Backpacker Dissertation: Frequently Asked Questions
Was ist das Thema dieser Dissertation?
Diese Dissertation untersucht die Hypothese, ob die Darstellung der Backpacker-Reisekultur in Alex Garlands Buch „The Beach“ mit den Einstellungen von Backpackern übereinstimmt. Dafür wurde der erste akademische Online-Fragebogen zum Thema Backpacking durchgeführt.
Warum wurde „The Beach“ als Forschungsfokus gewählt?
„The Beach“ war ein sehr erfolgreiches Buch, das die Backpacker-Kultur kritisiert. Da fiktionale Literatur über Tourismus bisher in der Tourismusforschung nur wenig genutzt wurde, bietet „The Beach“ einen guten Ansatzpunkt, um die Darstellung von Tourismus in der Literatur zu untersuchen und deren Einfluss auf die Tourismusnachfrage zu analysieren.
Welche Methode wurde verwendet?
Die Studie verwendete eine Kombination aus Sekundär- und Primärforschung. Die Sekundärforschung umfasste eine Literaturrecherche zu bestehenden Theorien und Definitionen von Backpackern. Die Primärforschung basierte auf einem Online-Fragebogen, der an Backpacker auf verschiedenen Websites verteilt wurde.
Warum wurde ein Online-Fragebogen verwendet?
Ein Online-Fragebogen ermöglichte eine weltweite Erhebung und die Erfassung einer großen Stichprobengröße. Die Methode war kostengünstig und anonym, was die Teilnahmebereitschaft erhöhte. Die Online-Methode ermöglicht im Gegensatz zu traditionellen Methoden, eine weltweite Befragung, sowie den Zugang zu Backpackern, die sich nicht in kommerziellen Unterkünften aufhalten.
Wie groß war die Stichprobengröße?
Insgesamt wurden 206 gültige Fragebögen von Nutzern verschiedener Backpacker-Websites ausgewertet. Die potentielle Population umfasste alle Webnutzer, die Backpacker-Websites besuchten. Es ist jedoch schwierig, die genaue Größe der weltweiten Backpacker-Population zu definieren.
Welche Software wurde für die Datenanalyse verwendet?
Für die Analyse der quantitativen Daten wurde das Statistikprogramm SPSS für Windows verwendet. Die Daten wurden statistisch ausgewertet (z.B. Mittelwert, Median, Kreuztabellen).
Welche wichtigen Ergebnisse wurden erzielt?
Die Mehrheit der Befragten war jung (Medianalter 24 Jahre), stammte aus Europa und Nordamerika und betonte die Bedeutung von Unabhängigkeit, geringem Budget und dem Erleben der lokalen Kultur. Die Charakteristiken aus „The Beach“ wurden größtenteils abgelehnt, da sie als zu fiktional empfunden wurden.
Wie wichtig sind Lonely Planet Reiseführer für Backpacker?
Ein erheblicher Teil der Befragten gab an, Lonely Planet Reiseführer als wichtig für ihre Reiseplanung zu erachten. Die Studie diskutiert die Rolle von Reiseführern bei der Gestaltung des Backpacker-Tourismus und deren möglichen Einfluss auf die Entwicklung des Tourismus.
Was sind die Stärken und Schwächen der Studie?
Stärken: Weltweite Erhebung, große Stichprobengröße, Verwendung von SPSS für die Datenanalyse. Schwächen: Mögliche Verzerrung durch die Konzentration auf englischsprachige Backpacker und Internetnutzer, begrenzte Repräsentation von asiatischen und südamerikanischen Backpackern. Die Auswahl der Fragen könnte als subjektiv und durch den Einfluss von "The Beach" beeinflusst angesehen werden.
Welche Schlussfolgerungen wurden gezogen?
Die Studie kommt zu dem Schluss, dass Backpacker in ihrer Mehrheit eher als „Explorer“-Touristen im Sinne von Cohens Typologie einzuordnen sind. Sie sind unabhängig, interessiert an der lokalen Kultur, tauchen aber nicht vollständig in die Gastkultur ein. Ein neuer Definition von Backpackern wird vorgeschlagen, die Alter, Herkunft und typische Verhaltensweisen berücksichtigt, während die Heterogenität der Backpacker-Gruppe anerkannt wird.
Welche Vorschläge für zukünftige Forschung werden gemacht?
Für zukünftige Forschung werden verschiedene Ansatzpunkte vorgeschlagen, unter anderem: tiefergehende Online-Untersuchungen, die Analyse des Zusammenhangs zwischen Backpackern und dem Internet, die Untersuchung der Rolle von Reiseführern (z.B. Lonely Planet), die detailliertere Segmentierung von Backpackern nach Motiven und Erfahrungen und die Untersuchung der Auswirkungen von Backpacker-Tourismus auf die lokale Bevölkerung in Entwicklungsländern.
Table of contents
Introductory comments by backpackers
Abstract
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Table of contents
List of figures
Chapter 1 The context
1.1. Introduction
1.2. Aims and objectives
1.3. Academic literature review
Chapter 2 Methodology
2.1. Rationale for methodology
2.2. Justification of the chosen research method
2.3. The sampling size and frame
2.4. Questionnaire design
2.5. Questionnaire distribution
2.6. Statistical software for the analysis - SPSS for Windows
Chapter 3 Key Findings
3.1. Overview
3.2. Respondents characteristics
3.3. Characteristics of backpackers
3.4. Important during a backpacker holiday
3.5. Respondents’ characteristics as expressed in the book
3.6. Respondents’ attitudes on specific questions
3.7. Respondents and 'The Beach’
3.8. Significant results from cross-tabulations
Chapter 4 Significance/ Limitations
4.1. Significance and statistical justification of the results
4.2. Limitations of the survey
Chapter 5 Conclusion/ Future Research
5.1. Conclusion
5.2. Summary of meeting the aim of this study
5.3. Future Research Recommendations
Chapter 6 Bibliography
Chapter 7 Appendices
7.1. The responses to the questions
7.2. Full results from cross-tabulation
7.3. Valuable comments received from backpackers
7.4. Book review of 'The Beach’
7.5. Interview with Alex Garland
7.6. Justification of questions
7.7. The Questionnaire
7.8. Summary of questionnaire results- pure SPSS data
7.9. Split of SPSS data
Supervisor:
Clare SPEED
This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in International Tourism Management
« Thailand is just a small part of the world, yet most Brits think it is it& a bit. »
A 24-year-old European backpacker.
« The majority of backpackers probably also have two eyes, but this doesn't have anything to do with backpacking per se (and I am sure there are also a few one-eyed backpackers, just like there are 70 year old or Pakistani backpackers, for example) »
A 32-year-old North American backpacker.
« Travelling is about getting off the beaten trail and experiencing human nature in the raw. Full immersion in life. Tourism is about being able to say "been there, done that"... »
A 27-year-old Australian/Oceanian backpacker.
« Backpackers are generally the young middle class for whom the world exists to go round. »
A 40-year-old Australasian/Oceanian backpacker
« All backpackers think they are better than tourists, but they are no different-just spend less money. »
A 21-year-old European backpacker.
« Those who visit foreign nations, but associate only with their own country-men, change their climate, but not their customs. They see new meridians, but the same men; and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home with travelled bodies, but untravelled minds. »
Caleb Colton (quote provided by Heather, a backpacker from the UK)
Abstract
This study is testing the hypothesis whether the presentation of the backpacking travel culture in the book ‘The Beach’ by Alex Garland complies with backpackers’ attitudes via the first academic online questionnaire on backpacking. This study addresses the relevance of tourism presentation in fictional literature on the investigation oftourism.
Research on backpackers has substantially increased over the last decade. However, the discussion of backpackers’ image in fictional literature has been almost excluded from backpacking science. The Internet also has not yet been substantially exploited, even though backpackers are away from home for long times and thus are prime targets for online research. A questionnaire survey was conducted on 206 backpackers. The research was carried out between December 19th 2001 and January 19th 2002 using different backpacker websites.
This research showed that backpackers are young. Respondents state they are particularly interested in experiencing the local culture and meeting the people, though the majority of respondents only has limited contact with the local population. Half of the respondents have read ‘The Beach’, while characteristics taken from ‘The Beach’ have been rejected to a large extent, mainly due to the highly fictional approach of ‘The Beach’. Respondents claim that backpackers can be characterised by their high independency and preference for low budget. The vast majority of respondents state they belong to a group of backpackers that is advanced in backpacking but is still sometimes in need of western comfort.
In conclusion, the primary research and secondary evidence used in this survey have provided evidence to suggest a new definition of backpackers, while recognising that different backpacker categories in respect to their motivation and demographics can occur, emphasising that the vast majority of backpackers between 20 and 30 years old are and they are from Europe and North America, it is however Australasia which generates the highest proportional backpacker demand.
