Social Media as an Important Channel for Adventure Travelers

Cecilia Garland - Jan 27, 2014
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Many travelers take their holiday seriously and try to find as much information as possible. Adventure tourists are no exception. Most of them have openly admitted to spending a great deal of time conducting searches relevant to their scheduled trips as well as actively following up plans likely to make their travel experiences more adventurous. The Adventure Tourism Market Study 2013 stated that the most preferred form of pre-trip preparation included online searches or consulting one’s family and friends’. Only 12% of adventure travelers failed to prepare for their trips compared to the 23% for non-adventure travelers.

Remarkably, 68% of adventure travelers are on record for having made advance plans for their trips at least four months before the date of departure with an estimated 12% confirming having made plans less than a month before their departure.

The relatively high number of adventure travelers conducting online searches is a clear indicator of the importance of maintaining a very strong web presence and a proper online marketing strategy for destinations and businesses focusing on adventure tourism market.

Moreover, a good number of adventure travelers also take advantage of social media as well. This is clearly evident from the fact that an estimated 78% of adventure travelers have confirmed links to social media such as Facebook. Apart from Facebook, a good number of adventure travelers are also active on YouTube, Twitter, Google+ etc. “Orkut” for instance, though declining social networking site that is very popular in Brazil, was reportedly used by 21% of adventure travelers from South America. It was however not widely used in Europe or North America.

Records show that North America had a greater percentage of adventure travelers who used Pinterest compared to the number of those who used it from Europe or South America. However, only 2 percent of adventure travelers from South America had absolutely no social media presence.

Adventure travelers are emerging as very important promoters of fun activities and top getaway destinations. A whopping 81% of the total number of adventure travelers admitted to having been referred by friends and family. They admitted their appreciation and comfort for the role technology has on their trips. In fact, most of them said that they would openly recommend a trip to others through social media once they get back home. On the other hand, only 23% of non-adventure travelers admitted to be willing to recommend a trip to others by making posts on social media once they get home.

Adventure travelers were also found to be willing to recommend trips by posting positive reviews on high profiling travel websites. In fact, 18% of adventure travelers said that they would make recommendations for similar trips by putting up positive reviews. This is very encouraging compared to the 8% of non-adventure traveler believed to have the same mindset.

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