Fatalities and injuries among the adventure tourist in New Zealand negatively impact tourism in the country. The absence of documented statistics of deaths and injury of tourist in New Zealand brings us to the question; how safe is adventure tourism in New Zealand? The aim of the research is to establish incidences of injuries among the tourist. Adventure tourism carries some risks. However, tourist have absolute right for measures to be put in place to prevent avoidable risks. Adventure in New Zealand have a dark side, as most of the adventure sites have reported tragedies. Majority of which go unrecorded. In 2009 the Labour department indicated that majority of the operators were responsible; they understand that safety of the clients solely lies on them. However, risk management framework was needed to be put in place. Operators have been part of the ongoing changes (Barker, & Page 2012).
Adventure tourism contributes a lot to the GDP of New Zealand. It earned the country approximately $9.8 billion last year (Mansfeld, & Pizam, 2009). Adventure tourism requires one to have strength so as to carry out a certain activity. The rapid growth in adventure tourism has helped to boost the image of New Zealand .Some of the adventure activities include;
Safety and risks forms a major part of the adventure tourism literature. According to (Slovic, 2009) acceptance of risk is high if one is carrying out risk activity voluntarily. For instance, research carried out by ( Bentley,2010) shows that participants do not take some activities as high risk despite the same activities being categorized as high risk by the statistics conducted before. According to (Chalmers 2009) most horse riding accidents were very common among individuals of age 40 and above. Risk forms major part of adventure tourism. Risks in this sector is real, and without safety management in place, it can lead to tragedy. Accidents and adventure are two most investigated things in recreation and adventure tourism. There exist an optimal level of risk that brings satisfaction in adventure. Tourist have big interest in events which can bring about the rush of adrenaline through their body and mind, (Oppermann, 2017). It is possible to come up with activities that have a minimal risk. However, in many cases, they are assumed to be more risky than they are actually are.
Despite tourism organizations highlighting the significance of wellbeing and safety of travelers and tourist, the subject have been majorly ignored and paid little attention. The types of thrilling experiences subjected to tourist, are in most cases located in environment with plenty of real hazards. The hazards have huge potential of causing deaths and severe accidents. How people manage their safety during adventure has not been given the much needed attention by the safety management and tourism researchers (Glaesser, 2016). Safety is an important thing to be undertaken when being involved in adventure activities.
Last minute booking.
A large number of tourist go for last minute bookings, these can compromise their safety in a situation where prior security arrangements is needed in the destination (Glaesser, 2016).
Personalized services
Personalized services is now an emerging trend. For instance, a number of hotels now have voice activated doors to hotel rooms, these ensures security of the guests (Oppermann, 2017).
Leveraging technology
Improvements in technology impacts on tourism and hospitality, it helps enhance experience of tourist.
Gaps in hospitality
Security concerns
The safety of travelers still remain a problem in the hospitality industry, accidents and injury is more often reported among travelers. Proper mechanism need to be put in place to arrest the worsening situation( Pizam, & Mansfeld,2014)..
Service gap
Many hospitality sectors do not deliver up to the standard services as expected by the clients. Poor services is till common in hospitality.
Adventure tourism has helped improved the image of New Zealand globally. The country continue to experience a tremendous growth in the industry since 1992.New Zealand came into limelight following media exposure of accidents among the adventure tourist(Kane,& Tucker,2014).New Zealand is well known for adventure activities. Adventure involves engaging in physical activities that make adrenaline rush.
A questionnaire was given to 300 businesses involved in adventure tourism in South and Northern part of New Zealand. The sample indicates a representation of main regions of New Zealand where adventure tourism is the main business. The database of the operators was obtained from different sources, among them database of Tourism council in New Zealand ,brochures, flyers, tourist guides, fliers promoting tourism operations among other publications.21 different operators representing varied activities in the adventure tourism sector were surveyed as indicated in Table 1.Questionaires were formulated in a way that it would give information about operator’s accident experience; Injuries suffered by their customers while partaking in the events they provide and also the possible causes of incidents and accidents involving the customers ( Pizam, & Mansfeld,2014).
The first questions sought information about the sample characteristics which included the size, nature, age and the locality of the business, and operator work experience. Respondents were then questioned about the number of minor and serious injuries documented in their records within the last 12 months. The serious injuries were assumed to be fatalities or cases that lead to being hospitalized for 2 days or more, while the minor ones were treated as bruises or minor cuts that does not require one to be in hospital for more than 2days.Operators were also interrogated about the cases of accidents and injury types encountered by their customers and finally to provide a list of the more common equipment, clients, management and environment related causes of injuries and accidents. An analysis of data was undertaken using SPSS (Wilks, Stephen,& Moore, 2013).
Table 1
|
Environment |
Activity sector |
Percentage of sample |
Number of operators |
|
Water-based |
Black-water rafting |
2 |
3 |
|
Diving |
3 |
4 |
|
|
Fishing |
1 |
2 |
|
|
Jet boating |
3.5 |
5 |
|
|
Kayaking |
17 |
24 |
|
|
Marine encounter |
5 |
7 |
|
|
Wind surfing |
2 |
3 |
|
|
White-water rafting |
7 |
10 |
|
|
Subtotal |
42 |
61 |
|
|
Lands-based |
All-terrain vehicles |
3.5 |
5 |
|
Adventure education |
3 |
4 |
|
|
Bungy jumping |
3.5 |
5 |
|
|
Caving |
1 |
2 |
|
|
Mountain biking |
3.5 |
5 |
|
|
Eco tours |
6 |
9 |
|
|
Guided walk |
10 |
15 |
|
|
Horse riding |
7 |
10 |
|
|
Mountain recreation |
8 |
11 |
|
|
Quad biking |
2 |
3 |
|
|
Subtotal |
48 |
70 |
|
|
Aviation |
Ballooning |
2 |
3 |
|
Parasailing or skydiving |
2 |
3 |
|
|
Scenic flight |
6 |
9 |
|
|
subtotal |
10 |
15 |
|
|
Total |
100 |
142 |
When carrying out research, it was important to inform the businesses that their identities were not going to be revealed. Tourist safety being a sensitive issue, many of the business were not willing to share sensitive information concerning the safety of their clients. However, with persuasion, they were able to give records of their customer’s injuries. They were also able to give a breakdown of activities most clients are involved in, including the ones which have recorded serious injuries of even death.