Further research, particularly concerned with the growing antipathy against backpackers, or exploiting further the Internet as a medium of research and in a more profound way, as backpackers have been found to be heavy web-users in this study, could provide the tourism industry with more insight into this highly important market segment.
Dedication
This dissertation is entirely dedicated to the people of Palestine occupied in the West Bank, Gaza-strip and East Jerusalem for the last 35 years and the Israeli civilians killed during the occupation.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my parents. My most sincere thanks go towards the help of Clare Speed and Phil Long from the School of Sport and Leisure in assisting me with this dissertation. Also, I would like to thank Pete Middleton, from the University’s Computer Information Services; whose contribution in setting up the ever so important web based questionnaire is very much appreciated. My thanks go to Lonely Planet, in particular to Howard Ralley in Melbourne and Rachel Peart in London, for facilitating my use of the ‘thorn tree’, which was such a successful medium for the distribution of this questionnaire. I would also like to thank Sheffield Hallam University for providing world-class standards of education. However my final and most sincere thanks go toward the contribution of the 206 backpackers, who so enthusiastically submitted this questionnaire and helped to make this study succeed. They hopefully enjoy travelling wherever they might be.
List of figures
Cross-tabulations:
Figure 1 : [Continent of residence*Read the book] Source: The Author
Figure 2: [Planning to go to Thailand*Read the book] Source: The Author
Figure 3: [Planning to go to Thailand*Continent of residence] Source: The Author
Figure 4: [Planning to go to Thailand*Kind of backpacker] Source: The Author
Figure 5: [Continent of residence*Protection of nature] Source: The Author
Tables:
Table 1: [Academicquotation] Source: Hampton (1998)
Table 2: [Academic quotation] Source: Riley (1988)
Table 3: [Academic quotation] Source: Bradt (1995)
Table 4: [Fiction quotation] Source: Garland (1997)
Table 5: [Fiction quotation] Source: Sutcliffe (1997)
Table 6: [Academic quotation] Source: Cohen (1968)
Table 7: [Fiction quotation] Source: Sutcliffe (1997)
Table 8: [Questionnaire comment] Source: The Author
Table 9: [Questionnaire comment] Source: The Author
Table 10: [Questionnaire comment] Source: The Author
Table 11: [Interview quotation] Source: (Wheat, 2000)
Table 12: [Questionnaire comment] Source: The Author
Table 13: [Questionnaire comment] Source: The Author
Table 14: [Questionnaire comment] Source: The Author
Table 15: [Questionnaire comment] Source: The Author
Table 16: [Questionnaire comment] Source: The Author
Table 17: [Questionnaire comment] Source: The Author
Table 18: [Questionnaire comment] Source : The Author
Table 19: [Backpacker definition] Source: The Author
1. The context
1.1. Introduction
[Academic quotation] Table 1
“Throughout South East Asia, young Western tourists with large backpacks can commonly be observed clambering out of cycle rickshaws or local buses and peering reverently at a battered copy of a Lonely Planet guidebook as they search for cheap accommodation or details about ancient temples.” Hampton (1998:639).
This is a correct observation of the new generation of young travellers, but what are they thinking? What motivates them and what are the issues they think are most important? Is the presentation of this new form of tourism as portrayed in the “backpacker critique” (Alex Garland in Wheat, 2000- See appendix 7.5. ) ‘The Beach’ (Garland, 1997) correct, or does it need to be adjusted? Backpacking culture as presented in ‘The Beach’ is one of the current youth trends. ‘The Beach’ was a highly successful book. 700,000 copies of ‘The Beach’ have been sold in the UK, nearly 300,000 in the USA, and it has been translated into 27 languages (Wheat, 2000). The aim of this study is to verify whether backpackers are like backpackers presented in ‘The Beach’, since many non-backpacker readers (e.g. the press) might imply that all backpackers are as presented in the book with major negative implications, since the book was written as a critique (Wheat, 2000).
Being such a successful book whilst criticising backpacking as one major current issue of tourism, ‘The Beach’ therefore can be justified as the research focus of this study, as fictional literature on tourism has been under-exploited so far in the investigation of tourism. Fictional literature has however the potential to be investigated further, as it is such a powerful portrayer of tourism image (Wheat, 2000) and it can have a major impact on tourism demand due to criticising or praising a destination orway oftravelling, such as backpacking.
1.2. Aims and objectives
Resulting from the introduction (1.1.), the aim of this study can be set as following:
- To discuss issues raised in ‘The Beach’ with backpackers and test the hypothesis that there is a positive relationship between backpackers’ attitudes and backpacker characteristics taken from the book, i.e. to test the hypothesis that backpackers are very much ‘Richard-clones’ (the main character in ‘The Beach’).
The following objectives have been set in orderto achieve this aim:
- To evaluate backpacking theory to form a basis for this study.
- Conducting an online questionnaire on random users of various backpacker websites to receive quantitative data in order to investigate whether backpackers are ‘Richardclones’.
- To analyse the data received using SPSS, including significant cross-tabulation.
- To discuss the results in relation with relevant backpacker theory.
- To critically evaluate with the results of this research and the most appropriate literature a new definition of backpackers.
- To evaluate whether the aim of this study was achieved.
1.3. Academic literature Review
The literature review will critically appraise the relevant journals, dissertations and other research sources that have provided a solid background to this dissertation’s topic. The review will analyse the key theoretical references and discuss their importance to this investigation into the backpacking travel market. The book review of ‘The Beach’ can be found in appendix 7.4.
Relevant to this study are authors which have analysed the backpacker segment, focusing on describing the phenomenon’s characteristics, i.e. the reasons for backpacking, common behaviour by backpackers regarding money, places, status and the length of travels as well as what effects backpacking have on travellers themselves. This is the main focus this study takes in order to provide a solid foundation for the discussion of ‘The Beach’ characteristics in relation to backpackers.
History of backpacking
It was Pearce, who first used ‘backpackers’ for the low budget independent traveller market segment back in 1990. He was not the first one who wrote about this topic, but Pearce first introduced this term to the tourism literature. He however states that John Cook in Sydney first noted the word ‘backpackers’ in 1981. The term ‘Backpacker’ is now universally approved by the tourism science (Uriely et al, 2002). Spreitzhofer (1998) argues South-East Asia was the birthplace of mass backpacking with the release of the ‘Yellow Bible’ (SouthEast Asia guidebook) by Lonely Planet in 1975, i.e. the first application of modern time young budget travellers in pre-academic literature.
Definition of backpackers
The term “backpacker” needs to be defined, in order to have a working definition for this dissertation. It makes sense to use the terminology as given by Pearce (1990) in order to define a backpacker. Thus ‘normal’ backpackers share a preference for budget accommodation and meeting other backpackers, they organise their holidays independently, and put an emphasis on informal and participatory holiday activities. Loker (1993) confirmed that backpackers are much more likely to swim, surf and trek compared to other tourists, thus are adventurous and outdoor-driven tourists. One interesting notion is the increasing participation of women in backpacking. While Riley (1988) already noted that around 25 percent are female, it is nowadays the case that half of the backpackers are female (Loker- Murphy, 1996). Speed (2000b) even found that 60.6 percent of backpackers to Scotland are female. Having equal amounts of men and women participating in backpacking, the gender issue was excluded from this research. Riley (1988:317) describes young independent lowbudget travellers (backpackers) as:
[Academic quotation] Table 2
“people desirous of extending their travels beyond that of cyclical holiday, and, hence the necessity of living on a budget...they are escaping from the dullness and monotony of their everyday routine, from their jobs, from making decisions about careers, and the desire to postpone work, marriage and other responsibilities.”
What this says about Western society, and of 22-year-olds needing a break from their dull life, needs to be argued.
