The case for bringing adventure back into adventure travel
Photo Credit: Stockhorn, at the height of 2190 meters, is the highest peak of the Stockhorn Range in Switzerland. Flickr.com / Michael Groove
Skift Take
Europe pioneered adventure travel, and now as it teeters in these recessionary times with declining tourism prospects, it needs to bring that original adventure spirit back if it wants legions of Asian and American tourists to keep coming.
Author and adventure travel pioneer Richard Bangs gave this keynote below at the European Travel Commission’s 2013 Transatlantic Conference in New York City earlier in the week, about the history of adventure travel in Europe and why we need to bring the real sense of adventure back into travel in a recession-prone Europe, which also speaks to larger issues of sanitization of tourism on a broader level. We have reprinted his keynote with permission.
I once ran with the bulls of Pamplona...by mistake, involuntarily. I was at Microsoft, where we were developing a new travel product that would become Expedia, and we had the idea to use a new web technology called Live Chat to convey from the field the adventure of travel. I had the idea that I would cover the running of the bulls by standing in a doorway on the route of the stampede, and report live what was happening. But when the canon went off, a river of people charged down the street, and scooped me out of the doorway and into
