Keywords

1 Problem Posing

With the rapid dissemination of information, ‘Lv You’, as a new type of tourist organization has been highly adopted by modern tourists as a representation of life style and a type of outdoor sports. Nowadays, outdoor sports have become a new trend in tourism industry, such as mountain-climbing, hiking, fishing, skiing, rock-climbing, rafting, river-tracing, bicycle motocross and camping, have been more accepted and adopted by the public. However, the high risk of outdoor sports has constantly caused all kinds of accidents. Some reports has revealed a harsh situation that there were 483 accidents happened to the outdoor sport enthusiast from the year 2009 to 2011, which basically means there were at least two accidents every week. At the same time, it is controversial that some accidents were caused by the tourists’ overconfidence and ignorance of possible dangers (Yi 2012). Especially in the new media time, high rate and efficiency of the dissemination of information lead to great influence on the development of certain tourist destinations. At the same time, there are a lot of legal disputes about these accidents. Thus, the safety and security of ‘Lv You’ have attracted the attention of local authorities and tourist enterprises. Most research and studies done by the domestic and foreign scholars are about the current situation of ‘Lv You’ tourism, and also the statistical analysis of the accidents. With the high frequency of tourist accidents, more studies on the general process and reason mechanism of ‘Lv You’ tourism are required. It is important and necessary to find out the reasons of potential incidents, so that certain measures can be taken timely.

2 Progresses of Related Researches

2.1 ‘Lv You’ Tourism

‘Lv You’ tourism was firstly brought up by the Sina Tourism Forum. It was actually inspired by the mountaineering which rose at the end of the 18th century, had been popular for two centuries in the western countries. In 1990s, its descendent activities were introduced to China which were adventurous and leisure. It differs from traditional sports and travel mode by combining travel with sports, nature and interpersonal communication. It free people from their social life, presents them with the beauty of nature, and endows people with energy and positive life attitude. Afterwards, with the changes of forms, the outdoor sports have developed its own groups, culture, consumer market and pattern of consumption. However, the concept of ‘Lv You’ tourism has not been defined. Wang and Zhou (2010) believe that ‘Lv You’ refers to two kinds of people, one is outdoor sports enthusiasts who take hiking, traversing, mountain-climbing etc. as ways of body-building, and the other one is travelers with the purpose of appreciating landscapes, knowing culture, experiencing the life and collecting folk stories. Wang (2012) proposed that ‘Lv You’ refers to outdoor sports enthusiast who take hiking, riding bicycles and driving as trip mode and participate in activities like camping, mountain-climbing, rock-climbing, rafting, traversing, and fishing etc. Wang (2011) suggested that ‘Lv You’ equals to outdoor sports enthusiast who likes challenging, and the activities they participate are maximal exercises which are dangerous, extreme and adventurous. Zeng (2003) believes that ‘Lv You’ is tough travelers who travel with mates and preferring undeveloped but beautiful places; they are fond of trudge and field exploration, and the activities they participate include hiking, fishing, skiing, rock-climbing, rafting, tracing the river, cross-country cycling and camping etc. Han and Gu (2009) believe that ‘Lv You’ refers to those independent travelers who communicate and get information by the internet without any reliance on the travel agencies; they usually choose undeveloped and newly developed natural scenic spots as tourist destinations; they participate in the activities like hiking, exploring, self-driving, rafting, mountain-climbing, riding and photographing; their whole trips aim at self-fulfillment, pressure-relieving, mind-refreshing and getting close to the nature. The definition of ‘Lv You’ that Hu and Wang proposed basically covered the contents of ‘Lv You’ tourism. Thus, this paper adopts their definition as the concept of ‘Lv You’.

