Representations of gendered stereotypes in promotional materials related to Adventure Tourism Brochures.

This paper focuses on representations within the Adventure tourism industry, specifically looking at gender and how this is characterised within the industries operating brochures. In order to do this, images on the covers and within 4 popular brochures will be analysed, against Goffman’s visibility framework.

Key words: Brochures; Gender representations; Equality; Adventure tourism

The aim of this study is to explore gender representation and identify if there is a bias approach in promotional imagery, towards a particular gender, specifically within adventure tourism. However, whilst the work focuses on gender, there is a recognition of absence relating to age and disability. Though the topic of gender has been chosen as there is general consensus within society, that Adventure tourism is linked more closely to the male gender. This paper aims to underpin whether this idea is justified. Particularly, the paper further explores whether Adventure tourism operators could be lacking inclusion for certain types of customers when advertising images for their products (Lee, Fernandez, and Martin 2002). This topic has also been overlooked in tourism research more specifically towards the Adventure tourism sector. Although some efforts have been made by authors who have researched the representatives in promotional material specific to gender such as; Goffman (1979), Pritchard and Morgan (2000) and Pritchard (2001). Though it seems there is a lack of academic research post 2001, in comparison to the aforementioned authors.

The Adventure tourism market has been emerging amongst travellers over the past decade due to more individuals wanting to participate in physical and exciting activities (Lötter, Geldenhuys and Potgieter, 2014). Thus, travellers’ motivations to participate are diverse since different activities provide different level of risk. However, the term ‘adventurous’ is stereotypically associated with masculinity (Pitchard, 2001). This is further found within Adventure tourism’s promotional material in which male dominant imagery is more common than female. Alternatively, females in brochures are further found to be represented in a more domestic surrounding (Pritchard & Morgan, 2000). Thus, this reflects the reasons behind women being underrepresented within Adventure tourism brochures. Though this is important since brochures within the tourism industry along with all other marketing material, be inclined to use gendered attributes to ensure they are promoting towards the right target market (Pitchard, 2001). It has also been said that brochures shape the ways in which tourists behave. Further to this, the media constantly produce and re-produce stereotypical images of people which influences people’s behaviour and their perceptions of the world. Over many years, gender equality has been exposed throughout society in which has caused major discussions and debates. Though, these gendered inequalities are still being portrayed within marketing materials in current society.

The methodology used within this paper, included an adaption of Goffman’s visibility framework in which the front cover and first image on the first page was analysed from 4 Adventure Tourism brochures. These included; Intrepid Travel, G Adventures, Explore and Adventure Tours. This method was used as the images on these pages, arguably provide the ‘first impression’ to the consumer when researching Adventure Tourism.

The findings within this study demonstrated how females are underrepresented within the brochures. The results showed that 70% of the analysed images were male focused leaving only 30% of the images being female. Though there was a noticeable dominance in gender representatives, the use of ethnic minorities within the images was well presented with over half of the images representing differing race. However, it cannot go unnoticed that there was a clear absence of any person who had a visible disability or elderly. Therefore, these brochures that are marketed by Adventure tourism operators could be consciously impacting consumers choice in purchasing this type of holiday, since the imagery is not relaying diversity or gender equality.

Since researching this topic, it is apparent that there are still problems amongst Adventure tourism marketing materials in relation to gender representations. This study has shown how women are less dominant within the imagery that is presented. Also, evidence within the brochures shows there was a lack of diversity in regard to representing elderly and disabled people. Thus, the recommendations presented within this report could further support the developments of future marketing materials being used for the Adventure tourism sector.

References:

Lee, C., Fernandez, N. and Martin, B. (2002) Using self-referencing to explain the effectiveness of ethnic minority models in advertising. International Journal of Advertising, 21, 367-379. Available from https://www-tandfonline-com.proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/doi/pdf/10.1080/02650487.2002.11104937?needAccess=true (accessed 2 May 2020).

Morgan, N. and Pritchard, A. (2017) Gender, Advertising and Ethics: Marketing Cuba. Tourism Planning and Development, 1, 1-18. Available from https://www-tandfonline-com.proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/doi/pdf/10.1080/21568316.2017.1403372?needAccess=true (accessed 30 April 2020).

Pritchard, A. (2001) Tourism and representation: A scale for measuring gendered portrayals. Leisure studies, 20(2), pp.79-94. Available from https://www-tandfonline-com.proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/doi/pdf/10.1080/02614360110068651?needAccess=true (accessed 24 April 2020).

I have chosen to comment on this discussion paper due to my interest in adventure tourism and because gender imbalance is a critical inequality that still exists in the tourism industry yet is still often overlooked. Upon reading this discussion paper it is clear to see the author has addressed a significant gap in the research regarding gender representations in the niche market of adventure tourism.

