Subject Guide

Niche national tourism strategies with a global sphere of influence, including adventure tourism, movie location tourism and heritage tourism.


What is niche tourism?

Niche tourism refers to a type of specialty tourism that focuses on a specific concept or topic. This can be food, sports, sex, war or wildlife tourism. Each of these tours will focus on their individual concepts. (https://www.quora.com/What-is-niche-tourism)

In tourism, a niche is a specialised corner of the tourism market, usually developed around visitors’ particular interests or needs. (www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/niche-tourism-opportunities).

There are many examples of niche tourism. Just a few of them are:
  1. Adventure tourism
  2. Movie location tourism
  3. Heritage tourism
  4. Art tourism
  5. Wine tourism
  6. Golf tourism
  7. Tribal tourism
  8. Nature tourism
  9. Voluntourism
  10. ​Trekking 


Niche tourism as a national development strategy

Brainstorm other niche tourism activities. From your list suggest those which you think have the potential to be part of a national development strategy. Justify your response.

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Adventure tourism: New Zealand

Make notes (not copy & paste) from the four pages on Adventure Tourism under the following headings (opportunity for collaboration!):

1. How Adventure Travel Works (P.1)
2. Profile of an Adventure Traveler (P.2) - how does this connect to personal participation 
3. Examples of Adventure Tour Organisations (P.3)
4. More Adventures (P.4)

Now watch the first 6 minutes of the video Adrenaline Nation.
  • ​What are the activities mentioned for NZ?

​Visit the website below and briefly outline the range of activities that are marketed to visitors to New Zealand. What social and environmental factors make NZ attractive to adventure tourists?
Use the data below to explain the importance of tourism to the New Zealand economy.
How has adventure tourism contributed to this?
Picture
From https://www.wttc.org/-/media/files/reports/economic-impact-research/countries-2017/newzealand2017.pdf


Movie Location Tourism: Northern Ireland

We have already studied the Dark Hedges as an example of a small scale rural tourism hotspot. Northern Ireland's tourism market has gained a huge amount from movie location based upon Game of Thrones which is filmed in various locations and from other movies and TV series. Read this article carefully and answer the questions below:
  • What are the Northern Irish locations associated with Game of Thrones?
  • Which other movie based on true life events has driven tourism in NI?
  • What is it about Northern Irish history that has made tourism so important as a development strategy?


Heritage tourism: India

Briefly scroll through the videos below promoting tourism in India. Comment on the range of "heritage" destinations and give some examples of famous heritage destinations in India.

Heritage tourism is about the cultural heritage of a country or destination. This means it is about more than simply visiting old buildings, temples, palaces, art galleries, monuments etc. It can also be about visiting particular locations to "experience" the culture - the "Bali vibe", people wearing kilts and playing bagpipes in Scotland, people watching in Gangnam, attending a Toraja funeral.
What are the likely costs and benefits of heritage tourism? Classify into SEEP.

The video below outlines one strategy to help preserve heritage sites in India. Briefly outline how the strategy aims to work: