Backpacker Tourism: Concepts and Profiles
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Backpacker Tourism: Concepts and Profiles
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Overview
The search for new tourism experiences as well as changes in the tourism industry itself has led to new forms of individualised travel and consequentially new forms of backpacker tourism. This volume provides an up to date examination of the behaviour, attitudes and motivations of backpacker tourists as well as the growth of the infrastructure behind backpacker tourism phenomenon throughout the world. Drawing upon insights from geography, sociology, anthropology, management and marketing, Backpacker Tourism provides theoretically informed case studies of individual destinations of backpackers. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of backpacker tourism as well as those involved in the backpacker tourism industry itself.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781845413088 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Channel View Publications |
| Publication date: | 11/12/2007 |
| Series: | Tourism and Cultural Change , #13 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 280 |
| File size: | 5 MB |
About the Author
Professor Kevin Hannam is Professor of Tourism Development and Head of Tourism at the University of Sunderland, UK. He is the co-editor with Mimi Sheller and John Urry of the journal Mobilities. He has published widely on cultural geography and conceptual aspects of tourism development, with a particular empirical focus on India and Scandinavia. Dr
Irena Ateljevic is based within the Socio-Spatial Analysis Group at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. She is the co-editor of recent books on critical tourism including: Ateljevic, I. Morgan, N. and Pritchard, A. (2007) The Critical Turn in Tourism Studies: Exploring Innovative Methodologies (Elsevier Advanced Series); and Pritchard, A. Morgan, N. Ateljevic, I. and Harris, C. (2007) Tourism, Gender and Embodiment (CAB International). Her most recent research interest lies in analysing the political implications and powers surrounding the production of academic knowledge.
Kevin Hannam is Professor of Tourism Mobilities at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK. Previously he was Associate Dean for Research at the University of Sunderland, UK. He has particular research interests in heritage and nature based tourism with a geographical focus on South and South-East Asia. He has supervised to completion over 100 master’s theses and 18 doctoral students. He is founding co-editor of the journal Mobilities (Routledge), andco-author of the books Understanding Tourism (Sage) and Tourism and India (Routledge). Most recently he was co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Mobilities Research and co-editor of Moral Encounters in Tourism (Ashgate). He has a PhD in geography from the University of Portsmouth and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS).
Dr Irena Ateljevic is based within the Socio-Spatial Analysis Group at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. She is the co-editor of recent books on critical tourism including: Ateljevic, I. Morgan, N. and Pritchard, A. (2007) The Critical Turn in Tourism Studies: Exploring Innovative Methodologies (Elsevier Advanced Series); and Pritchard, A. Morgan, N. Ateljevic, I. and Harris, C. (2007) Tourism, Gender and Embodiment (CAB International). Her most recent research interest lies in analysing the political implications and powers surrounding the production of academic knowledge.
Read an Excerpt
Backpacker Tourism
Concepts and Profiles
By Kevin Hannam, Irena Ateljevic
Multilingual Matters
Copyright © 2008 Kevin Hannam, Irena Ateljevic and the authors of individual chaptersAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84541-308-8
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Conceptualising and Profiling Backpacker Tourism
KEVIN HANNAM and IRENA ATELJEVIC
Academic interest in backpacker tourism research has grown in recent years. Publications focusing on the phenomenon include the recent Global Nomad collection edited by Richards and Wilson (2004a) and the recent special issue of Tourism Recreation Research (2006). In the introduction to the Global Nomad, Richards and Wilson (2004a: 3) argued that: 'Backpackers are to be found in every corner of the globe, from remote villages in the Hindu Kush to the centres of London and Paris'. Hence, the present collection builds on and develops the analysis of backpacker tourism geographically by providing new material on backpacker tourism in India, Malaysia and South Africa amongst other countries. Conceptually, the present collection is perhaps not as profoundly groundbreaking as The Global Nomad, however we feel that it offers some new insights and examples. The relatively simple title of this collection, Backpacker Tourism, was arrived at after much debate and advice and reflects the fact that while backpackers themselves, as well as many academics, have conceptualised the backpacker phenomenon as a form of travel rather than tourism, nevertheless backpacking is increasingly part and parcel of the wider mainstream tourism industry in the 21st century and has arguably become normalised and institutionalised through increased mobilities (see Noy, 2006; O'Reilly, 2006; Sørensen, 2003 for more on these debates).
