WTM Preview Playing the adventure game for free holiday November 2003 335 Share The WTM is launching the hilarious and fun Adventure Game on Thursday November 13 to coincide with the rapid global growth in activity and sports tourism. The game will cover everything from skiing, climbing, kayaking, white water rafting and scuba diving to the more extreme interests like skydiving, paragliding and hang gliding.Prizes for the winning team of three lucky agents plus a friend are seven-night adventure holidays to Kaprun in the Europesportsregion, part of the Austrian province of Salzburgland, courtesy of Crystal, including flights, transfers and accommodation, where all their activities will be organised by the Austrian Tourist Board.Fiona Jeffery, group exhibition director said: “You will never have seen anything like this before at World Travel Market!”Agents facing The Adventure Game challenge will be simulating climbing a moving mountain, alpine skiing and surfing the seas.Questions will be designed to test agents’ knowledge of adventure tourism in all its many guises.Added Jeffery: “There will be lots of fun as teams of agents fight it out for these great adventure holiday prizes by taking the plunge on a variety of simulator machines, representing some of the most popular adventure sports.“Yet there is also a serious point to The Adventure Game, designed to help agents, operators and other industry professionals realise just how important this sector of the market has become, not only in the UK but throughout the world.“The gap year has become an accepted practice between leaving school and going on to university, particularly in the industrialised countries, plus the fact that the lower costs of flights means that many more young people in their teens and twenties have more opportunities to travel.“Youth tourism now represents 20 per cent of tourism overall. Much of this includes an element of adventure and challenge.”However, Jeffery said that according to a report by the World Tourism Organisation, 75 per cent of adventure travel packages are booked directly through tour operators. The report goes on to say that customers are bypassing agents because typically consumers discover they know little about the product.