The Adventure Travel Trade Association has been involved in original and collaborative research since 2006 as part of our mission to educate and professionalize the adventure travel industry. In May 2014 the ATTA launched an online research center to highlight reports and make them available for download. We’re featuring two reports this month that we think are particularly valuable to the industry: the 2014 Industry Snapshot, which is our newest bit of research, and the 2013 Adventure Tourism Market Study, which is being offered for 33% off now through July 9.
Industry Snapshot
Each year the ATTA invites adventure businesses to share anonymous information about their companies and we use that data to compile our Industry Snapshot. For our most recent report, we surveyed over 600 tour operators in 69 countries to create this comprehensive industry outlook.
The ATTA’s Industry Snapshot is a health check of the adventure travel industry with vital signs including:
- Financial: Gross revenue for adventure travel companies is up 21% over 2013 on average; 71% of companies expect another increase for 2014
- Operations: Industry-wide most companies added staff to the areas of Sales & Operations; 51% of companies now offer online booking
- Marketing: High performance companies spent more than twice as much on marketing than the average tour operator; leading outbound markets are North American and Europe
- Trends: 53% of adventure travelers are women, which is up 2% from last year; demand for more soft adventure and family trips
Adventure Tourism Market Study
Last year while we were surveying companies for our Industry Snapshot, we published the Adventure Tourism Market Study. This study was a follow-up to a our 2009 research, which serves as a benchmark for seeing how the industry has changed. Growth in the adventure travel market has accelerated at a 65 percent yearly rate since 2009, according to the study, which also estimates the value of the global outbound adventure travel sector to be US$263 billion, excluding airfare, up from US$89 billion first reported in the benchmark consumer study.
The Adventure Tourism Market Study is extremely useful for destinations and adventure operators seeking to enhance their offerings and better understand their target market. Additional highlights include:
- Adventure travelers are younger than non-adventure travelers, with an average age of 36;
- Nearly 54 percent of travelers plan to participate in an adventure activity on their next trip, compared to the 42 percent of travelers currently participating in adventure activities. The increase in interest comes largely from soft adventure activities;
- 45 percent of adventure travelers plan on using a tour operator on their next trip, compared to only 31 percent of non-adventure travelers;
- The percentage of adventure travelers using Facebook (78 percent) has more than doubled since 2009.
Knowing that the data in our original research are valuable to the entire industry, research reports are available to organizations who are interested in exploring the benefits of ATTA membership before making an annual commitment.
We invite you to browse our entire collection of research reports online at http://www.adventuretravel.biz/research.