The Emperor's New Adventure: Public Secrecy and the Paradox of Adventure Tourism

This study suggests that successful commercial adventure tourism requires the construction of a "public secret"-something commonly known but not articulated-whereby tourists are able to maintain the contradictory perceptions that they are simultaneously safe and at risk. Previous research has observed that adventure tourism appears to embody a paradox in its attempt to deliver a planned, controlled version of an activity usually defined as dangerous and unpredictable. In order to explain how adventure tourism can succeed despite this paradox, researchers suggested that providers emphasize one aspect of the paradox ( risk or safety) while concealing the other. By contrast, the author contends that providers attempt to sell both risk and safety simultaneously, a situation sustained by the fact that the inconsistency between these images, while openly displayed, remains veiled by public secrecy. The author illustrates this analysis through ethnographic research undertaken on whitewater rafting trips in California and Chile.