Standards Development

Scope

This document establishes requirements for adventure tourism involving cyclotourism (e.g. road bike, mountain bike or fatbike), relating to the safety of participants, leaders and assistants. In cases of cycle tourism operations that involve overnight stays, additional requirements are required, which are described in Section 11 of this Document.

This document also establishes criteria relating to characteristics and difficulty level for cyclotourism route classification.

This document applies to cyclotourism that are offered as tourism products. Tourism product design involves a product planning and development phase that is not subject to this document. Some tourism products include cyclotourism together with other tourism services (e.g. transfers, meals, lodging), but this document applies only to cyclotourism, the additional tourism services being excluded from the scope.

This document is applicable to any kind of adventure tourism activity provider that offers tourism products consisting of cyclotourism. This document is not applicable to bicycle rental with no adventure tourism purposes, which attend urban or rural mobility needs

Purpose

Adventure tourism sector has become one of the most important tourism sectors worldwide. Since 2014, ISO has published 4 adventure tourism standards:

- ISO 21101 – Adventure tourism – Safety management system – Requirements;

- ISO 21103 – Adventure tourism – Information for participants;

- ISO 21102– Adventure tourism – Leaders – Personnel competences; and

- ISO 20611 – Adventure tourism – Good practices for sustainability – Requirements and recommendations.

And currently , two future ISO standards are going to be published in the next months: - ISO/FDIS 3021– Adventure Tourism – Hiking and trekking activities – Requirements and recommendations; and

- ISO/FDIS 3163– Adventure Tourism – Terminology.

It is acknowledged that adventure tourism organisations represent an important and growing sector within the tourism industry and the existing standards are contributing to harmonize practices worldwide and enhance the quality of the services provided. These horizontal standards have set the general framework for the development of any type of adventure tourism activity. Now that the general criteria on safety, competence and information have been agreed and the sector is mature enough, it is time to continue developing specific requirements for specific activities, such as this proposal on cyclotourism. In 2007 and 2017, Brazil’s National Standards Association ABNT, published Standards defining adventure tourism service requirements in cyclotourism activities (ABNT NBR 15509:2007 – Part 1 – updated in 2019 –, and ABNT NBR 15509:2017 – Part 2) and therefore has the experience of developing and implementing such Brazilian Standards. During the process, the elaboration and the revision of the standard have been carried out in accordance with good practices of standardization. All interested parties have participated (Private sector, NGO's, Government, Tour Operators, Workers, Communities, Development Agencies, etc.) in the development of a common reference through an open and participative process. Brazil would like now to share this valuable input with the ISO TC 228 community as a basis for a future ISO standard in cyclotourism. This standard proposal is addressed to adventure tourism companies and can be implemented by small, medium and large organizations in the world. The future standard will provide the adventure tourism industry with information about minimum requirements on the services offered to participants of adventure tourism in their cyclotourism activities. And finally, due to Covid-19 pandemic since March 2020, after months of closure for tourism activities worldwide, participants are looking for adventure tourism activities in outdoor areas, with small groups, with more safety protocols and the cyclotourism activity has increased severely, causing more situations of potential increase of accidents during these operation around the world.