Antarctica tourism has 'grown considerably' in recent years

People planning adventure travel tours may wish to consider visiting the increasingly popular - but still under-visited - continent of Antarctica, just as more and more people are doing.

A spokesperson for research council the British Antarctic Survey noted that more people are visiting the polar continent now than ever before.

"The first specially designed, ice-strengthened cruise ship - the Lindblad Explorer - visited the continent in 1969," the spokesperson said.

"Since then the industry has grown considerably, particularly since the early 1990s, with numbers of tourists increasing from under 9,000 in 1992/93 to over 46,000 in 2007/08."

The earth's polar regions offer some of the regions most untouched by man in the world and also give people the chance to see wildlife such as Emperor Penguins in their natural habitat.

Although the first specialist cruise ship left in the late 1960s, companies first took tourists to the south polar continent the decade before.