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May 19, 2006
Pahrump Jumps on 'reality TV' bandwgon
By PHILLIP GOMEZ
State tourism officials want to put rural Nevada on the map - of people's imagination. They want to brand an image of outback Nevada on the consciousness of Americans and the world. The marriage of "adventure travel" with "reality" TV, by any measure, was a stroke of sheer genius. The marketing ploy is intended to introduce an estimated 2 million sports television viewers to what rural Nevada has to offer in an array of vacation adventures. The TV program first aired last year in the annual "Nevada Passage" program, which brings together 20 athletes from 11 states who compete in six adventure sport contests around Nevada in a "passage" through the state's rugged outdoors. The promotional brainchild was to "brand" the state as something different - as "the premier outdoor adventure destination" in the United States, no less, says Mary Paoli, the public relations accounts supervisor for the state-contracted television show distribution company R&R Partners. "It's an effective tool to get an adventure message out to travelers across the U.S.," said Paoli regarding the reality TV show. "We don't know of any other state doing anything like this." "Reality" television programming, in which contestants vie with one another or in teams - often in exotic locations - has become hugely popular among younger viewers in recent years. "There're a lot of proof points," Paoli said in marketing jargon: She cites the recent opening of the popular Red Rock Station Casino north of Las Vegas in Red Rock Canyon as an example of a marketing concept catering to casino customers who enjoy Nevada's rugged, natural beauty. Adventure travel, a $2 billion segment within the half-trillion-dollar travel industry market, has specialized in "off-the-beaten-path" packaged tours and complete outfitting for a range of adventure travel activities, from individuals trekking across mountains, deserts or tundra to small-group archeological digs in remote jungles. Recent socio-demographic changes, such as increased spending power and greater leisure time among the aging Baby Boomer generation, have driven the marketing of adventure travel. Better educated, more vigorous and healthy travelers often want to "experience" their vacations actively rather than take in the sights of foreign destinations in more traditional ways, such as by tour bus. What distinguishes extraordinary, adventure traveling from ordinary travel, or from outdoor recreation in general, is that adventure travelers seek "a deliberate pursuit of risk and uncertainty of outcome," where an individual faces controlled levels of personal threat, according to a study by A. Ewert published in "Leisure Information Quarterly" in 1987. Risk-seeking, challenge, motivation, self-discovery, contact with nature, self-actualization, performance, experience and natural environment are the words that come to mind when considering adventure travel. Activities that involve participation as a response to an out-of-doors challenge, often a physical contest with nature, constitute adventure travel. When you add reality TV to the mix, you have the ingredients for what's often called compelling programming. But there's an important differences between regular reality TV shows and the Nevada Passage adventure competition. "This is not a reality show about outsmarting the opponent," said Bruce Bommarito, the Nevada Commission on Tourism's director. "Adventure sports are gaining popularity around the world, and Nevada's wide-open spaces are ideal for them, becoming a mecca for outdoor enthusiasts. "There are few other states that could combine rodeo, mountain biking, running, jet skiing, autocross and railroad races in one adventure competition the way (the Nevada Passage adventure competition) does," Bommarito said in a press release on the Nevada Passage televised events. At last Friday's competitive autocross course at Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch in Pahrump - the penultimate contest in the six-event course - the 20 opposite-sex-paired athletes appeared lean, tan and fit. Formed into 10 competing two-person teams, the adventure travelers, nearing the end of their Nevada "passage," acted more like a single school sports team rooting each other on from the bleechers. "The competing teams have a great deal of camaraderie," says Paoli amidst all the high-fives, back-slapping, hugs, shouted kudos and cheers. "Now they've become fast friends and are really supportive of one another." With support staff and the TV production company complement, about 50 people in all made up the adventure travel team. TV crews did close-up, pre-contest "interviews" of contestants on their tactical approaches, then again in "post-game" performance assessments of their twice-around-the-track, timed records in their corvette racecars. The teams had their game patters down, calmly staring into the camera and telling Producer Eric Nolder how they were going to whip the other team's butts, keep their heads down and stay cool and collected. Typically they didn't. Struggles with snagged seat belts delayed getting in and out of the cars in the exchange of drivers at the midpoints of each "relay" race. And orange cones were frequently knocked down on curves, subtracting points from final scores. |
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