Pearce (1990) also states that backpackers tend to be on longer holidays rather than short ones and that they typically travel on the same routes increasing the likelihood of meeting the same travellers in different locations. In his study, he also draws the attention to the Cairns Backpackers Association study by Green and Higginson (1988), which states that backpackers are predominately from Europe, the British Isles and Scandinavia, America and New Zealand. One of their prime objectives is “meeting the people” as stated by Riley (1988), sharing the local lifestyle and seeking excitement and adventure (Loker, 1993). Bradt (1995:49-50), sets out five characteristics which define a backpacker, these are:
Backpackers try to
[Academic quotation] Table 3
- “survive on under £10 per day
- use local transport
- carry all their belongings on their back
- bargain for goods whilst guarding against rip-offs
- get away from crowds and discover new places”
Critiques on these definitions of backpackers
At least the last characteristic of Bradt’s characterisation of backpackers has been questioned in recent times due to the emergence of backpacking melting pots like Dahab, Egypt and Ko Samui, Thailand, as discussed in Scheyvens (2002), where many backpackers congregate, eat pancakes and sit in Internet Cafés, enjoying not so specifically local customs. The majority of backpackers nowadays seems to have little interest in meeting locals and learning about different cultures, thus not taking the chance to increase their knowledge of others, as criticised by Hutnyk (1996). This argument has been supported by Noronha (1999), by suggesting that backpackers simply do not care about local customs and show disrespect for local social behaviour. There is however no justification for blinded generalisation, as Scheyvens (2002:150) puts it:
“While self-gratification and indulgence may be the primary motivation for one category of backpackers, others may be driven by a genuine interest in learning about other peoples and environments, and many may fall somewhere between these extremes.”
The concept of status enhancing- a psychological perspective
One of the major discussion points of backpacking is the concept of ‘status enhancing’. Elsrud (2001) states backpackers try to travel the less frequented route, eat with locals in order to be seen as adapting best to any environment, thus acquiring a ‘golden badge’ of travelling. Riley (1988) argues that showing adventurous and explorer-like behaviour is approved positively by other backpackers, thus ‘status enhancing’.
Jamieson (1996) proposed the debatable notion that backpackers are always very much in search of the ‘authentic experience’, which has been investigated further by Wang (1999). This is confirmed by Sharpley (1994), stating that backpackers’ travelling is associated with adventure, experience, authenticity and self-discovery. Others however do not subscribe to this point, arguing (Scheyvens, 2002) that backpackers are more interested in finding the perfect beach, taking drugs, having sexual experiences, taking meditation retreats and partying. The video documentary Thailand Backpackers: Full Moon Party (Pendry, 1998) confirms this view by including the comment of one backpacker asked why he does not want to see the ‘real’ Thailand: “I didn’t come for the real Thailand- this is purely hedonistic”.
Sutcliffe (1997:148) in his book ‘Are you experienced?’ also imagines the conversation between two backpackers in the Indian Himalayas, when one’s status seems to be enhanced because he been to Tibet, even though it is closed for Westerners, by sneaking through army road checks. The other backpacker was not so fortunate and had to spend one month in a Chinese prison for illegally entering Tibet. It nearly comes to a fight between these two, whoever’s travel experience is more fascinating, hence ‘status enhancing’. This behaviour has been observed by Riley (1988:321) “The less travelled route and more difficult way of getting there has a high degree of mystique and status conferral.” ‘The Beach’-character Richard states (1997:164):
[Fiction quotation] Table 4
“Of course witnessing poverty was the first to be ticked off the list. Then I had to graduate to more obscure stuff. Being in a riot was something I pursued with a truly obsessive zeal...”
Though status enhancement is also apparent in other tourist segments, the notion that tourists gain a better status in comparison with fellow tourists, by claiming they had the more difficult or appalling travels, is particular relevant to backpackers. Elsrud (2001:607) argued “that fellow travellers may pose an equally or at times even larger threat to the adventurous traveller (...) by pushing the avant-garde of backpacking even further”. This behaviour however does not apply to all backpackers, as Ross (1997) stated only a minority are ‘achievers’.
Another way to enhance backpackers’ status it seems is the concern for budgeting. The following conversation between Liz and Dave, two backpackers, after she haggled about the price for a rickshaw in Sutcliffe’s novel (1997:67) is exemplary:
[Fiction quotation] Table 5
Dave: “Thanks. You saved us at least 15p there. That’s almost 8p each”
Liz: ‘Will you stop acting like such a spoilt Westerner? We’re in India, now.’
Dave: ‘So?’
Liz: ‘So you have to haggle. It’s part of life.’
Dave: ‘You don’t have to. Stump up a few extra pennies, and you don’t need to stand in the midday sun screaming your head off like some deranged memsahib.’
Liz: ‘Look - if you take the first price they offer, you look stupid. They laugh at you behind your back. ... And if Westerners go around paying double for everything, it gives us a bad reputation. It sets a bad example. It makes us all look spoilt, and far richer than we really are.’
Dave: ‘But we are rich. Ten Rupees is nothing. It doesn’t matter if we pay double.’
Liz: ‘That is not the point. Ifwe did that, it would completely upset the local economy.’
The tourism literature does not have a common point regarding this issue. Hampton (1996 and 1998) and Scheyvens (2002) discuss the impact of high-spending tourists demanding western products, leading to an increase in imports, thus harming the local economy. However, if a Westerner pays a little bit more for services than local people, especially in poor countries, the notion of harm to the local economy does not seem convincing. This has been supported by Garland (as cited in Wheat, 2000). According to Riley (1988:320), “Status among travellers is closely tied to living cheaply and obtaining the best ‘bargains’ which serve as indicators that one is a experienced traveller.” Dave (Sutcliffe, 1997:141) states when talking to a questioning journalist, that “If you spent a bit of time with real travellers, you’d see there are a lot of people who try and rip us off.” It has also been stated that some backpackers become obsessive in the way they try to travel ‘the cheap way’ as cited in Wheat (1995) by an Indonesian tour guide. Hence offending locals and contributing to their poor status. However this budgeting is mostly due to the longer travels and the young age of travellers, as explained by Gibbons and Selvarajah (1994).
Reasons for backpacking at a young age
It has been claimed (Pearce, 1990), that young people might opt for backpacking in order to escape from relationships and careers. During a holiday, there is no need to worry about finding a new partner or deciding what to do with ones life. This view was supported by Elsrud (2001:605), who argued that backpacking is a ‘rite of passage’, “a possible means of escaping external expectations”. Desforges (2000:933) states that the decision to travel is due when “self-identity is open to question”. Or as Giddens (1991:112-114) puts it, “fateful moments”, moments for individuals who are on the crossroads between anxiety and opportunity. Uriely et al. (2002) considers backpacking to developing countries as part of a normal route for Israeli youths after they completed army service. Another major period of new orientation in life is completing education, thus forming a very youthful form of tourism. This kind ‘rite of passage’ seems however to be reserved to the western world, where living standards are so high that young people can afford to leave their home country for a year or two, youths in the second or third world are not that fortunate, hence backpacking is almost an entirely first world phenomenon. Garland’s (1997:115) character Richard describes escaping: “Escape through travel works. Almost from the moment I boarded my flight, life in England became meaningless. Seat-belt signs up, problems switched off. Broken armrests took precedence over broken hearts. By the time the plane was airborne I’d forgotten England even existed.”
Backpackers in relation to tourist typologies
Most current authors (Riley, Pearce et al.) on backpacking have questioned the validity of Cohen’s (1968) typology of tourists, in particular ‘drifters’ in explaining youth tourism. Cohen (1968:89) noted the emergence of ‘drifters’ as a new kind of tourists. He conceived of a ‘drifter’ as:
[Academic quotation] Table 6
“...the type of [international] tourist [who] ventures away furthest from the beaten track... He shuns any kind of connection with the tourism establishment. He tends to make it wholly on his own, living with people and often taking the odd-jobs to keep himself going. He tries to live the way the people he visits live. The drifter has no fixed itinerary or timetable and no well-defined goals of travel. He is almost wholly immersed in his host culture”.
Riley states backpacking is a type of ‘rite of passage’ or “self-testing tourism” (1988:318), agreeing with Graburn (1983), but disagrees with Cohen’s category of drifters and argues that backpackers in sharp opposite to Cohen’s drifters. They do not steal or beg or sell blood, are not a part of western counter culture, and their drug use is in line with young people at home. Backpackers however do not only differ from other tourists such as the organised mass tourist (Cohen, 1972), they also differ from each other in fundamental ways. For some there seems to be a success ladder in backpacking, from the relatively low risk Australia and New Zealand to India and Nepal at latter stages as expressed by two male backpackers in Elsrud (2001).
However it has been argued Uriely et al. (2002) that Cohen’s (1979) concept of ‘tourist biography’ is more applicable to backpackers than Pearce’s (1988) notion of a ‘tourist career’. Loker-Murphy (1996) sets out four different groups of backpackers due to their motivations for travelling. Escapers/ relaxers, social/excitement-seekers, self-developers and achievers. Uriely et al. (2002) have just concluded an investigation into the heterogeneous Israeli backpacker market. They state (2002:535) “some [backpackers] visualised their trips as a period of recreation, while others sought new experiences to expand their knowledge and to explore their own psyches.”
