This study explored the spiritual dimension of wellness within the context of outdoor adventure tourism. Specifically, it analyzed the definition of the term spiritual as it was understood by participants of outdoor adventure tourism and examined the ways by which engaging in outdoor adventure tourism could promote spiritual wellbeing. For a definition of the term spiritual, qualitative data was collected and analyzed using the conventional approach of thematic analysis. For ways by which outdoor adventure tourism evoked spiritual experiences, quantitative data were collected and analyzed using both descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis. The findings of the study confirmed some previous researchers’ notion that defining the term spiritual was moving away from religiosity and toward secularism. It was also discovered that it was the settings of outdoor adventure tourism that had significantly contributed to the spiritual experiences of ineffability, connectedness, overcoming limits, timelessness, and sense of new meaning, which could potentially contribute to the participants’ eudaimonic growth as the experiences were more than the hedonistic adrenaline rush or pleasure seeking. It was hoped that the findings of the study could contribute to the current literature of wellness tourism by examining the phenomenon from a perspective that went beyond the traditional wellness activities such as spas, meditation retreats, health resorts and medical interventions, and with a focus on the less-researched dimension of wellness tourism.
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In-Text Citation: (Bidder, 2018)
To Cite this Article: Bidder, C. (2018). Outdoor Adventure Tourism: Exploring the Spiritual Dimension of Wellness. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(16), 199–217.
Copyright: © 2018 The Author(s)
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