Ecotourism and Adventure Activities Courses

THIS COURSE HAS RECENTLY BEEN EXPANDED AND IS NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE!

Expand your knowledge and ability to manage and plan adventure tourism services.

This exciting course covers the scope and nature of adventure tourism in today's market and looks at the sources and types of opportunities available within this fast growing industry. Other topics include: outdoor adventure and management training, the customer, artificial environments, supply, geography, sustainability, and environmental impacts. This course develops a capacity to plan and manage the provision of adventure tourism services.

Adventure Tourism is a term that is not easily defined. For one thing, different people will have different ideas of what is “adventure”. For one person, “adventure” may be something as simple as camping outside in a tent, or walking through a wilderness area for an hour. For another, this would be considered passive tourism or exercise, whereas adventure would mean participating in dangerous and physically (also maybe emotionally) challenging activities, such as climbing a sheer rock face or white water rafting in dangerous rapids. Traditionally, adventure tourism has been perceived to be a younger person’s activity. In recent years, however, older people are keen to enjoy new experiences once their children have left home. The degree of challenge desired may be quite different. Some will balk at undertaking potentially dangerous activities like walking on a rope bridge across a deep ravine, and find a trek through the jungle at ground level sufficiently challenging. Some will find another’s ‘adventure’ decidedly unpleasant, disagreeable, foolishly reckless, traumatic or boring. It is clear that adventure tourism has no distinct boundaries.

Don't be a statistic. Learn how to survive in the wild!

Whether on day or overnight trips, whenever a group goes on a trip into natural areas they need to be prepared, and led by someone who has an adequate level of survival skills.  In Australia every week there are reports of individuals and groups missing in the wilderness, often quite close to help.  Sometimes these events are fatal, but they don't need to be.

This course builds an understanding of the things you are likely to confront when you leave civilisation; and provides a foundation for preparing yourself and those who accompany you for any excursion into a natural area.  This course is valuable to people who may have a recreational interest in wilderness exploration, orienteers, tour guides, scout leaders, or ecotour business owners.

Topics covered include: wilderness areas, emergency situations, camping, navigation, natural resources, equipment, protection from the elements and many activities.

Expand your horizons, learn about managing ecotourism.

Tourism has become a boom industry in recent times and a major employer of recreationists in the country. Ecotourism has emerged out of a growing interest in outdoor adventure activities - from mountaineering to low impact bushwalking. 

Establishing such an enterprise requires an understanding of a wide range of issues including: legal considerations, safety, accommodation, the tour desk as a first point of contact, destinations, and management. This course develops your ability to establish and operate an ecotourism enterprise.  

Learn to conduct guided tours, overnight walks and treks, or self guided interpretive walks. Ecotourism is an industry that has developed hugely in recent years. It reflects both of the aims of modern conservation: management of resources and protection of the environment. Modern ecotourism strives to be sustainable, so that the activities that are taking place can continue to do so.  This course will introduce you to aspects of ecotourism such as guiding environmental awareness, planning tours,displays and interpretive aids, plant and animal interpretation.

ECOTOURISM is the combination of two words ECOLOGY and TOURISM. Ecology relates to the study or understanding of complex relationships in the natural world. Flora, fauna, soils, air, water and yes, even people are just some of the factors involved in interacting with one another. The nature of the relationship can be positive, negative or a combination of these or in rare instances of no consequence whatsoever. Often the long term effects will not be readily obvious, it is for this reason that management principles are so important in this developing industry. The direction ecotourism takes will be primarily up to the people who are involved at all levels of its implementation. Poor management will result in lost resources and ultimately a failed industry.

Comment from one of our Ecotourism students:  "I am learning so much" J. Alderton