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Is New Zealand Extreme Travel Getting Too Extreme?

January 14, 2010 at 12:32 PM | by | Comment (1)

In the US, rescuers have been complaining about "Yuppie 911." This happens when inexperienced urban hikers try to rough it and discover that nature is actually kind of brutal, so they use their personal locator beacons to call in helicopters because their water tastes salty (sweat) or because they heard a loud noise (thunderstorm). The underlying problem is that adventure tourists often simply don't realize what they're getting into.

In New Zealand their extreme travel tourism problems are less humorous and, at least recently, more tragic. The April 2008 death of Emily Jordan, a 21 year old who was killed in a river boarding accident, triggered a review of the entire industry. Now a new UK group, led by Emily's father, is demanding that the government take steps in the meantime to make adventure tourism safer:

The campaign group specifically wants changes to health and safety rules to prevent similar tragedies... Mr Jordan acknowledged a Government review of the adventure tourism industry was underway, but told Radio New Zealand that changes needed to be made in the meantime to prevent further tragedies. 'There will be new sports and they will be set up on a continual basis, and they need control before something like the situation that happened to Emily takes place. There is, as I see it, nothing to prevent that from happening,' he told Radio New Zealand. Mr Jordan said he hoped the loss of one of his family members could help prevent future deaths.

It's natural for people to try to find meaning in their grief. It's what humans do and its exactly why you often hear lines like "her death might save others." People take an awful situation and try to make it a little better, and that's understandable and even a little admirable.

All of that said, we're not sure that demanding changes right this minute is a realistic solution. The entire point of extreme travel is that it moves people out of their safety zone. That will always carry risks. It seems a little paradoxical to take adventures and make them safe.

What do you think? Should New Zealand be keeping closer tabs on adventure tourism? Or do we just have to learn to live with freak accidents and tragedies, which after all will always be part of venturing out into nature?

[Photo: Zaqrfv / Wiki Commons]

Related Stories:
· Group targets New Zealand adventure tourism [Stuff.co.nz]
· Adventure Tourism [Jaunted]
· New Zealand Travel [Jaunted]

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Skiing is an extreme sport

I skied for the first time last weekend, and the first thing I had to do was sign a form relieving the ski hill of liability in case of injury or death. Skiers understand this. They accept that speeding downhill carries a risk of tragedy. Thinking that rafting or rappelling or skydiving is any different should be criteria for a Darwin Award nomination.
Roberto Rocha on January 18, 2010 at 7:10 PM #Permalink

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