Backpackers and sustainable tourism development
Some even blame the problems of the world’s economic inequity on backpackers as Hutnyk (1996) stated that backpacking is just an illusion of “nice cottage capitalism” hence it is extending the commercialisation of every part of the world. Hutnyk (1996) argues backpacking is just the edge of capitalist expansion into new market niches. Backpackers are the advance guard, the pioneers, part of a resort cycle as stated by Butler (1980) and Cochrane (1996).
Elsrud (2001) argues that the whole western background to backpacking implies that there are other countries as underdeveloped and primitive thus dependent upon the expertise of others. A strong point has been developed by Scheyvens (2002) whether the millions of westernised Thais are not worth socialising with, but rather the few and more ‘traditional’ hill tribes, which no longer represent current Thai culture, but backpackers presume these represent the ‘real Thailand’. Maybe just as much as the foxhunting aristocracy is representing modern Britain.
Spreitzhofer (1998) argues that backpacking can be seen as the spear-head of large-scale mainstream tourism, as he argues that the more information about a region exists, the more tourists will go there, thus increasing demand, which will lead to an ever faster grow of the privately-based catering and accommodation infrastructure. It was argued by Loker (1993:56), “backpackers place a greater strain on the community and its public services because of their extended length of stay”. However Hampton (1996) showed that if the local government had the power and the will to stop the big business taking control of the tourism industry, backpacker tourism could become one way of increasing local participation in real development, being part of a more sustainable development strategy. Backpackers are willing to purchase goods from local dealers and the flexibility of backpackers is very well met by small-scale local businesses rather than the big international giants (Hampton, 1996). Since the big business can take unethical forms of control over countries and its citizens as described by the case of Cyprus in O’Connor (2000), where Preussag controls 20-30% of all tourism to Cyprus.
Backpackers’ needs can easily be met by local people and products as Polit (1991) stated. Riley (1988:323) adds backpackers “are not so concerned about amenities (e.g., plumbing), restaurants (e.g., westernised food), and transportation (e.g., air conditioning), geared specifically to the tastes of the mass tourist. If a budget traveller place has an appeal to western tastes, it requires minimal infrastructure.” Scheyvens (2002) even gives an example of a family in a poor South African township renting out rooms to backpackers, thus allowing even the poorest to take their share of this tourist market, gaining more than an employee in an international hotel chain which transfers the profits back to the home country.
Critique against backpacking
However, there is currently a critique developing against the backpacking movement. Lonely Planet is boycotted by Tourism Concern (2000) due to their release of a Burmese guidebook. The behaviour shown by some backpackers in sacred places in Asia has been heavily criticised (Scheyvens, 2002), since local people are very reliant on the income from backpackers and thus have to tolerate this behaviour (drinking, smoking etc.). Gluckman (2000) described backpackers as “a special breed [of travellers] more sensitive to the local cultures and locations they trample over.” A backpacker-hostile journalist character in Sutcliffe’s novel (1997:140) argues when approaching a backpacker that...
[Fiction quotation] Table 7
“your kind of travel is all about low horizons dressed up as open-mindedness. You have no interest in India, and no sensitivity for the problems this country is trying to face up to. You also treat Indians with a mixture of contempt and suspicion, which is reminiscent of the Victorian colonials. Your presence here, in my opinion, is offensive. The whole lot of you should fuck off back to Surrey (...) [backpacking is] a form of conformity for ambitious middle class kids who want to be able to put something on their CV”.
STA travel confirms the gap-year is a great selling point of any CV (Towndrow, 2002), hence a primary motivator for many. However Scheyvens (2002:145) supports backpackers by noting that “much credence has been given to the stereotypical image of the backpacker as an unkempt, immoral, drug-taking individual.” Not taking into account the positive effect backpackers can have upon a poor community as discussed above, this market segment is mostly ignored or even discouraged from visiting one destination in tourism planning as stated by Hampton (1998).
Justification of omitting other academic areas
As the main focus of this dissertation is concerned with backpackers’ characteristics, several other academic fields, which could have played an important role in discussing the backpacker segment, needed to have been neglected. The categorisation of tourists, i.e. Cohen’s (1968) approach, plays a role in this study, because it is concerned with sociological definitions of tourists. However, the concept of tourist typologies relevant to backpackers such as Hartman’s (1991 as cited in McKenney, 1996:33), Uriely’s et al. (2002) or Loker- Murphy’s (1996) model could have been developed further.
The development approach, i.e. the effect backpackers have upon local economies, particularly in the poorer countries, is only scratched upon, mainly based on works by Hampton (1996 and 1998) and Hutnyk (1996). Firth and Hing’s approach (1999) on backpackertourism and sustainable development in Queensland is particularly applicable.
The anthropological perspective looks upon the factors that lie behind tourists to travel to destinations as well as the effects of tourists upon local communities. Major works in this field include Urry (1990) who analyses why people leave their normal place of work and residence, to consume goods and experiences, which are different from everyday life. Burns (1999:58) helped the anthropological perspective to grow in recognition, by arguing “understanding the links between tourism systems and culture might help to prevent or minimise negative impacts on a host culture, occurring through the act of receiving tourists.”
The historic aspect of youth travelling could also have been discussed further. Pearce (1990) and McKenney (1996) put the backpacker phenomenon in a direct line from the old ‘Grand Tour’. Loker-Murphy and Pearce (1995), Towner (1996) and Whitey (1997) have all discussed the ‘Grand Tour’ thoroughly. Marteau (1998) however states the first ‘routards’ (backpackers in French) were American travellers in the 1950s, revolting against the system and living a life of vagabonds. However, this was of no interest to the investigation of current backpacker issues.
Geographical patterns of backpackers could also have been investigated. Pearce (1995) emphasises the importance of analysing the processes and patterns associated with the dynamics of international and domestic tourist activity, whilst Hall (2002) has thoroughly examined global patterns of tourism. Why do backpackers come from Europe and travel to South East Asia, but not to Africa and why is it not the other way round?
2. Methodology
2.1. Rationale for Methodology
The aim of this study derives from the portrayal of backpackers’ image in fictional literature, which has yet not been substantially exploited. The full justification for the main aim can be found in the introduction (1.1.), as it is the best location to outline the focus of this study.
This rationale will outline the methodological setting for this study, from the research methods chosen to the rationales for secondary and primary research. It will then discuss the methodological progress to acquire and interpret the data, from the questionnaire design, its distribution, the sampling size onto the usage of statistical software to evaluate the data.
Secondary research was needed and used to evaluate backpacking theory to form a basis for this study. It was also used to put the acquired data into an academic context. The main focus in this rationale is on the justification of primary research and justifying the methods used to acquire primary data as valuable as possible. The justification for the secondary research focus can be found in section 1.3. (Academic literature review), as it is the best location to justify the secondary research approach angle.
2.2. Justification of the chosen research method
Primary research was opted for this study to acquire the necessary data, as there was no data available, which could have verified whether backpackers are in ‘reality’ as presented in ‘The Beach’.
An online questionnaire survey was found most appropriate for this study. It was needed to compare on a rather large and worldwide scale whether backpacker attitudes in the book comply to attitudes as presented by backpackers by the first worldwide online questionnaire on backpacking. This is in contrast to previous research, which was normally conducted in one location only (Pearce, 1990, McKenney, 1996 and Speed, 2000b). Ease of access to the selected respondents was achieved via backpacker websites. Veal (1997) defines this as a captive group survey. Website users completed the online questionnaire, which is advantageous because it is quick and relatively anonymous, thus avoiding bias (Veal, 1997).
The questionnaire length was relatively short (5 minutes) to ease response and increase participation. The layout limited the number of open-ended questions to speed up response time. The majority of the questions were simple one-answer questions that required a simple tick of a box; this helped to maintain consistency throughout the questionnaire.
The online questionnaire has several advantages: It can be easily distributed worldwide and if posted to successful mediums the response rate can be very good (in this case 85 questionnaires within the first 24 hours after being posted on Lonely Planet’s ‘thorn tree’). Certain market segments could be very effectively targeted; it is cost-effective; respondents could be easily re-contacted if further research opted for using emails; it facilitates worldwide distribution, as compared to the traditional way of printing out questionnaires which are then distributed in rather limited locations. One final strength of the online questionnaire, it could be argued is the fact that due to its electronic conformity, loss of data was impossible, normally due to bad hand-writing or scribbled-on questionnaires.
Questionnaires are beneficial to the research due to the fact that these can put complex information into an easily understood format (Veal, 1997). This study tries to make probabilistic statements about the backpacker segment. “Probabilistic statements” means, after Veal (1997), that it can only estimate the probability of the results for the entire backpacker segment.
