Mountaineering Tourism: A Critical Perspective

This book offers a critical account of the historical evolution of mountaineering and its relation to the phenomenon of tourism, providing an overview of recent developments linked to the diversification, commodification and commercialisation of mountaineering activity. Mountaineering, broadly defined as hiking, trekking and climbing, is now a mass phenomenon, with continually growing numbers of trekkers, climbers and religious tourists hiking in mountain regions. Increasing visitor numbers require the current policies to be updated. The environments around high-mountain areas and their local resident communities, until recently cut off from civilisation, are sensitive to outside influences and have been abruptly exposed to the impact of mountaineering and related activities. This is the first book to disentangle overlapping terms and definitions related to mountaineering tourism. It identifies the key terms and turning points in mountaineering tourism and discusses the impacts of mountaineering tourism from an environmental, socio-cultural and personal perspective and identifies current tourism management policies. Finally, this book provides a continuum between the past and future of mountaineering tourism and aims to provide policy suggestions for sustainable management of fragile mountain regions. This will be of great interest to upper-level students and academics of tourism, as well as industry representatives and policymakers with an interest in adventure tourism and mountaineering.