The studies on the behaviors of ‘Lv You’ are also important. The way ‘Lv You’ get information, share experience and make friends is independent, digitized and mutual. The similarities of cultural background, consumption mode and action logic lead the characteristics of their behaviors to be infomercial, novelty-seeking and self-helping which become the symbols of this group. Han Jing and Gu Cheng found that the instantaneous and fast-spreading of tourist message brought by the network information technology make more and more ‘Lv You’ travelers adopt new ways of traveling which are endowed by the times, such as the way of organizing, the characteristics of their behaviors, the avoidance of popular tourist attractions, the pursuit of ecology, the culture needs, and the anticipation of consumer. Wang Baojun suggested that ‘Lv You’ usually plan the trip by them and purchase everything they need on the trip; it is a free and independent way of traveling.

The definition of ‘Lv You’ has not been carried out for a separate study in other countries. Most studies concentrate in backpacking travelers, safarist, and independent travelers, and especially emphasize the characteristics of backpacking travelers. Scholars like Pearce (2005), concluded the behavior characteristics of backpacking travelers to preference for cheap accommodation, fondness of communication, flexible travel arrangements, and top choice for nature-appreciation, culture-experience and adventurous activities, and mass participation. Nash et al. (2006) has found out the interaction between backpacking travelers’ requirements for accommodation and their degree of satisfaction, and backpacking travelers’ concentration on the economical hotels or express hotels rather than the quality and level of service. Sørensen (2003) analyzed the Anthropologic characteristics of backpacking travelers. Backpacking travelers’ decisions on the route selection and destination are influenced by their own cultural background, sometimes even by the brochures, introductions and comments on the websites. David and Boulware (2004) took the point of Gender discussing the characteristics of female backpacking travelers, and found out that female backpacking travelers are almost the same with male backpacking travelers in travel time, choice for destination and changes of decisions, but the budgets they made are more practical than those of male travelers. Philip and Foster (2007) believed that travel as a backpacker is like going to a university, which means tourist’s motivation largely depends on individuals’ skills. Individuals’ personal overall skill is the key factor of backpacking travel, and has direct relation with the travel process.

2.2 Researches on the Safety of ‘Lv You’ Tourism

As the burgeoning development of ‘Lv You’ tourism, tourist accidents frequently occurred. The safety and security of ‘Lv You’ tourism now has become an important issue for the scholars, local authorities and ‘Lv You’ travelers. Domestic scholars have done some researches on these accidents. Wang and Zhou (2010) thought that many accidents were caused by travelers’ poor awareness of safety. Travelers of this type like going to the remote places. Considering most travelers of this type are lack of common sense of self-rescuing and related exercises, and the poor prediction and preparation against accidental problems brought by the dissymmetry of information, the number of accidents caused by these two factors is large. Wang (2011) pointed out that most accidents in ‘Lv You’ tourism were about falling, slipping, sudden death, drowning and avalanche. Besides the natural factors like field environment, human factors such as poor health condition, poor preparation, unsuitable shoes, social environment and structure of organizations are the main causes for those accidents. The interaction between natural factors and human factors influence ‘Lv You’ tourism from the beginning to the end. Mi and Ren (2009) concluded the causes of such accidents to the organizer, traveler and the problems of tourist destinations.

Researches on the security assurance of ‘Lv You’ tourism have also been done. It is revealed that ‘Lv You’ tourists’ awareness of buying insurance is weak, and the popularization of insurance is low, and tourists’ ability of risk-transferring is poor. According to the research targeted at tourists of this type from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou which was done by related institutions, only 20–30 % of the tourists interviewed had purchased the tourist insurance. In Lu’s (2011) research, she revealed the poor condition of rescue mechanism in China. She found that most rescue were organized by senior ‘Lv You’ tourists, and other rescues done by the police, the public security and foresters were temporary which lack unified coordination and conductor.

