ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the internationalisation of adventure tourism products at the place and firm levels. In particular it analyses the links between Queenstown (New Zealand) and Interlaken (Switzerland), and it demonstrates how some Swiss mountain guides visited Queenstown, the ‘adventure capital of New Zealand’, and then returned home with
many ideas that subsequently made Interlaken the ‘adventure capital of Switzerland’. In addition to a discussion of the sources of innovation, the chapter also notes how these links are maintained through staff working seasonally in both places (as well as other rafting/canyoning/bungee destinations in the southern hemisphere) and how even recent innovations such as zorbing (large, about 3m diameter, inflatable, transparent, plastic spheres in which humans are suspended and then roll downhill) have travelled the world from New Zealand to Switzerland as a result of entrepreneurial mobility. In short, the chapter demonstrates how innovations need people to make them travel.
