‘Into the darkness’ – The caving community and their tourist experiences. The Polish case

Descent into the underground requires from explorers not only a high level of physical endurance, technical skills, and ability to use specialized equipment, but also psychological adaptation to severe cave conditions: the darkness, the coldness, and the unknown. The paper focuses on mental states and emotions that accompany cave descents at every stage of the tourist experience. The study examines cavers' tourist motivations as well as perceived benefits of this kind of physical activity. The research aims at the Polish caving community. The study indicates that participation in cave exploration for respondents undertaking cave challenges outside of regular tourism is generally the result of a combination of equally strong factors, rather than a single dominant motivation. The benefits of cave exploration are inwardly directed, those related to creating one’s external image were of marginal importance among survey respondents. A state of ‘focus and concentration’ accompanies cavers during almost the entire stay in cave what not lessen a sense of overall satisfaction, joy, and excitation. To some extent, anxiety, anger, and rarely fear, shape the cave tourist experience.

Management implications

The tourism product of any kinds of tourism should meet the expectations and needs of their participants. Dedicated speleotourists visiting sites outside mass tourism in popular show caves are leading by the complex of motivations typical for tourism as such. However, in the study analysed, the search for beauty and aesthetic impressions next to experiencing the unknown and novelty are explicitly significant motivators for cave exploration, even more important than looking for sport challenges and physical effort. This observation underlines cognitive and emotional meaning, not only sport character of cave exploration.

The research might suggest the general direction in preparation of the offer for dedicated cave tourists: they do not require the creation of new infrastructure (e.g. in terms of cave accessibility) or provision of new amenities, but possibilities of the improvement of technical skills, while enjoying the beauty of the caves, with maintaining a balance between commercialization and the sense of uniqueness and exclusivity of the product.

As pristine and unexplored caves constitute a ‘non-renewable resource,’ thus there is a need for redefinition of ‘the unknown’ and ‘the new’ concepts in cave tourism practiced by dedicated cave tourists (far beyond the geographical sense). The result of this procedure might help meet the expectations of dedicated cave tourists toward their tourist experiences and the attractiveness of sites.

The explorations of dedicated cave tourists occur outside or on the fringes of tourism. To include them in the mainstream of broader tourism, it is necessary to find a balance between commercialization and the uniqueness and exclusivity of the product. The latter should provide satisfaction both in the area of physical well-being and the emotional sphere (sense of community, strengthening bonds).

The study revealed the literature gap in terms of existential authenticity and the recognition of aesthetic and bodily experiences in cave tourism outside of popular show caves.