Exploration, as one of the symbols of this group, is the hot spot in ‘Lv You’ tourism. The exploration travel in other countries has been mature, so the perceived actions and risk cognitions are formed. Martha et al. (2009) have done research on rock-climbing enthusiasts’ ability of risk cognition, and found out that their cognition of safety and predictions against risk were much better than normal tourists. Wichasin (2011) has done a research on the relevance between the risk cognition and risk prediction of the backpacking travelers in Thailand, and has proved that there was a positive correlation; the main factors of the level of tourists’ risk cognition are age, education background and the number of travel mates, and the main factors of risk prediction are differences in major and travel mode. Peel and Steen (2007) have done research on the situations of both criminals and victims who suffered robbery and burglary during their trip, and also the loss of those victims.

The researches on the safety and security of ‘Lv You’ tourism done by domestic and foreign scholars are still at the starting stage. And the researches concentrate in the definition of ‘Lv You’ tourism, the types and causes of accidents and the security control of ‘Lv You’ tourism. The research approaches are both qualitative and quantitative. And the qualitative study is about the analysis of those accidents, the statistics of the frequency and causes of those accidents. The early characteristics of ‘Lv You’ tourism have been concluded, but the essential disciplines have not been found out. By interviewing and collecting related data, this paper adopts using isotropy analysis method based on the Grounded Theory method and tries to explore the formation mechanism of accidents of this type of tourism.

3 The Research Method

3.1 The Substance and Reason of Using Grounded Theory

A reasonable data mining and analysis is the research difficulty of tourism security. The method was unreasonable, the conclusion was only suitable for a certain time by the case statistical analysis in (Glaser and Strauss 1967), and they can’t make a description to the nature and law. In the section of formation of tourism security theoretical system, some suitable analytic methods are a must (Luo and Chen 2011).

The Grounded Theory is a scientific mold of qualitative research, which is put forward by sociologist Glaser and Strauss. There are no theory assumptions; the researchers need make field observation, sum up the primary database, and then get the concept, category, theory. It is used in a new research field, which is a research method in the form of from bottom to top.

Tourism security research need extract theory from cases and make the construction of theoretical system. The interview to the tour pal can collect full and accurate news; this lays a foundation to the construction of theoretical system. In recent years, as the network information spreads swiftly, widely and reliably, it has become a main channel of security cases. We can make data mining and qualitative research for getting nature and law.

3.2 Information Arrangement and Data Coding

This paper takes internet interviews and cases for date collection. Internet interview means to participate in network forum, interview with tour pals and organizers, and get primary data. Cases collection is made by main search engines and some websites about “tour pal” and “outdoor sports.” The criterion include, time: 2009.01–2011.12, basic case coding information, such as time, place, process and reason. Following the criterion, this paper collects 111 cases in all, makes information arrangement and data coding.

4 Analysis of the Formation Mechanism of ‘Lv You’ Tourists Incidents

4.1 Data Analysis Methods

Open coding, spindle coding and selective coding are important data analysis methods of grounded theory. For a better validity, grounded theory emphasizes the importance of successive contrasts and sampling theorem in the application. Data collection to theory formation is an interactive process, such as data collection—theory formation—next data collection—perfecting the theory. The researchers should collect some new data to verify the problems, compare the existing data, distinguish the categories, and correct the theory, until the theory is in the state of saturation (Wang and Gao 2010). With the aid of the software Nvivo 8.0, the research process as follows.

4.1.1 Open Coding

Open coding is an operable process as information decomposition—supervision—comparison—conceptualization—categorization, in other words, you need break up the information and then recombinant it (Chen 2000). The purpose of open coding is to discover generic type, name it, and confirm the attribute and dimensionality. The paper takes the primary collected data as operational coding with the aid of software Nvivo 8.0, and gets 40 sentences after two-round comparison. Extracting the repeated conception, the researchers integrate the same and similar categories, and finally get 37 conceptual categories (as the Table 1), which lays a foundation to spindle coding.

Table 1 Concept developing process
Full size table

4.1.2 Axial Coding

Axial coding aims to discover and establish the relationship, which show the inner link in every part. With the aid of software Nvivo 8.0, this paper classifies the inner relationships of 40 sentences, name them (as the Table 2), and get seven independent categories: physical quality, safety awareness deficiency, experience shortage, unforeseen accident, equipment lack, skills shortage, social security problems.