Qualitative research has been rejected due to the fact that it would produce data which would be very difficult or rather impossible for comparison and the results would be very limited to the few members of the captive group which has been chosen (Veal, 1997). Qualitative research on a worldwide scale is impossible to achieve with the resources for this study. However, to fully understand the backpacker market, a worldwide qualitative investigation on a large scale would be needed.
Veal stated the advantages of quantitative research by arguing (1997:146) “While qualitative methods are ideal for exploring attitudes, meanings and perceptions on an individual basis, questionnaire methods provide the means to gather and record simple information on the incidence of attitudes, meanings and perceptions among the population as a whole”. Gordon and Langmaid (1988) state that qualitative research can answer the questions ‘What’, ‘Why’ or ‘How’, but not ‘How many’. The gathering of information of the backpacker population as a whole was the quintessence of this study, thus qualitative research has been rejected. Walle (1997:535) thoughts “lead to the realisation that a plurality of equally valid research strategies exist within tourism”. This means that every researcher has to find the strategy most suitable for herself/himself and justify it. This was achieved during this methodology.
A respondent completed questionnaire format has been chosen as the primary research tool as it is the only practicable approach when the people to be surveyed are geographically scattered worldwide, which would make face-to-face interviews impossible. Face-to-face interviews were also dismissed, because it was sought to receive high number-low detailed data, rather than a low number-high detailed data. Other methods of obtaining primary data were rejected, such as observation. Observation techniques cannot measure opinions or perceptions (Veal, 1997), which were required for this dissertation.
However there are limitations in opting for a non-personal conducted questionnaire survey, as Veal (1997:145) argues when stating that, “questionnaire surveys rely on information from respondents. What respondents say depends on their own powers of recall, on their honesty and fundamentally, on the format of the questions included in the questionnaire”. And the initiator of the study has no control on who eventually completes the questionnaire. Therefore rigid care was taken where the questionnaire was distributed, to ensure its validity. However, having considered all arguments, the approach taken was the only possible option to conduct this survey.
The majority of questions are based on a scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree due to the interest in obtaining backpackers’ opinion about these questions. It allows an easy comparison between different data sets and thus facilitates a reliable picture of backpacker attitudes. Open-ended questions in this respondent completed questionnaire were avoided as it has been argued by Veal (1997) these will achieve a very low response. Therefore this questionnaire was made up of closed questions (except the age and comments box), the rationale for that is as stated by Speed (2000b:3) as it “lies in the descriptive nature of the research question- the closed questions allowing significant cross-tabulation of responses to make comparisons among and between respondent categories...“ The questionnaire design took into account the need to code questions for statistical analysis and therefore most of the questions were designed for quantitative analysis as numerical data.
The justification of specific questions in the questionnaire can be found in Appendix 7.6. whilst ‘The Beach’ questions have been taken from the literature review of ‘The Beach’ (7.4.).
The majority of studies on the backpacker market (Pearce, 1990; Loker, 1995 and Speed, 2000b) allow respondents to include comments. Hence this questionnaire was equipped with a comments box, which provided this study with very valuable qualitative data. Given the large sample of 206 respondents, of whom many showed a particular interest in the study by adding comments, which helped to reduce the impact of unrelated answers and/or unwanted responses from the mass of valuable data and having equipped the questionnaire with the notion that this study is conducted for academic purposes, one can be somewhat optimistic that respondents tried to fill in the questionnaire in the best way possible to aide the further investigation of this growing market segment.
2.3. The sampling size and frame
It is difficult to define the overall worldwide backpacker market, as this was the potential population for this study, as long as backpackers used backpacker websites. Pearce (1990) claimed that one in every twelve tourists arriving into Australia is a backpacker. Applied worldwide this would mean, there is a number of backpackers of more than 45 million backpackers worldwide (around 1/12 of international travel, adapted from Cooper et al., 1993).In Scotland for example, only 1.45 percent of overseas visitors are thought to be backpackers (Speed, 2000b). Uriely et al. (2002) state that 10 percent of Israeli youths go backpacking after their army service. It is argued (Green and Higginson, 1988) that backpackers are predominately from Europe, America and Australasia. Not every country is as advanced in backpacker reception as Australia; e.g. backpacker-banning Bhutan (Scheyvens, 2002), thus making worldwide predictions rather nebulous. Hence, the real number will be somewhere substantially below 45 million, but still representing a powerful segment of the tourist market, particularly in first world countries.
The sample for this study is somewhat difficult to state. One could argue the total number of users of the backpacker website makes up the sample, e.g. 30,000 hits a day at Lonely Planet’s thorn tree, or it could be argued that only users who accessed the questionnaire are the sample. What is certain is that there were potentially many hundreds, who saw the post on the thorn tree, but were not interested and did not click the link to the questionnaire. However, 358 visited the questionnaire Website. 206 valid responses were obtained by users who finally submitted the questionnaire, this resulted in the sample size.
The sample frame will be defined for this study as all web-users (element), using backpacker websites (unit) at Lonely Planet, backpackeurope.com among others (extent) between December 19th 2001 and January 19th 2002 (time). It is with regard to the study population that we can make proper inferences, even though our real interest is in the original population (Kinnear and Taylor, 1987), hence the entire worldwide backpacker market.
2.4. Questionnaire design
The questionnaire was designed with assistance of website-building tools such as basics of Hyper Text Mark-up Language (HTML) and the Dreamweaver software, which are tools to develop web pages including radio buttons, tick boxes and comments boxes. Software books (Ballard, 2000; Crowder, 2001 and Tittel, 1997) and the University’s Information Technology centre provided help. However the development of the online questionnaire was a major obstacle to the progress of this study and its preparation and finalisation took a fair amount of time. The questionnaire was pilot-tested by the supervisor of this study and several close backpackers helped to clarify and highlight any problems before embarking on the main survey.
The questionnaire’s introduction revealed the purpose of the study, i.e. to academically shed light onto the world of backpacking. The questionnaire was designed to reflect the objectives of the research and provide a clear set of results. The aim of the questionnaire was to provide ease of understanding and promote an objective, honest response (Veal, 1997). The questionnaire design was trying to appear as informal as possible, as it was the case in Pearce’s questionnaire (1990), where a Koala wears an Akubra hat (Australian traditional hat), whilst trying to receive as much high value data as possible.
2.5. Questionnaire distribution
Links to the website (http://homepaqes.shu.ac.uk/~lhelbert/questionnaire.htm), provided by Sheffield Hallam University’s Computer Information Service containing the questionnaire, were posted on several backpacker websites (Lonely Planet’s ‘thorn tree’, The Rough Guide, www.backpackeurope.com,www.backpackers.net and www.backpackers.com.au ) between the 19th of December 2001 and the 31st of January 2002. A short text on the website invited backpacker to click the link to the questionnaire’s website.
In total, 206 questionnaires were completed and ‘returned’ (more technically appropriate would be the notion that the questionnaire results were received per email via a specific software script, which converts the ‘ticked boxes’ into email-readable format). Due to limits in human resources the distribution of the questionnaire was deliberately halted. A formal response rate cannot be estimated as no questionnaires were distributed, only links to the questionnaire were posted on various backpacker websites. The distribution on backpacker websites can be justified by Speed (2000b:1), who states, “ensuring the representativeness of the sample would be best served by targeting locations where backpackers are likely to congregate”. This notion can easily be transferred to the Internet, but additionally what better justification can there be than exposing the online questionnaire to more than 30,000 hits per day. At the same time, this ensures that backpackers who do not tend to stay in commercial accommodation and from all corners of the world, are included, no matter where, when and how they are travelling. Also backpackers are included in this study who are currently not travelling and thus would not have qualified for previous research, but are still a source for valuable information and would previously have been excluded from research. Loker (1993) particularly omitted backpacker hostels in the distribution system to ensure backpackers are included who do not stay in commercial accommodation.
It can be implied that backpacker website are dominated by backpackers, whilst recognising the existence of the odd ‘wishful thinker’, as Pearce’s justification for distributing his questionnaire in backpacker magazines implied that people, who read a backpacker publication are also backpackers. As Pearce (1990:16) states “Expressed differently, the questionnaire is targeted to the backpacker, published in a backpacker magazine and distributed at outlets (e.g. bus terminals, accommodation) dominated by backpackers.”
2.6.Statistical software for the analysis - SPSS for Windows
Manual analysis of the data was rejected due to the sheer size of data. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) for Microsoft Windows was used for the analysis of all quantitative data. Questions have to be broken down into numbers, which then are manually (!) entered into a data window and saved as a data file. By using different commands, the program analyses the data in whatever it is requested to do (mean, median and cross-tabulations et al.).
SPSS can be used to analyse among other things two main sections:
- Descriptive statistics- in term of frequencies- mean, median, mode distribution of data. This includes the diagrammatic representation of data in the form of bar charts ( in this study).
