mailing list of adventure experts, surveys were collected ranking 200 countries on five attributes (safety and security, cultural resources, natural resources, adventure destination, appropriate infrastructure for adventure travel. A 7-point likert scale (-3 very poor 3 very good) was used for all measures. Agreement between experts was calculated using intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC). All ICC above.84 (Shrout and Fleiss, 1979).
ATDI Methodology Within each pillar several measures gathered from different databases had to be normalized (using the spread between country with the smallest value and the one with largest and a scale of 1 to 10) Then, a combined pillar index was calculated by averaging the normalized measures together in order to obtain a pillar index on a scale of 1 to 10. Overall 191 countries are ranked in the ADTI
10 Pillars 3 factors ATDI Methodology ATDI per Country Groups 28 developed countries 163 developing countries Safe and Welcoming Adventure Readiness Sustainability Safety Health Natural Resources Adventure Resources Entrepreneurship Humanitarian Infrastructure Cultural Resources Brand Image
First Report 2009 +Coastline +nurses/midwives
Validity of the ATDI Content validity (the adequacy in which the domain is captured by the measure, Churchill, 1991). Expert Assessment Discriminant validity with existing country level measures pertaining to tourism was important Different than WEF
Convergence Validity A survey among 855 randomly chosen consumers part of an online panel Name the last three destination they went to visit, and their perception of the level adventureness that these travel trips had. The responses were ranked ordered in order to obtain the most visited and highest adventure destination. A non-parametric Wilcoxon signed rank test between the ATDI ranking for developed countries and the consumer survey ranking showed insignificant difference (z=-.76, p=.446) confirming a strong convergence
Comparison WEF T&TCR 141 Economies (China, HK, Taiwan) 90 indicators ATDI 191 Countries (China includes HK and Taiwan) 25 Indicators 14 Pillars Countries all ranked as 1 group 10 Pillars into 3 Groups (Factors) Developed and Developing Countries grouping (UNWTO)
Regional Rankings
Regional Rankings
Examples of Use of the ATDI Greenland: Made a strategic shift towards adventure around 2011. Traditional source markets (Denmark / Germany) had slowed down. They targeted the high value low impact (low volume) adventure tourist Used a Custom ATDI to identify where they were weak and where they were strong.
Greenland Vs. Competition Country Sustainabl e Developm ent Safety Health Natural Resources Safe & Welcoming factor Adventure Activity Resources Entrepren eurship Adventure factor Humanita rian Cultural Resources Infrastruct ure Image Readiness factor ADTI score RAW rank dev'ed rank dev'ing Iceland 9.41 8.73 6.00 7.35 1 9.02 8.70 2 4.05 4.58 8.40 9.29 13 16 23.16 2 Norway 8.84 8.65 4.91 7.30 4 7.75 8.25 16 3.84 5.28 8.17 9.18 11 31 22.30 8 Denmark 8.16 9.15 4.29 6.38 12 7.93 9.14 5 3.73 4.69 6.64 5.71 25 42 21.33 16 Chile 7.90 7.70 2.49 7.21 16 7.61 9.07 5 3.53 5.27 6.66 9.55 29 50 21.65 3 Greenland Out of 28 7.63 7.45 6.00 6.84 13 7.80 6.94 24 3.28 5.46 4.50 7.00 27 64 19.41 25 Greenland Out of 163 1 58 88 147 37 Criteria EPI CPI Hospital beds Density endanger EFI NGO Heritage Unemploy ment FCO Physician Coast/are a forest HPI Protected Ae Survey Survey Survey Survey Survey Survey Source Direct Mixed Direct Direct Inferred Direct Direct Direct
Examples of Use of the ATDI Norway: ATTA created a report on their standing in the ATDI compared to countries they compete with for adventure tourists (New Zealand, Switzerland and Iceland) Recommendations for how to increase their ATDI score. What the study revealed is Norways' weakest point is its support of entrepreneurs (because of high tax burden), Recommendations on how to support adventure entrepreneurs.
Peru: Examples of Use of the ATDI PromPeru needed to understand size of adventure market And its strategic position with respect to competition ATDI and other analyses were undertaken
Evidence of link to arrivals A 10% increase in Peru Adventure Attractiveness (ATDI) would result in an increase of 14% in Tourism Arrivals
Questions?
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