Organized adventure tourism. Psychosocial determinants of high risk travel services consumption
Risk is becoming increasingly important for contemporary societies. As risk awareness is growing, different strategies are employed both on individual and institutional level in order to mitigate various hazards. This paper focuses on a situation to some extent opposite, when through the process of commodification risk becomes a desirable object. Adventure tourism, a growing sector of travel industry, is examined as an example of the aforementioned process. Different perspectives explaining voluntary consumption of risky activities are given. Inconsistency between presenting adventure tourism services as activities associated with risk and requirement to provide safe environment for adventure tourists is analyzed. Sociological perspective is employed to examine the benefits of participating in high risk travel activities.