- Statistical tests/ analysis- Comparisons of data using cross-tabulations - this will provide a greater insight into the validity and relevance of cross-tabulation data.
The use of both types of statistical analysis allows for a greater knowledge and understanding ofthe results and provide forvalid conclusions to be made (Veal, 1997).
3. Key findings
3.1. Overview
The results of the questionnaire, question-by-question, can be found in appendix 7.1. However in this section, only the key findings of the results, most relevant to the aim of this study, are going to be evaluated intertwining useful secondary data to put the data into context.
3.2. Respondents characteristics
The median age of respondents is 24 years, the mean age 25.5 years, 86.4 percent of all respondents are between the age of 19 and 31 and 93.7 percent between 17 and 34 years old, thus in line with previous research (Pearce, 1990; Speed, 2000b).
The large majority of respondents come from Europe and North America (81.95 percent). Even though this study was also aimed at former backpacker colleagues from a variety of European countries, the high number of North American respondents was rather surprising (33.2 percent). In Loker-Murphy’s (1996) study on backpackers, only 15.6 percent came from the USA and Canada and Speed (2000b) which only counted 18 percent of North American backpackers of the whole. This might be due to the higher distribution of the Internet in North America compared to Europe, it will certainly be true compared with South America or Africa, who not only contribute fewer backpackers, but are also underrepresented in the use of the Internet.
Given that the majority of backpacking research has been conducted in Australia, the British/Irish detachment of backpackers on the worldwide backpacking market might have been previously over-emphasised, which accounts for 37.1 percent of backpacking tourism into Australia (Loker, 1993). On a worldwide scale, the British/Irish impact seems to be dramatically limited, thus reducing Europe’s importance from 71.8 percent in Loker’s (1993) study to 48.8 percent (this worldwide study). It makes sense to conduct a study rather on a worldwide scale than in Australia only, which has a very strong relationship with Britain/Ireland, due to convicts (formerly) and immigrants. Given the small population of Australia/Oceania of around 30 million compared to 300 million North Americans and 500 million Europeans, its result is truly impressive (13.2 percent), representing a higher proportion of backpackers than any other continent.
3.3. Characteristics of backpackers
Contrary to Pearce (1990), who preferred to define backpackers by social rather than geographic or demographic terms, the facts cannot longer be neglected, that 81.95 percent of backpackers are either European or North American and the vast majority is between 19 and 31 years old (86.4 percent of this study). The highest results of backpacker characteristics were achieved in ‘high independence in travel itinerary’ (65.3% agreed) and ‘low budget’ (57.9% agreed), thus these characteristics should form the basis for the definition of backpackers, as these are essentials. Respondents’ comments 12 and 22 stated that backpackers are just tourists on a lower budget1. Only 8.8 percent of the sample stated they are constantly living on the road, meant to describe drifter-like behaviour. The vast majority of backpackers (91.2 percent) is in need of western comfort, especially when things get tougher, while 47.6 percent state they are entirely limited to the western world or only have basic backpacking experiences. However one respondent stated what he/she thinks a backpacker simply is (Comment 2): “Backpackers are generally the young middle class for whom the world exists to go round.” One respondent observed that backpackers’ desires and the shown behaviour do not always match up (Comment 11):
[Questionnaire comment] Table 8
“When answering this question, you are tempted to list the qualities of an ideal backpacker (or the qualities that you think to have on your own travels) - for example I put "independence" and "avoiding the crowd". But when you consider all the backpackers who spend the greatest part of their journey in Dahab, Goa, Ko Samui, Chiang Mai, Khao San Road (Bangkok), where all the other backpackers go, you start to wonder if it is really the case... I am not so sure.”
Richard in Garland (1997) calls Thailand ‘the land of the beaten track’, describing the backpackers’ worst nightmare. Even though 51.4 percent of backpackers travel alone (Loker 1993:24), the sample frame did not seem to think it is a characteristic of backpackers (only 10.7 percent agreed). However, one respondent (Comment 17) stated that travelling alone is desirable, as
[Questionnaire comment] Table 9
“Travelling alone is an important part of backpacking, forces you to experience yourself and your environment in a way usually not felt.”
3.4. Important during a backpacker holiday
Respondents stated that ‘Experience the local culture’ (85.4 percent) and ‘Meeting people from all over the world’ (84 percent) are most important for them during a backpacker holiday, thus fully in line with former research (Riley, 1988 and Loker, 1993). Hence the data received are backpacker significant and it can be implied that since respondents fit the definitions of backpackers (especially the age structure), they are backpackers. Relatively high results were also achieved for ‘Cheap hostels’ (55.3 percent), ‘Authentic experience’ (55.4 percent) and ‘Lonely Planet travel guides’ (47.6 percent).
Particularly the Lonely Planet result is well worth noting, the obsession of backpackers with ‘the book’ (Sutcliffe, 1997), ‘the underground travel guide’ (Riley, 1988). As one backpacker (Comment 7) observed:
[Questionnaire comment] Table 10
“I recently backpacked around Peru and was amazed to find at Machu Picchu people spending more time reading the LP than enjoying being immersed in that awe-inspiring place. Sad but true. People had travelled halfway around the world to compare a place to the picture in the LP.”
Garland (Wheat, 2000) adds criticism on Lonely Planet by stating that...
[Interview quotation] Table 11
“they [Lonely Planet] are tapping into the romantic traveller adventure mind-set and selling a piece of the Vietnam War, but that's not OK. That's like saying, "Fire a sniper's rifle, experience Bosnia" or "Lay a land mine, experience Cambodia." It's not acceptable for a big powerful publishing company to exploit a situation in that way.”
However, it has to be said that to hold a publisher responsible for bad-behaving tourists, (who have produced well-designed guidebooks that have taken the world by storm) is a bit over-the-top. It is argued (McKenney, 1996), that the majority of backpackers of our days are just a different kind of institutionalised mass of tourists. To a large extent backpacking becomes uniform, since new mass tourists are Lonely Planet enlightened. Not by package holiday, but by package book, which will always lead backpackers to the latest ‘indestination’. There is no longer a need to explore, since Lonely Planet has already done it, thus minimising further and further prospects of adventure for backpackers. Richard adds (Garland, 1997): “There is no way you can keep it out of Lonely Planet, and once that happens it’s countdown to doomsday.”
Only very few backpackers agreed that ‘dope, alcohol and sex’ are important to them and even less agreed to the notion ‘been there-done that’- normally associated with ‘tourists’ rather than ‘travellers’ (as backpackers call themselves observed by Riley, 1988). One respondent described why the ‘dope, alcohol and sex’ notion had been largely rejected (Comment 5): “If parties happen to occur after the day is done, no complaints, but I'm not one to fly all the way to Goa just to get drunk with rich Brits and Americans...”
70.7 percent of backpackers only spend less than half of their time socialising with the local population, therefore Cohen’s typology of ‘drifters’ for the application on backpacker tourists has to be rejected. Riley (1988) suggested that a prime motivation for backpackers is to meet people, seek invitations and eat with locals. This study rejects this notion. However this might be due to the fact that Riley’s backpackers were long term tourists, travelling for one year or longer, thus allowing themselves time to socialise with the local population. The new mass- backpacker does not fit this profile any longer, as Loker (1993) observed that the average stay of a backpacker is 22.3 weeks. Since 1993, this number might as well have decreased substantially. The majority of new backpackers are not so concerned about meeting locals, as they seem they just want to enjoy themselves during summer breaks or gap years and while a minority still values the truly independent life-style (Ross, 1997). (Comment 16) describes the differences between backpackers and real travellers:
[Questionnaire comment] Table 12
I think a distinction needs to be made between Backpackers and Travellers. The former fits the dope smoking caricature whilst the latter are a more mature experience-seeking journier2. [sic]
3.5. Respondents’ characteristics as expressed in the book
Contrary to backpacker characteristics expressed in ‘The Beach’ and ‘Are you experienced’, 76.2 percent of backpackers disagreed that marijuana is an indispensable part of the backpacking experience. Or as one backpacker stated (Comment 19): “Dope can be fun, but when in Malaysia or Thailand I value life more than temporary fulfilment, and can still have fun without it.” This suggests it is therefore not as important as the fictional backpacking literature proposes. The question of relevance of giving nicknames as occurring in ‘The Beach’ only received a mutual interest by respondents, with the neutral answer being the highest result (36.8 percent).