While it is not the aim of the present collection to provide a comprehensive literature review of the research to date on backpacker tourism (see Ateljevic & Doorne, 2004; Cohen, 2004), this introduction firstly seeks to outline some of the other work that has been published on backpacker tourism since the Global Nomad was published in 2004 in order to provide a conceptual background. Secondly, this introduction provides a summary of the varied contributions in the present collection, Backpacker Tourism, which we have organised on the basis of their conceptual or empirical significance. In the conclusion to this volume, meanwhile, taking note of Carr's (2006) review of The Global Nomad, we again discuss the work that still needs to be done to fully understand the global backpacker phenomenon and call for a theoretical engagement with recent work on mobilities (Hannam et al., 2006).
Recent Conceptual Developments in Backpacker Research
Recently a great deal of new research on backpacker tourism has been published. Conceptually much of this has taken a qualitative methodological approach in order to analyse the identities of various backpacker tourists (see for example, Sørensen, 2003). Concern with analysing the sociocultural identities of backpackers has of course been a long-term interest of researchers ever since the days of Cohen's (1973) early publication. More recently, however, work by Desforges (2000), Sørensen (2003), Noy (2004a) and O'Reilly (2006) in particular has examined backpacker tourists' self-reflexive narratives in different contexts. Maoz (2006a) meanwhile has broadened these horizons by examining Israeli backpackers' host – guest interactions in India and has called for more studies of locals' perceptions of backpacker tourists and the ensuing power relationships. Similarly, Cohen (2006: 11) also notes the ongoing power dynamics between backpackers and hosts in the backpacker enclave of Pai, Northern Thailand where 'it is not the native Shan people, but rather different kinds of in-migrants to the community, who primarily benefit from backpackers'. Such power relations are also evident in the research process itself. Based upon his autoethnography of backpacking, Muzaini (2006: 156) makes the important point that being an Asian backpacker in South-East Asia means that, 'looking local also means that sometimes, one gets subjected to discrimination that other locals experience ...' Drawing upon postcolonial conceptual literature, Teo and Leong (2006: 126–127) develop this analysis and argue that: 'Social relations of power also inflect Asian perceptions of Asian backpackers. ... Asian backpackers are caught in between and betwixt.'
Such power relations will be picked up again in the conclusion, however we now move on to outline the chapters that contribute to the ongoing debates over backpacker tourism that are of concern in this volume.
Structure of this Volume
There is a wider a range of contributors, theoretically and geographically, in Backpacker Tourism compared with the previous volume The Global Nomad. Again there is an evident divide between chapters that contribute more theoretical observations and those that present more empirical data. However, there are some blurrings, as some chapters evidently produce both. The aim of the volume though is to draw together both sides in order to provide a synopsis of the present state of research into backpacker tourism, however we have for organisational purposes divided chapters into two sections that focus primarily but not exhaustively on conceptual backpacker matters and empirical profiles, respectively.
Following this introduction, in Chapter 2, Wilson and Richards examine the spatial development of backpacker enclaves theoretically. They argue that in spite of the rapidly changing nature of the backpacker scene and the shifts taking place in backpacker enclaves, research has tended to lag behind these changes. They note that research has tended to focus on the individual backpacker, rather than the 'scene' as a whole, or the individual enclaves in which the scene is (re) produced. They go on to suggest that more attention needs to be paid to the role of the enclave, as a social and cross-cultural space in which the gap between ideology and practice in backpacker travel is not only created, but also reconciled for (and by) the participants of the scene. Similarly, Hottola, in Chapter 3 discusses the ways in which backpackers search for in-group membership in such enclaves or metaspatial retreats such as hotel rooms, holiday resorts and other physically or behaviourally segregated places that can function as important psychophysical safe havens in tourism, much the same way our home acts as a place of rest and recovery in the everyday. He argues that by travelling between tourist metaspaces and public spaces backpacker tourists manage the stressful part of their intercultural experience and notes that similar behaviour has been well documented among migrants.
In an attempt to marry sociological and market-orientated backpacker research, Pearce, in Chapter 4, outlines the potential for sustainability research and backpacker studies to influence one another. He questions how backpacker research contributes to sustainability discussions and how can sustainability analysis shape research into backpacking. In particular, he notes that more studies of the impacts of backpacker behaviour and more studies of the corporate sustainability status of backpacker businesses would be useful new research directions. Following on from a discussion of sustainability, Speed, in Chapter 5, attempt to discover the extent to which backpacker tourists' behaviour exemplifies that of an ethical tourist. They argue that backpacker tourism has sometimes been characterised as 'good' tourism, in comparison with mass-market packaged tourism. They consider the meaning of ethical tourism and investigate the extent to which backpackers consider themselves to be ethical tourists in the choices they make whilst travelling.
