Pre- and Post-Activity Anxiety for Sustainable Rafting

Abstract

This study aimed to (i) analyze the levels of state-anxiety of rafting customers, before and after the activity; and (ii) characterize the levels of trait-anxiety and the amount of physical activity performed weekly by clients of a rafting activity. The sample had 100 subjects of a nature sports company, in the rafting activity, with a mean age of 33.27 ± 10.10 years, with 44% female and 56% male participants. They were evaluated in two moments M1 (pre-activity) and M2 (post-activity). In M1, the STAI—State-Anxiety questionnaire and the IPAQ—International Physical Activity Questionnaire (short version) were applied. In M2, the STAI Form 1 State-Anxiety questionnaire was applied again, followed by the STAI trait-anxiety. The results showed no correlation between the amount of weekly physical activity and levels of trait-anxiety (rho(100) = −0.144; p-value = 0.152), thus not corroborating with the existing literature. Regarding state-anxiety, we found that in 55% of cases, it decreased with the practice of rafting, which suggests that the practice may have an anxiolytic effect and promote the well-being and relaxation of participants promoting, in this way, the sustainability of the rafting activity.

Climate and weather-related factors limiting outdoor activities and impacting tourism: Case studies in Slovenia

“…Apart from general applications of such tourism indices, authors have studied climate and weatherrelated conditions from the perspective of tourism for specific destinations (Álvarez-Díaz et al, 2010;Boqué Ciurana et al, 2022;Font Barnet et al, 2021;Nižić and Grdić, 2018), or outdoor sport activities such as skiing (Yang and Wan, 2010; Cernaianu and Sobry, 2021;Köberl et al, 2021;Rice et al, 2022;Rujescu, 2022;Scott et al, 2020; Steiger et al, 2019;Steiger and Scott, 2020;Prettenthaler et al;, surfing (Boqué Ciurana et al, 2022; Aguilar, 2021, 2020), or whitewater rafting (Bowman et al, 2022;Chen et al, 2017;Faria et al, 2022;Polat et al, 2016). Slovenia, with an tourism sector contributing an estimated ~8.4% (~3.6 billion EUR in 2017 (OECD, 2020;SiStat, 2022)) to the national GDP, is an…”