Having previously read about issues regarding the gender gap in adventure tourism, the author’s findings of a lack of female representation in adventure tourism brochures are representative of the lack of female representation that exists in the adventure tourism sector (Little and Wilson, 2013). The author highlights both the dominance of male representations in adventure tourism brochures and the differences in portrayals of genders in promotional tourism materials outside of the adventure tourism market. A key strength of this paper is the primary research which analyses the travel brochures of 4 leading providers of adventure tourism, therefore making the research representative of the adventure tourism market. Ryan et al (1998) highlight the differences in which different genders respond to tourism marketing materials. Research in backpacking and adventure tourism reveals that males are more oriented towards hard-core adventure activities, whereas females are often orientated towards reflection and self-image in adventure tourism (Cave and Ryan, 2007). Although it is not recommended for marketers to target genders using stereotypes, it is important to create promotional materials that appeal to both genders, and therefore represent genders equally in brochures. Therefore, gender considerations concerning adventure tourism should be considered when creating tourism promotional materials. This is acknowledged by the author who highlights the relationship between tourism marketing materials and tourist behaviours and motivations when using brochures to decide to purchase a holiday. This clear link further strengthens the important implications of researching this topic.

In summary, the paper brought to light an important but overlooked topic concerning representation in tourism promotions and has great implications in tourism marketing. It is important that marketers must recognise gender differences when designing adventure tourism brochures to reduce the apparent gender imbalance within adventure tourism. Further research could focus on the recommendations of the author to investigate further discrepancies regarding diversity in adventure tourism brochures.


Cave, J. and Ryan, C. (2007) Gender in Backpacking and Adventure Tourism. Advances in Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, 1, 189-219. Available from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260125314_Gender_in_Backpacking_and_Adventure_Tourism [Accessed 13/5/2020]

Little, D.E. and Wilson, E. (2013) Adventure and the Gender Gap: Acknowledging Diversity of Experience. Society & Leisure, 28, 185-208. Available from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07053436.2005.10707676 [Accessed 13/5/2020]

Ryan, M., Henley, N. and Soutar, G. (1998) Gender Differences in Tourism Destination:Implications for Tourism Marketers. School of Marketing, Tourism and Leisure Publications. Available from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/846a/e0ef6819876b4a660e82ff2e8e00b6721199.pdf [Accessed 13/5/2020]

I have chosen to comment on this paper as until the lack of representations of women in adventure tourism was pointed out to me, I would not have been aware of this issue and it is a topic I would have been unlikely to have looked into.

Roberts (2020) highlighted an important imbalance of the representations of both genders in this conference paper. Exploring this interesting topic further, I found a UNWTO report that stated 57% of adventure tourists are male and 43% are female travellers, supporting the understanding from the author’s findings and consequently this is still considered a masculine area of tourism.

I began to look at websites and companies such as Gap 360 and Real Gap Experiences and noticed that where women were being represented, these were often in groups rather than solo travellers or in pairs. I noticed the same trend on social media advertisements also. Consequently, this led me to believe promotion of solo female travellers is not wanted by these companies. At first, I could not comprehend these statistics, but after visiting these websites, the percentage gap became less shocking and more upsetting.

Doran (2016) found three main categories of constraints faced by female adventure travellers; personal, socio-cultural and practical. Within the socio-cultural category, the media’s masculine portrayal of adventure can be seen. This category also included unwanted male attention, adding to the belif that females travelling alone might be viewed as unsafe (Wilson & Little, 2008). Doran (2016) stated that this reinforces females to believe the outdoors is scary and intimidating, she also found this to be true of film media too. Often the lead character of adventure films is male, which potentially deters women from attempting participation in this type of tourism.

I’d like to finish by commenting on the aspects Roberts (2020) also found through this research; the lack of representation of older people and disabled tourists is also apparent on the same websites. Unless I searched for age friendly adventure holidays or accessible holidays, there was not once a photo of an older or visually disabled person on the websites or social media advertisements I viewed. The constraints identified by Doran (2016) could also be applied to these societal groups too.

Doran, A. (2016). Empowerment and women in adventure tourism: a negotiated journey. Journal of Sport & Tourism. 20. 1-24.

UNWTO. (2014). Global Report on Adventure Tourism. Available from: https://skift.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/unwto-global-report-on-adventure-tourism.pdf. [accessed 14 May 2020].

Wilson, E. & Little, D. (2008). The Solo Female Experience: Exploring the ‘Geography of Women’s Fear’. Current Issues in Tourism, 11, 167-186.