In a turn towards material considerations, Welk, in Chapter 6, goes on to consider the considerable influence of the backpacker phenomenon on the development of Lonely Planet and vice versa. The impact both have had on each other is so significant that their interdependencies as well as the peculiarities of Lonely Planet's history are worthwhile studying in order to begin to understand the relationship between backpacker literature and backpacker tourism.
In the final chapter in this section of the book, Wilson and Ateljevic develop a conceptual framework to discuss the gendered embodiment of backpacker research. By developing a gendered perspective their chapter aims to challenge the frequently assumed dualisms surrounding the conceptualisation of the backpacker tourist experience. Moreover, like Elsrud (2005), they seek to enhance backpacker research by engaging with broader theoretical discussions of tourism as a contemporary cultural and social practice through which power relations, social identities and multiple subjectivities can be addressed.
In the second section of this volume we offer a number of chapters that profile empirically different aspects of backpacker tourism whilst also highlighting other important theoretical insights. In Chapter 8 Wilson, Fisher and Moore argue that, while a range of studies and market reports have variously addressed the 'youth' or the 'student' travel market, most have considered Europe as a source of outbound backpacker travellers and not as a destination per se. They go on to discuss 'outbound' Australasian backpackers on their tours of Europe.
Ian and Musa, in Chapter 9, consider the empirical impact of international backpackers in Malaysia and uncover important economic findings. Drawing upon Pearce (this volume), they argue that the insights gained about backpacker tourists may enable the Malaysian authorities to deal objectively with the dilemma of planning for small-scale tourism developments in a more sustainable way. Chapter 10, meanwhile, offers us a new insight into the motivations of backpacker tourists in South Africa. Since South Africa became a democracy in 1994, it has become a popular backpacker destination with a developing infrastructure to meet the needs of backpacker tourists (Visser, 2004). Based upon their empirical data, Niggel and Benson argue that there are specific push and pull motivations for backpackers to visit South Africa in comparison to other destinations worldwide. Again, based upon a large empirical survey, Jarvis and Peel, in Chapter 11, profile the travel patterns and motivations of the growing short-stay international student segment in Australian universities. Their research argues that short-stay students to Australia can be better understood as 'study backpackers', a subsegment of the international backpacker market, who have responded to the increasing commercialisation of the industry in Australia by seeking a method of visitation that gives a greater perceived cultural contact with the host society.
In Chapter 12 Myers and Hannam offer new conceptual and empirical insights by drawing upon feminist theory in order to analyse the perspectives of female backpackers from the UK of different generations who have visited various destinations over their own life-courses. Based upon qualitative empirical evidence from the UK, they argue that female backpackers' tourism experiences, like their leisure behaviour, is frequently constrained by male-dominated cultural values and attitudes. However, they also argue that, conversely, women's backpacker travel in particular contexts can also be a potentially liberating experience for some women as they gain the freedom to express their often hybrid identities in new ways. Maoz, in Chapter 13, similarly makes the point that gender and age are important factors in the study of contemporary backpacker research. Hers is a study of the backpacking journey of Israeli women in mid-life who travelled in India as backpackers for more than a month. Most of the women travellers interviewed by Maoz experienced a 'mid-life crisis', and the backpacking journey to India was perceived as a chance for transformation, overcoming fears and difficulties, and finding a new meaning to life.
The penultimate chapter (14) in this section, by Wilson, Richards and MacDonnell, is an empirical examination of a backpacker tourism enclave in Sydney, Australia. They note that Australia has gained a competitive advantage in the global backpacker market because of its rapid and extensive institutionalisation and commercialisation of backpacker travel. Moreover, the Australian tourist industry, local employers and communities looking for alternative sources of economic development have generally welcomed backpackers. Sydney, the largest and best known of Australian cities, in particular has experienced the greatest growth in backpacker tourism, and the tourist enclave of Bondi Beach arguably the most problems. Wilson and Richards argue that the expansion of backpacker enclaves in the city has arguably had positive impacts in terms of employment and income for local businesses. Nevertheless they also note that it has conversely also caused many problems for local residents living near backpacker hostels, and for local authorities who have to deal with the increased financial and administrative burden of the additional temporary residents. In extreme cases, this has led to anti-backpacker attitudes on the part of Bondi residents, which contrast greatly with the positive view espoused by the national government and backpacker interest groups.
