Adventurous femininities: The value of adventure for women travelers

Abstract

Adventure tourism has become a diverse and lucrative industry but is continually portrayed and advertised through its reflection of masculinity. Guided by the lack of studies on women in adventure tourism, the aim of this study is to examine behavioral diversity, the value gained from adventure experience, and the masculinity and femininity of female adventure tourists. A snowball sample of 420 female adventure tourists was collected through utilizing an internet-based survey methodology. Three clusters of women were identified based on their femininity and masculinity scores; Normatively Masculine Adventurers, Androgynous Adventurers, and Normatively Feminine Adventurers. Novel to this study is the validation of an integrated measurement of experiential value and that adventure tourism provides a spectrum of intrinsic and extrinsic value to women participants, most notably emotional value and functional value. Androgynous Adventurers in particular received stronger value experiences. These findings demonstrate that gender-aware tourism can inform and direct how adventure tourism can be advertised and marketed to women.