The adventure activity sector is diligent. Everybody wants their customers and clients to feel safe and have an unforgettable experience. We notice that a lot of safety is driven by quality. If you’re focussed on providing the best experience possible, it just makes sense that keeping people safe is part of that. 
We have to remember that serious risks are inherent in adventure activities. If you aren’t exposing participants to these risks, you’re probably not an adventure activity (as defined in the Adventure Activities Regulations).
To borrow some wise words from Judge Arthur Tompkins in 2009:
"Participants in such tours do not want or expect a sanitised, excitement-free experience that isolates or insulates them from the very countryside they come to see and experience first-hand.
"It is neither possible nor desirable to remove all risk. To do so would be to the longer term detriment of New Zealand."

​As a sector, although deemed high-risk by nature in the Adventure Activities Regulations, adventure activities operators generally keep serious incidents to a minimum. Our audits note that a lot of operators struggle to identify trends because they haven’t had incidents to review. It would be greatly beneficial if we could collate incidents across our industry so we can learn as a sector as a whole. This is a really strong argument for using external technical advisors – somebody providing similar activities to you might have some valuable information, and you might share something similar with them, increasing safety all around.
It seems more operators are noticing medical events occurring during or after activities. With the advent of guided and instructed activities, easier access to the outdoors and a more active aging community, there are more issues around angina, heart attacks, fainting, etc. Reviews of safety plans should ask questions like: how do we screen our participants?, do we ensure they bring any medications?, do we know how to treat that medical condition they wrote on their risk disclosure form? Immediately excluding people based on age or fitness is a bit extreme, we’re much better off understanding their conditions and seeing what we can do to manage the activity appropriately.