Special interest tourism

At its most basic, special interest tourism is leisure travel where the activity of interest dominates and directs destination selection. The first book on the topic was compiled by Weiler and Hall (1992). Significant conceptual work by Brotherton and Himmetoglu (1997) distinguishes special interest tourists (activity focused) from general (destination focused) and mixed interest tourists. While variations and extensions of this conceptualization abound, the common definitional element of special interest tourism is the specific interest-based motivation (history, wildlife, rock climbing, ethnic tourism, art, and heritage).

Interest-based tourism is not new; for example, traveling to view nature and wildlife or to partake in therapeutic sea bathing were popular upper-class pursuits in the eighteenth century. It was not until the 1990s, however, that the industry and academics turned their attention to it as a product and/or segmentation strategy. Today, this market’s explosive growth...