Treks'n Rapids: Identifying Motivational Factors for Adventure Sports

Problem statement: Treks’n Rapids, a leading adventure sports and human resource enrichment company in India, wanted to identify main motivational factors of attraction towards adventure sports among youths of National Capital Region. Objective was to improve the effectiveness of integrated marketing communications strategy. Adventure sports are categorized into four classes: (1) mountain sports; (2) extreme sports like bungee jumping and free fall; (3) rafting and kayaking; (4) paragliding, sky diving and skiing. A total of fifteen motivational factors have been identified with the help of literature review and an exploratory study. These are: Thrill, Requires zeal/energy, Spells status, Builds confidence, Helps in personality development, Instills self-belief, Creates unique identity, Is a stress buster, Helps in goal-setting, Is challenging, Requires toughness, Builds sense of achievement, Is a unique experience, It is fun/adventure and Improved technology has reduced risk. Approach: A questionnaire was created and sent to over 500 people online. Through word of mouth people were encouraged to visit the website and respond to the questionnaire. Fifty-seven responses were obtained. These were analyzed using SPSS. Results: Only two factors were extracted. First all the 57 responses were analyzed as a whole to find out the main motivational factors. Next each of the four individual categories of adventure sports was separately analyzed and results were found to be highly consistent. Two composite variables that emerged are labeled as: (1) characteristics of the adventure sports encompassing: thrill, challenge, fun, toughness and zeal required; (2) characteristics of the self like: building confidence, personality development, sense of achievement, status, self-belief and help in goal setting. Resultant factors were used to discriminate respondents based on gender and spend. In both the cases more than 73% of original grouped cases were found to be correctly classified. Conclusion: Findings of this study will help a firm engaged in adventure sports in developing an effective integrated marketing communication strategy by fine tuning messages in their communication.