Safety Measures and Risk Analysis for Outdoor Recreation Technicians and Practitioners: A Systematic Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors, 

I find your paper well written. I like it even if I would expected more considerations on future trends. 

However well-done. Please check English

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your comments.

In response "Please see the attachment." 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an interesting article, which has the possibility of delivering key contributions to knowledge both from an academic and industry perspective. However, in its current form, I have a number of concerns about the article.

• The article doesn't flow very well in-between sections. It's not clear how we go from one section to another; eg. 1.3 - 1.4. This is seemingly a recurring issue within the article. It is very much a sense of start-stop throughout. 
• A fair few spelling and grammatical mistakes throughout - please double check.
• More detail and justification of growth of industry and need for improved risk management procedures
  • Why has industry seen growth? Some explanation around consumer motivations etc. required here as this is essential in a discussion around risk. Authors could sow the seeds for this discussion around lines 71-74 and then further develop this to a greater extent later on.
  • Wang et al. (2019) and other similar articles might/should assist in the development of the argument.
• Line 76-: no linkage to relevant literature around discussion of definition of risk. Given much of the pertinent literature can't agree on on this topic (in an adventure tourism context), it would seem critical to include. In fact, referencing seems quite poor at times.
• lines 89-93: what are these thoughts based on? Lacking links to relevant literature.
• The article seems to be a bit over-reliant on Haegeli et al. (2012). This is a good article, but the discussion therefore lacks a bit criticality. 
• A number of seminal work within the fields of risk management in outdoor recreation/adventure tourism are missing. The following articles are surprisingly not included in the review (although the list is not exclusive!), despite their seeming pertinence to the topic and other similar systematic reviews including them:
  • Callander, M., & Page, S. J. (2003). Managing risk in adventure tourism operations in New Zealand: a review of the legal case history and potential for litigation. Tourism Management, 24(1), 13-23.
  • Pomfret, G., & Bramwell, B. (2016). The characteristics and motivational decisions of outdoor adventure tourists: A review and analysis. Current Issues in Tourism, 19(14), 1447-1478.
  • Pomfret, G. (2019). Conceptualising family adventure tourist motives, experiences and benefits. Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism, 28.
  • Hansen, M., Rogers, D., Fyall, A., Spyriadis, T., & Brander-Brown, J. (2019). Collaborative industry risk management in adventure tourism: A case study of the US aerial adventure industry. Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism, 28, 100218.
  • Holyfield, L., & Fine, G. A. (1997). Adventure as character work: The collective taming of fear. Symbolic Interaction, 20(4), 343-363.
  • Undoubtedly, these papers are critical for the discussion around risk and its role in outdoor recreation. Given this is a systematic review, it is thus even more surprising to see their omission.
• Buckley (2012) is cited but not in the reference list.
• Section 2.2 lacks references to justify approach. As such, the section is written quite poorly. It's not clear why this is the correct method, given the number of different approaches to review articles available.
• What were the keywords used to search for articles? 
• Given the number of databases used for identifying relevant articles, the reference list seems rather small.
• Why did the authors exclude 1297 out of 1352 articles? This seems like a particularly high number.
• Indeed, the final number of studies used for this article is alarmingly small and it is difficult to understand how it thus equates to a systematic review.
• The methodology is really quite poor. Much more justification required overall. Please have a look at other review articles - eg. Annals of Tourism Research publishes a number of review articles annually.
• The conclusion seems to be very short and thus lacks sufficient detail.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your comments.

In response "Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Overall, this paper has great potential, it is a significant topic.

The following are needed in the paper if it is to be resubmitted:

1. The author(s) need to clarify the abstract very well in a way that reflects the full paper and especially for the study’s design and methodology, and findings.
2. The author(s) need to rewrite the introduction in a way that reflects the full paper and especially the purpose of the study.
3. The author(s) need to rewrite the literature review in a way that will justify the unique contribution of this paper
4. The author(s) need to do a better job describing in the literature
5. The author(s) need to present the result in a better way that will justify the unique contribution of this paper.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your comments.

The article was revised, according to the suggestions of the 3 reviewers, according to the new version. 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have done sufficient change and well done to the author team. This is looking like a good article.