The final chapter in this section, Chapter 15, meanwhile, develops a comparative empirical analysis of backpacker accommodation in Scotland and New Zealand. Again in a conceptual blurring of older stereotypes of backpacker tourism, their research indicates that backpacker profiles may be evolving towards a wider age-inclusive demographic and use by short-break users, in a market that was once typified as the preserve of youthful, international travellers. Their comparisons also enable contrasts to be drawn between a developing destination in need of a clearer understanding of the attitudes of this market in Scotland and the more developed 'backpacker' destination of New Zealand.
In the concluding chapter to this volume, Ateljevic and Hannam attempt to draw together the key themes of the book and identify some new research directions for the future. We hope that this will be another enjoyable backpacker tourism research read.
CHAPTER 2Suspending Reality: An Exploration of Enclaves and the Backpacker Experience
JULIE WILSON and GREG RICHARDS
Introduction
The backpacker 'scene' has become an essential part of the tourism economy in recent years, particularly in certain major traveller or backpacker 'enclaves'. However, this growth has itself been accompanied by a number of changes in the nature of backpacker tourism and the supply of facilities. These include spatial changes, such as the growth of enclaves, which Richards and Wilson (2004a) have signalled as a major development that deserves further research.
In spite of the rapidly changing nature of the backpacker scene and the shifts taking place in the structure(s) and role(s) of backpacker enclaves, research has tended to lag behind these changes. One of the reasons for this is the continuing division between research encompassing anthropological and managerial traditions. Both of these traditions have tended to focus on the individual backpacker, rather than the 'scene' as a whole, or the individual enclaves in which the scene is (re) produced. Some studies have also begun to point towards the growing gap between the ideology and practice of backpacker travel, and the fact that the experiences which backpackers aspire to are rarely attained. This produces a stark contrast between anthropological perspectives, which tend to focus on individual aspiration, and quantitative surveys, which are better at capturing activity patterns.
In this exploratory chapter we suggest that more attention needs to be paid to the role of the enclave, as a social and cross-cultural space in which the gap between ideology and practice in backpacker travel is not only created, but also reconciled for (and by) the participants of the scene. Enclaves are not necessarily sites of pure reversal or extension, but rather a suspension between these two extremes; metaspaces that provide the possibility for backpackers to combine familiarity and difference in appropriate circumstances.
Previous Approaches to the Study of Backpacking
The 'gap' between backpacker theory and practice, or between desire and experience, noted by Cohen (2004), can arguably be traced to differing research traditions in the field. In broad terms, backpacker research has tended to be divided between anthropologically based and market-based approaches (Richards & Wilson, 2004a). This division is mirrored in terms of theory, methodology, the research subject and newly emergent discourses.
(Continues...)
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction: Conceptualising and Profiling Backpacker Tourism - Kevin Hannam and Irena Ateljevic
CONCEPTUALISING BACKPACKER TOURISM
2. Suspending Reality: An Exploration of Enclaves and the Backpacker Experience - Julie Wilson and Greg Richards
3. The Social Psychological Interface of Tourism and Independent Travel - Petri Hottola
4. Sustainability Research and Backpacker Studies: Intersections and Mutual Insights - Phillip Pearce
5. Are Backpackers Ethical Tourists? - Clare Speed and Annabel Hartnell
6. The Lonely Planet Myth: Backpacker Bible and Travel Survival Kit - Peter Welk
7. Challenging the Tourist-Other Dualism: Gender, Backpackers and the Embodiment of Tourism Research - Erica Wilson and Irena Ateljevic
PROFILING BACKPACKER TOURISM
8. Van Tour and Doing a Contiki: Grand Backpacker Tours of Europe - Jude Wilson, David Fisher and Kevin Moore
9. Uncovering the International Backpackers to Malaysia - Lee Tze Ian and Ghazali Musa
10. Exploring the Motivations of Backpackers: The Case of South Africa - Christine Niggel and Angela Benson
11. Study Backpackers: Australia’s Short-stay International Student Travellers - Jeff Jarvis and Victoria Peel
12. Women as Backpacker Tourists: A Feminist Analysis of Destination Choice and Social Identities from the UK - Linda Myers and Kevin Hannam
13. The Backpacking Journey of Israeli Women in Mid-Life - Darya Maoz
14. Intra-Community Tensions in Backpacker Enclaves: Sydney’s Bondi Beach - Julie Wilson, Greg Richards and Ian MacDonnell
15. Perceptions of Backpacker Accommodation Facilities: A Comparative Study of Scotland and New Zealand - Jenny Cave, Maree Thyne and Chris Ryan
16. Conclusion: Towards a Critical Agenda for Backpacker Tourism - Irena Ateljevic and Kevin Hannam