As there is an increase in tourism businesses that provide outdoor adventure activities in Norway there is a need to focus on issues related to quality, professionalism, safety/risk, profitability and sustainability in the sector. As the Norwegian tourism industry has mainly developed quality assurance systems for accommodation businesses there is little systematic or science based knowledge about issues related to quality and professionalism among the providers of outdoor adventure tourism in the country.

As a response to an initiative from the tourism industry in Norway to develop and test a quality assurance pilot for providers of outdoor adventure, this project seek to study 1) the quality gaps in Norwegian outdoor tourism operations (as experienced by the customers), 2) the different motivations in the adventure tourism sector in Norway for implementing a quality assurance system, and 3) functional and emotional factors influencing the perceived quality experience of tourists. Another background for this project proposal is that there are few previous studies of quality assurance for activity providers in Norway and hardly any R&D institutions working on these issues in the country. There is following from this a need for a project through which we can establish a R&D network that involves both national and international R&D institutions.