47 percent of adventure tourism in New Zealand returned fully answered questionnaires, which is an encouraging results for a survey involving a very sensitive subject. The remaining anonymous factor contributed to the positive response rate. There were no significant difference in response rates for location of business or activity.89% of the respondents who filled the questionnaire were individuals who solely own or jointly own adventure business with the remaining 9% being the nonowner managers and 2% employees.95% of the adventure business surveyed were either jointly or individually owned and hosted 516,722 clients in 1998.With the number of clients being involved in individual operation being 10 to 35000, for the major activities offered by the business ( Zealand,2012). Most of the clients were non-locals but instead visitors from overseas. Table illustrates the distribution of the activities. They are put under three main categories water-based, aviation and land-based.
Land-based is the most common activity among the business surveyed, it comprised of 48% of the operators, and water-based activities accounted for 42% and 10% being aviation related activities. Over a third of surveyed operators had been involved in business for more than 10 years, while 20% having been in business for less than 5 years. Indicating how fast is tourism sector growing. A significant percentage (33%) of business interviewed had two or one full time employees, while 12% of them hand over 10 full time staff. Businesses with lowest full time employees were from fishing, quad biking, carving, and wind surfing and eco tours. Most of the activities involved jet boating, rafting, and bung jumping (Board, 2016).
Survey covered breadth and length of South and North Islands of New Zealand. Although it was discovered that there are seven other main adventure centers which include; Auckland, North Island, Marlborough, Rotorua, Wanaka, Queenstown, and Canterbury. Interestingly, respondents from Fiordland and Mount Cook were also included. Main adventure activities in Northland was found to be diving, with horse riding common in Northland; Marlborough.142 businesses surveyed recorded a total of 379 injuries, giving injury rate of 0.74 in every 1000 customers.55% of the operators recorded not a single injury of any sort for the previous year, whereas 15% indicated 1 injury and 11% of them reported 2 injuries (Page, Bentley & Walker, 2015).0 to 33 number of clients were reported injured. The numbers shows the serious underreporting injuries by the clients. Other reporting indicates that minor injuries is common in adventure tourism in New Zealand. Only 13 out of 379 accidents reported indicating 3.4% of individuals involved in serious injuries.54% of the serious injuries involved those clients who were involved in water-based activities (Hall,2014). The statistics indicates that the serious injuries is not common in commercial adventure tourism. However, every activity has a certain risk degree, risks being greater in some( Ryan, & Kohli,2013).
There is a serious case of clients not reporting injuries. Tourist should be enlightened on the significance of reporting accidents. Since tourist involved in water activities recorded a high number of injuries, safety should then be improved on those involved in water-based adventure.
Conclusion and Recommendation
New Zealand is not very safe for tourist; there is a significant number of improvements that need to be made. Risk management framework should be put in place; tourist should also be equipped with safety skills before adventure. Tourist should also be encouraged to report any injury.
References
Barker, M., & Page, S. J. (2012). Visitor safety in urban tourism environments: The case of Auckland, New Zealand. Cities, 19(4), 273-282.
Bentley, T. A., & Page, S. J. (2010). Scoping the extent of adventure tourism accidents. Annals of Tourism Research, 28(3), 705-726.
Board, N. Z. T. (2016). New Zealand international visitors survey. New Zealand Tourism Board, Wellington.
Chalmers, I., & Glasziou, P. (2009). Avoidable waste in the production and reporting of research evidence. The Lancet, 374(9683), 86-89.
Glaesser, D. (2016). Crisis management in the tourism industry. Routledge.
Hall, C. M. (2014). Small firms and wine and food tourism in New Zealand: Issues of collaboration, clusters and lifestyles. In Small firms in tourism (pp. 167-181).
Mansfeld, Y., & Pizam, A. (Eds.). (2009). Tourism, security and safety. Routledge.
Oppermann, M. (2017). First-time and repeat visitors to New Zealand. Tourism management, 18(3), 177-181.
Page, S. J., Bentley, T., & Walker, L. (2015). Tourist safety in New Zealand and Scotland. Annals of Tourism Research, 32(1), 150-166.
Pizam, A., & Mansfeld, Y. (2014). Tourism, crime, and international security issues. John Wiley & Son Ltd.
Ryan, C., & Kohli, R. (2013). The Buried village, New Zealand–An example of dark tourism?. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 11(3), 211-226.
Slovic, P. (2009). The perception of risk: Risk, society and policy. London (UK): Earthscan, 473.
Wilks, J., Stephen, J., & Moore, F. (Eds.). (2013). Managing tourist health and safety in the new millennium. Routledge.
Zealand, S. N. (2012). Tourism satellite account: 2012. Retrived from https://www. stats. govt. nz/browse for stats/industrv sectors/Tourism/tourism-satellite-account2013/summary- results. aspx.
Kane, M. J., & Tucker, H. (2014). Adventure tourism: The freedom to play with reality. Tourist studies, 4(3), 217-234.
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