Table 2 Category developing processes and results of qualitative coding
Full size table

4.1.3 Selective Coding

Selective coding indicates a process that the researchers select core categories, contact the categories and perfect the un-mature categories (Strauss et al. 2000). The process include: identifying the core category, making use of the data, category and relation explaining the phenomenon. The essence of selective coding is selecting a core category after the system analysis and integration ( Li and Li 2006). On the basic of open coding and spindle coding, this paper extracts the category of notion, and finally reduces to four core categories; they are personal factors, environment factors, management factors, and institutional factors. The category development and Coding processes of qualitative analysis as the Table 2 shows.

Grounded theory research paradigm eventually constructed a theory foundation by extracting the core category of the analysis process from open coding, spindle type coding and selection type code, however, in order to promote the conclusion, the use of grounded theory research paradigm in qualitative analysis requires should take consideration of reliability, validity research category. This paper continues to adopt the network interview and case analysis, to test the reliability and validity, in the testing process, the concept, core category always remains the same with the previous research results, the core category is same to the preliminary research category, proved that qualitative analysis of the category had achieved theoretical saturation, and it indicate that the study of extraction of category is credible and effective.

4.2 Discovery of Research

4.2.1 Factors of Tourism Security Incidents of ‘Lv You’

With the qualitative analysis of Grounded Theory above, we can conclude four core categories from all the factors of tourism security accidents of ‘Lv You’—individual factor, environmental factor, management factor, institutional factor.

Individual factor means such safety incident caused by ‘Lv You’ themselves as physical illness, short of energy, insufficient safety consciousness, poor experience of outdoor activities, distinctive expectations of safety, relaxation of safety vigilance and risks of adventure.

He was very strong and not found any physically injury when examined. His friends also said noting wrong was found when examined before. I thought it might be cardiovascular disease that causes him dead, which sometimes hid deeply and couldn’t be found by simple examination. But the real cause depends on the postmortem examination—Number 2.

It was their first time to climb wild mountains. They even did not carry any fire tool because of lacking experience. They also lost contact with the boy sent to discovery the track. At last, they had to call police for help when it got dark and cold—Number 12.

Environmental factor mainly means the safety incidents caused by irresistible sudden natural disasters and emergency. It’s too hard to avoid that environmental factor is pro and almost unpredictable.

When the troops went through the deep valley, rainstorm and flood suddenly broke out. Members hurried to the high places for shelter. But a part of members were still swept away because they were in the deep valley—Number 26.

It began to rain from some time, but they continued moving forward. It became foggy in the mountain and the hillside was very wet and slippery. When reaching a strategic place, Mr. Liu slipped and fell off. He rolled tens of meters along the hillside and his head stroke heavily to a rock—Number 23.

Management factor refers to the safety incidents caused by imperfect management of outdoor activity leagues or organizations and tourism destinations. It includes unfamiliarity with the condition of weather and topography, lack of basic knowledge of food safety, insufficient outdoor equipment and poor preparation, which bring out many incidents during ‘Lv You’ outdoor activities.

Some ‘Lv You’ are professional compared with others. They carry such protective equipment as helmets and knee pads and care much about their safety. But some ‘Lv You’s are lacking self-protection awareness. When coming into emergency, they don’t know how handle it and are always trouble in danger—Number 10.

These are six ‘Lv You’ to choose the wrong way after into the deep valley because of unfamiliarity with topography. They went directly to Baiyunyuan along the right road. But they couldn’t pass the mountaintop with their own equipment and ability. They just went around much further and more and more precipitous. At last, they even couldn’t find the way back—Number 11.

In addition, imperfect equipment in tourism destination is also another cause, although not the main one. As known to all, ‘Lv You’s like to discovery a new tourist track instead of the old and common one. But the signal can’t cover the entire region, especially the remote region where ‘Lv You’ would like to go. Once the emergency happens, rescuing work will have many difficulties because of the bad signal condition and unstable information transmission. It will always cost a more loss than ever.