However, the majority disagreed with this point (51.5 percent). Other characteristics, as taken from ‘The Beach’ were also mostly rejected. The majority of backpackers (61 percent) condemn Richard’s behaviour using Vietnam war-language. 63.6 percent rejected the idea to live like Richard in a beach community, whilst only 20.5 percent could imagine that. The majority of respondents (54.9 percent) also disagreed they would try to keep a place secret thus unique, hence neglecting the notion in ‘The Beach’. However 69.4 percent rejected the notion that backpackers can only become superficial friends, hence supporting Richard’s behaviour who embarks on his most adventurous travel ever with nearly complete strangers, thus trusting them like long friends, while only 10.7 percent agreed with this point. Riley (1988:324) stated “because time is short (...) friendships are made much more quickly than usual.” 50 percent of respondents agreed with the notion from ‘The Beach’ that even though travellers want to do something different, in the end all will do the same things.
3.6. Respondents’ attitudes on specific questions
53.2 percent would travel to countries where human rights are being violated, mainly for two reasons as backpackers expressed. Firstly (Comment 18):
[Questionnaire comment] Table 13
“I've been to China, and it was a wonderful experience: even if human rights are violated, the Chinese people are really welcoming and friendly. They are curious about the differences between the eastern and western worlds, for they know they will never be able to travel.”
And one backpacker struck with an argument that was very convincing: Comment (23):
[Questionnaire comment] Table 14
I visited East Timor in 1996 and I strongly believe people wanted us there to be witnesses. Countries who practice human rights abuses have a harder time doing it when there are people visiting from outside the country.
Comment 20 raised the good point, by asking...
[Questionnaire comment] Table 15
“don’t we travel to experience things we can't experience at home? I'd eat snake too, if it were offered. Local supermarket doesn't carry it.”
Maybe differences in cultures and laws in other countries should be valued rather than condemned, even though our western sense of appropriateness might be violated. Tourism Concern (2000) however boycotts tourism to Myanmar, since the democratic elected government, now in exile, has specifically asked tourists not to visit Myanmar until democracy is restored in order not to support the military junta, now ruling the country. This should be taken seriously.
58.2 percent think the protection of the nature more important than a travel experience. For example a very valuable comment (12): “Packaged tourism does less damage to the environment because visitors are herded in controlled groups.” another respondent indicated there is a substantial lack of environmental knowledge of the so-called ‘better tourists’ (Comment 21): “Scuba Flying hardly damage the environment. Scuba saves more reefs because they are worth more alive than dead from fishing if Scuba Divers go to them.” Others however have given the protection of the environment some thoughtful thinking (Comment 19):
[Questionnaire comment] Table 16
“Protection of nature is more important? I love to scuba dive, and will do it. In a one off situation where I am shown that it would be inappropriate, I would not do it, but I don't see scuba diving as intrusive to the environment.”
3.7. Respondents and ‘The Beach’
Finally, 40.8 percent of all respondents have read the book “The Beach”, meaning this book was well accepted by the backpacking community, because backpackers could probably identify themselves to some extent with the characteristics of the book. Another 5 percent stated in the comments box that they have seen the movie, which did not qualify for this answer, hence this study was concerned with the book. However, some respondents were not so sure about the contents of ‘The Beach’ (Comment 1): “The story in 'The Beach' is not really about backpacking, though, is it?”. Another respondent however emphasised the very fictional approach ‘The Beach’ takes (Comment 13):
[Questionnaire comment] Table 17
” ‘The Beach’ is a brilliant book, and it raises many valid questions about the nature of travelling, but I don't think many people would actually try and model themselves after Richard (by drinking snake blood, or crawling through the jungle to avoid the Vietcong, etc., etc.).”
3.8. Significant results from cross-tabulations
The most relevant cross-tabulations3, by differing hugely in responses between different groups of respondents, revealed the following. A respondent who has read ‘The Beach’ is much more likely to have been to Thailand than someone who has not read it. The ‘independent- but sometimes in need of western cultures’-respondents are much more likely to have been to Thailand and less than 5 percent of these are not interested in going there, while ‘first time experienced’-respondents are firstly less likely to have been to Thailand and also nearly 1/6 is not interested at all in visiting Thailand. This shows in some way that the classifications reflect their travel choices and have been correctly set.
4. Significance/ Limitations
4.1. Significance of the results
The survey’s validity needs to be evaluated to define the primary data’s significance for the further investigation of the backpacker market. As an indicator of the validity of the data, the age characteristics of the respondents were tested against previous research. 86.4 percent of respondents were in the age group 19 to 31 and 93.7 percent 17-34 years old, thus in line with previous research. For example, Pearce (1990) found that 84 percent of backpackers to Australia were between 20 and 29 years old and Speed (2000b) found out 90.7 percent of backpackers to Scotland were in the age group 16-34. Also, key backpacker characteristics as ‘meeting the people’ and ‘experiencing the local culture’ (Riley, 1988) were stated by respondents in this study and therefore justifies the notion that respondents can be defined as backpackers.
Additionally, the SPSS data were split to verify whether similar results in age and other major questions were received if further samples were drawn, as proposed by Veal (1997). This has proven successful, thus the data are significant. While the mean age for the first 104 respondents was 25.65 years, the mean for the entire sample (206) was 25.57 years (this test can be found in appendix 7.9.) . Given that key backpacker characteristics such as age, origin and key motivators were satisfied, resulted in highly backpacker-relevant data.
4.2. Limitations of this survey
As Pearce (1990) noted, one limitation of studies conducted in English is, that these might exclude backpackers with non-English mother tongues. One had to have working knowledge of English, had to be computer literate and interested in the Internet to participate, in particular backpacker websites, thus excluding some backpackers. However, the large number of respondents seems to suggest that this posed not an obstacle and thus valid data were received.
The sample represented only a limited number of Asians and South Americans. This might have been due to lesser usage of the Internet or the use of different websites. However, former research by Loker-Murphy (1996) and Speed (2000:b) suggests anyhow that these regions only have a very limited input into the worldwide backpacker market. A limitation of this survey would be that the continent of Africa was not included in the questionnaire. However only 1 respondent (less than 0.5 percent) stated in the comments box that he/she came from Africa. Given this small, and the even lesser importance Africa plays in international travel, neglecting Africa in question 2, this did not influence the results in any way. Due to the good responses in quality as well as quantity through this questionnaire by the willingness of backpackers to add information and to write out comments, future questionnaires could leave more room for open-ended questions. In particular where respondents come from and what are their main issues, to have a much clearer picture on backpackers.
Some respondents have however questioned the causalities that were implied in the questionnaire when stating e.g. ‘backpackers can only become superficial friends- due to backpackers’ love of freedom’. This was done to test hypothesises from ‘The Beach’ as the author saw these issues. Hence these were tested on backpackers. While the author is aware of the problems that could arise due to the subjective conception of this questionnaire, the comments box allowed the respondents to state their comments, which was used extensively. Hence respondents could state issues they saw were omitted in the questionnaire. More than 40 percent of respondents submitted comments, the most valuable ones can be found in the ‘key findings’ (3) and appendix (7.3.) sections.
Finally, whilst it is useful for several reasons to define a market segment, such as backpackers, as accurately as possible, one has always keep in mind that
“no two individuals are alike, and difference in attitudes, perceptions and motivations have important influences on travel decisions (...) attitudes depend on an individual’s perception of theworld.” (Cooperet al., 1993:20).
That means backpackers can be very different in characteristics and attitudes, however the vast majority of backpackers is rather similar in its characteristics as this study will conclude in the next section.
5. Conclusion/ Future Research
5.1. Conclusion
Respondents have clearly rejected the idea that backpackers are very much ‘Richard-clones’ and do not normally follow the novel characteristics as presented in ‘The Beach’. However respondents agreed that even though they want to do something different, most of them end up doing exactly the same as everybody else, thus supporting the view as given in ‘The Beach’. It can be implied by the results received which neglect ‘The Beach’ characteristics, that the majority of respondents would support the comments given by respondents (comment 13 and 28), that ‘The Beach’ is a fictional book and hence not entirely useful to describe backpackers.
This study suggests, that after having carefully analysed relevant literature and investigated the results occurred during this study, that backpackers are in their majority similar to Cohen’s (1972) ‘explorer’ tourists. They are independent organisers of their travels, interested in meeting people and experiencing local culture, however they do not submerse into the host culture. They rather, as this study found out (question 7), only dip into socialising with the local population. Also if everything breaks down, there is still a plane ticket home, as it was the case with Richard in ‘The Beach’, the ‘environmental bubble’ to step into if things get tough, thus characterising Cohen’s explorer tourists (adapted from Cooper et al., 1993). This was found out in this study by question 4. Comment 10:
[Questionnaire comment] Table 18
I think there is a difference between the characteristics of the "idealised" independent and adventurous backpackers, who are perceived as typical or even exemplary, but probably constitute only a minority, and the backpackers of the real world.
