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The growing demand for outdoor adventure tourism activities, and the rapid growth in associated industry supply, means we need an improved understanding of outdoor adventure tourists. The paper considers the characteristics and motives of outdoor adventure tourists, as well as the influence of experience, age and gender on their motives. This is based, firstly, on a critical review of the relatively much more extensive literature on outdoor adventure activity participants for insights into the character and motives of outdoor adventure tourists. The paper also focuses, secondly, on an original case study of mountaineer tourists in Chamonix, France. Results from the case study of mountaineer tourists are evaluated against the research themes and gaps identified from the review of literature on outdoor adventure activity participants, including outdoor adventure tourists. It is shown how outdoor adventure tourists are a diverse group. Motivational similarities and differences exist between these tourists and their outdoor recreational counterparts. Experience, age and gender influence the motives and motivational differences among outdoor adventure activity participants. It is noted that there is considerable scope for further research on outdoor adventure tourists, including mountaineer tourists, and potential new research directions are identified for the specific themes examined in the paper.

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Nature-based tourism, including volunteer tourism on nature projects, is thought to have grown in scale over the past two decades. The personal development of volunteer tourists through their environmental experiences has not been examined in a great deal of research. This paper evaluates this topic for volunteers participating in a small group expedition in Zambia. It investigates over time the personal development of seven volunteers based on their direct experiences of the natural environment, this being examined qualitatively through a series of in-depth interviews conducted with each respondent over the 10 weeks of the expedition. The respondents' direct experiences of the natural environment seem to have affected their personal development both positively and negatively. While motivated to participate in the expedition for conservation, knowledge development and challenge reasons, some expressed mixed views about the environmental tasks they undertook. They felt strong spiritual emotions from being in the natural environment and their self-concept was enriched through both non-environmental and environmental events. The development of social skills also seems to have been important for the expedition experience.

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