Those ‘Lv You’ who are fond of adventure always choose the way of no way. Where there is no way, there are ‘Lv You’s. More difficult the way is, much happier ‘Lv You’ will be. Even though, ‘Lv You’ should care self-safety most and never travel away from the troops. 12 ‘Lv You’s get together by QQ, even though they didn’t know each other before—Number 13 and 14.

Signal condition in the mountain is not good enough, so everyone took a mobile phone to keep contact with those lost ‘Lv You’ and other succor. But signal isn’t stable and police had to climb the mountain to search it. He also had to communicate with ‘Lv You’ to locate them when the signal was available—Number 34.

Institutional factor means the safety incidents caused by the institutional problems. It includes contemporary deficient certification mechanism of outdoor sports organizations and imperfect management institution of outdoor safety, which put ‘Lv You’ in the place full of potential risks. Problematic security condition of tourism destination and lack of legal rigor also belong to the institutional factor, which cause ‘Lv You’ often beaten, robbed and cheated during their tourism.

‘Lv You’ from urban district of Chongqing were beaten heavily by local villagers when camping in Xiangmahe Scenic Spot, Qijiang County, just because of dissatisfaction of so-called ‘camping fee’—Number 38.

4.2.2 The Formation Mechanism of Tourism Security Incidents of ‘Lv You’

With the qualitative analysis of influential factors of ‘Lv You’ tourism security, it shows there’re many elements, including four core strategies—individual factor, environmental factor, management factor, institutional factor, which each have many formation factors. And with deep analysis of interview date from ‘Lv You’ and accident date about ‘Lv You’, the tourism security incidents follow the unique spatial and temporal regularity. This research follows the main line of ‘Lv You’ traveling time course and analyzes the formation mechanism of tourism security incidents from the preparatory stage, the experiencing stage, to the rescuing stage, considering the incidental factors on each stage as the Fig. 1.

Fig. 1
figure 1

The types of the “LV YOU” tourists

Full size image

The analysis reveals that the formation mechanism of tourism security incidents of ‘Lv You’ has these characters as followed:

On the preparatory stage, ‘Lv You’ keeps company to take outdoor activities by outdoor sports leagues or organizations. But on one hand, because of contemporary imperfect certification mechanism of outdoor sports organizations and lack of scientific qualification certification on the contents of sports events, there exist several accident risks. On the other hand, before traveling, the majority of ‘Lv You’ volunteers together by internet. This situation that they don’t know each other before hide some security risks for accident rescuing. Some are still not preparing well and lack of basic equipment and knowledge of the basic condition of destination. They even don’t take any safety precaution such as buying an insurance policy. The emergency is often based on all the problems.

On the experiencing stage, according to the types of activity, the factors of accidents are always very complex, such as altitude stress, sudden illness, energy loss, flood disasters and mudslide, most of which are irresistible sudden natural disasters. Although the safety condition of tourism destination can be grasped by weather forecast, ‘Lv You’ tends to experience any adventure they meet because of their unique mental characters, which often cause them trouble in danger. So the emergency on this stage is mainly caused by the combined factors of individual, environment and management.

On the rescuing stage, after emergency, tourism security incidents happen because of such factors as delayed transportation, unsmooth information, weather changes and lack of emergency skills, which are influenced by the comprehensive factors of environment, individual, management and institution.

In conclusion, the tourism security accidents of ‘Lv You’ run a potential risk on the preparatory stage and go with emergency events on the experiencing and rescuing stage, which is brought out by the predictable and unpredictable factors.

4.2.3 Division of ‘Lv You’ Based on the Incidental Formation Factors

The incidental formation factors make an important effect on tourism safety of ‘Lv You’ and reflect their knowledge and awareness of safety. Considering division of tourists based on the influential factor of tourist’s sense of security, this research divides ‘Lv You’ into three types—cautious type, normal type and adventurous type as Fig. 2, based on the incidental formation factors and the formation mechanism of tourism security incidents of ‘Lv You’.

