Development of Adventure Tourism and Its Increasing Significance in Nature Based Tourism: Case Study of Himachal Pradesh

Open Access

Abstract

Adventure Tourism is mainly seen as thrilling activities tourism such as mountaineering, trekking, sailing, white water rafting, angling, ballooning, parachuting so on and so forth. Easy accessibilities of the communication gadgets and cheep data usages have allowed every second person to check out the desired destination and plan the holidays. Therefore, adventure Tourism is becoming most favorite task for the younger generations, who wants to venture into and experience the unknown adventure world. Adventure tourism involves travel and leisure activities pursued with the expectation that they will produce a rewarding, adventurous experience. Adventure tourism can be defined as travel to a destination to participate in adventurous activities in a natural environment. Two categories of adventure are distinguished, namely soft and hard adventure. Soft adventure includes activities such as bird-watching, hiking, camping horseback riding etc., and it requires relatively little physical skill and little or no experience. Hard adventure includes activities such as rock climbing, mountaineering, survival games caving etc. Hard adventure has high levels of risk and participants are more likely to engage in physically and mentally challenging outdoor activities. In this paper an attempt has been made to define the adventure tourism in simple way, also attempt has been made to discuss adventure tourism in India and the products offered by the tourism industry in Himachal Pradesh, its scope and government efforts to boost this sector of tourism in India.