Fig. 2
figure 2

The logical mechanism of the ‘LV YOU’ tourist accidents

Full size image

The caution-type tourists are very cautious about the security of tourism destination during the whole travel. They prepare well before travel, such as preparing outdoor equipment, paying attention to the weather and topography of destination. Even the tourists with little outdoor experience will do some preparation. They may not prepare well, but they will definitely be aware of security. The typical character of these tourists is weak in dealing with outdoor emergency. Once emergency happens, because of lacking the emergency skills, they tend to be frightened and just have to wait for external help.

The normal type of tourists reflects the balanced state of mind on considering all the security factors. They seldom prepare for tourism or prepare deficiently even they do. Many ‘Lv You’ are unfamiliar with their own physical condition. Once climbing high-land, they are easy to have altitude stress or serious altitude diseases without any available emergency equipment. They aren’t cautious about security and tend to neglect unsafe factors during the outdoor activities. It reflects the state of mind of normal tourists. Besides, once emergency happen, this type of ‘Lv You’ would like to call for help but the rescue is often delayed because of unstable communication system of travel destination.

The adventure-type tourists don’t care much about security factors of destination, which is related with the motivation and purpose of their adventure. They don’t have adventurous activities, but just look for more exciting and unusual experience based on their previous experience of outdoor activities. The adventure-type tourists prepare for tourism but not sufficiently. It means they don’t pay much attention to the security and weather condition of tourism destination, but they still have a set of equipment. So once emergency happens, they can independently help each other with high-qualitative emergency skills and survive finally. Even they have terrible emergency, they can reduce the loss with help of rescuer.

5 Conclusion and Discussion

The tourism security incidents of ‘Lv You’ often happen with the tourist activities of ‘Lv You’ increasingly becoming one of the main types of outdoor activity. The problem of tourism security of ‘Lv You’ is always the core problem which is scholars, local government and ‘Lv You’ tourists greatly concerned about. This study takes two research methods (internet interview and case collecting), collects date related with security of ‘Lv You’ widely and sorting out information and date got from research. It uses qualitative analysis of Grounded Theory with the software of Nvivo 8.0. By Open coding, Axial coding and Selective coding, this study sums up four core categories, that is four factors of tourism security incidents of ‘Lv You’—individual factor, environmental factor, management factor, institutional factor. The deep analysis also reveals the fact that the tourism security incidents follow the unique spatial and temporal regularity. This study treats the whole temporal process of ‘Lv You’ tourism as the main line, combines the incidental formation factor on different stages, and analyzes the formation mechanism of tourism security incidents of ‘Lv You’, from the preparatory stage, the experiencing stage, to the rescuing stage.

Based on the incidental formation factors, this study divides ‘Lv You’ into three types—cautious type, normal type and adventurous type. The caution-type tourists are very cautious about the security of tourism destination during the whole travel. They prepare well before travel, such as preparing outdoor equipment, paying attention to the weather and topography of destination. Once emergency happens, because of lacking the emergency skills, they tend to be frightened and just have to wait for help. T seldom prepare for tourism or prepare deficiently even they do. Once emergency happen, this type of ‘Lv You’ would like to call for help. The adventure-type tourists don’t care much about security factors of destination. They don’t have adventurous activities, but just look for more exciting and unusual experience based on their previous experience of outdoor activities. Once emergency happens, they can independently help each other with high-qualitative emergency skills and survive finally.

This study still has some problems. Firstly, there still exists subjectivity partly in concluding the four influential factors of tourism of ‘Lv You’, and the logical relation between the factors of tourism security of ‘Lv You’ needs to analyze deeply. Secondly, the four core categories have to be examined by the quantitative study. All these problems need to be figured out by follow-up work.