The majority of backpackers becomes less and less similar to drifters because backpacking becomes more and more popular. Therefore attracting all different kinds of youths more similar to the ‘normal’ population, not only the revolting youths, but rather the ones who want to add ‘a little bit of initiative’ (Sutcliffe, 1997) to their CV, which more and more companies demand in the West. However in Australia, where backpackers can acquire a 12 months working visa, backpackers seem to submerge ‘drifter’-like deep into the host culture compared to backpackers visiting Thailand’s rural population. However Australians have a similar culture to Europeans or North Americans. A minority of the entire worldwide backpacker segment seems however to continue some aspects of drifter tourism. They will continue the search for that traveller’s ‘holy grail’, only to find out that by their drive for the ever more remote location is ultimately self-defeating (Riley, 1988) spearheading mass tourism.
This study reveals, after having carefully investigated the secondary research and the results (mostly by comments) from this study, that backpackers in their majority are only tourists on a smaller budget. They are forced to endure an independent travel itinerary, which the majority would pursue anyhow as they are mostly young and thus adventurous. Or as one 32 year old European backpacker stated: “all backpackers think they are better than tourists, but they are no different-just spend less money.” Riley (1988:322) observed backpackers’ claims that ‘they are better, since they are travellers’, stating that “these comments reflect the traveller’s perception and not necessarily reality”. This view has been supported by Garland (in Wheat, 2000) and comments in this research.
Considering the results of this study and having carefully investigated the existing literature on backpacking, it is now possible to outline a new definition of backpackers. Former research (Pearce, 1990) has stopped short before stating origin and age group as a major characteristic of backpackers. Even though it has been stated (Speed, 2000a:12) that “backpackers display interests and attitudes that cannot be segmented by country of origin or age” the persistence of research findings which have supported Pearce’s (1990) age and origin findings, it should no longer be neglected, as if it does not count that backpackers are 90 percent between 20 and 30 years old and to 80 percent from Europe or North America (this study). Speed (2000a) stated that backpackers are mainly from English-speaking countries. Even though the majority of backpackers come from English-speaking countries, others like Ghana, South Africa or India have very few backpackers while the Netherlands and especially Germany generate many (Speed, 2000b). Hence the language aspect does not lead to a better classification of backpackers.
This study confirms the age- and origin-results of previous studies (Speed, 2000b and Pearce, 1990). Therefore these facts should not longer be neglected, but more directly addressed. This definition differs from previous definitions by the fact that it clearly stresses the point that backpackers can be defined by their age and origin, because the vast majority of backpackers share these characteristics. This definition adapts also from different previous studies by several researchers in different locations, which have evaluated the backpacker market, to reach a more equated approach, summarising key findings from the literature review and this study. Also it has to be set a particular emphasis on the point that a minority of backpackers is still pursuing the old dreams of drifter tourism, while the majority are just tourists by package book. In this study, 47.6 percent would fit this definition, as they are limited to the western world and/or have limited backpacking experiences. It could be suggested that a large part of the third category of backpackers in this study, who are sometimes in need of western comfort would also fit into the newly packaged tourism. At the same time, the 8.8 percent who state to live currently on the road would fit Cohen’s (1972) drifter characteristics. This would needed to be investigated with more scrutiny and in more detail. This study confirms the view of academic literature (Cohen, 1972, Loker-Murphy, 1996 and Uriely et al, 2002) that different categories of backpacker tourists exist, all of these categories seem however to follow the following characteristics, based on the most appropriate secondary literature and the clearest results from this primary research.
[Backpacker definition] Table 1 9
While recognising significant differences between backpackers can occur (adapted from Loker-Murphy, 1996, Scheyvens, 2002 and Uriely et al, 2002), the vast majority of backpackers are just tourists on a lower budget (this study), usually from Europe or North America, whilst the highest proportional generation of backpackers appears in Australia/ Oceania (this study), forming an almost entirely western approach to tourism (Elsrud, 2001 and this study).
They are between 20 and 30 years old (Pearce, 1990; Speed 2000b and this study), have planned and arranged their own trip with the enlightenment of Lonely Planet or similar guidebooks (Riley, 1988; Hampton, 1998 and this study). Thus developing mass-tourism characteristics, such as congregating at one destination (Scheyvens, 2002) due to recommendations in ‘the book’ (Garland in Wheat, 2000). They have the freedom and flexibility to travel wherever they wish, only limited by their tight budget resources, mostly resulting from their age and fairly extended holidays, which can last longer than a year (Riley, 1988 and this study).
They normally carry a backpack, use cheap hostels and local facilities, and try to obtain good bargains (Bradt, 1995 and Scheyvens, 2002). Backpackers are not so concerned about standards of accommodation, thus being advantageous for the sustainable process of third world communities, by permitting local based entrepreneurs to take a share in tourism (Riley, 1988, and Elsrud, 2001). Their main motivators are meeting the people, which are mostly fellow backpackers (Pearce, 1990 and this study), experiencing the local culture and participating in informal activities (Loker-Murphy, 1996 and this study). Though ecologically concerned, few backpackers are deterred from visiting countries, which violate human rights (this study).
They are often on a juncture of life and fully a member of the society they left, which they intend to rejoin after travelling (Riley, 1988 and Uriely et al, 2002). They claim to search for an authentic experience (Sharpley, 1994; Jamieson, 1996 and this study), however by doing so, they often spearhead the development of mass tourism (Riley, 1988; Hutnyk, 1996 and Spreitzhofer, 1998), of which most backpackers are now fully a member (this study) and which they hate to be associated with (Riley, 1988).
However, “one may always expect to find [backpacker] individuals who do not comply with any form or type, regardless how these (...) concepts were constructed” (Uriely et al., 2002:536). And maybe all this theoretical investigation has gone too far and we need to redevelop a more basic approach to the concept of backpacking, as one respondent suggests (Comment 24): “a backpack distinguishes a backpacker.”
5.2. Summary of meeting the aim of this study
Obtaining an answer to the aim as stated in section 1.2. was the main focus of this study. The objectives to achieve this aim included evaluating significant data of 206 questionnaires with the help of SPSS, which justified the notion that ‘The Beach’ characteristics are being largely rejected by the backpacking community, due to the highly fictional approach ‘The Beach’ takes. Hence backpackers can be defined not being ‘Richard-clones’. It is therefore unfair and misleading to judge backpackers on the image portrayed in ‘The Beach’. However this study only asked backpackers for their attitudes regarding ‘The Beach’-characteristics. In order to fully reject the notion that ‘The Beach’ is applicable to the backpacker community, there would need to be an investigation on actual and shown backpacker behaviour at backpacker places, such as Thailand or elsewhere, to assess whether backpacker attitudes and behaviour intertwine.
Due to the significance of the data, which are in line with previous studies on backpackers, both in age and backpacker characteristics, it was possible to evaluate a new definition of backpackers, combining the secondary data, and the primary research undertaken for this study. Secondary data has been the key to this definition, whilst primary data (in particular the highly valuable comments received from backpackers, due to their diversity and sophistication) as well as the author’s subjectivity played a significant part. This is derived from the author’s experiences (own backpacking experiences and views obtained by backpacker colleagues from ‘a former life’) and the presented image of backpacking in literature, media and the new media.
5.3. Future research
Future research could focus on the relation between backpackers and the Internet, as it has been noted during this study, that backpackers are heavy web-users. A more profound online investigation of the backpacker market, including better human and financial resources could prove highly rewarding, as this study could also have received more data in quantity as well as in quality.
After having scratched upon the issue of conformity regarding today’s backpackers, including the gap-year phenomenon, it would be rewarding to investigate whether the year-long travels, which were still rejected by the majority of the general public in backpackergenerating countries during Riley’s investigation (1988), are nowadays an obligation for young people in Europe, North America and Australia (adapted from Sutcliffe, 1997). Gap- year travel, being one of the big money-earners for holiday firms, booked by students as well as city-workers who are on a sabbatical year, has risen by 200 percent in the United Kingdom within the last year (Towndrown, 2002).
Another interesting focus could be the relationship of Lonely Planet travel guides with the backpacking community. Why could one book become the ‘bible of travelling’, whereas half of all respondents in this study state these books are a very important part of their backpacking holiday? Has Lonely Planet the influence to spearhead mass tourism or decide the decline of another destination (Garland, 1997)? Hampton (1998), Riley (1988), Garland (1997) and Sutcliffe (1997) have all stressed the importance of Lonely Planet guidebooks. Particularly, since Lonely Planet has come under investigation of the media (Garland in Wheat 2000), and Tourism Concern (2001) even boycotts Lonely Planet due to the release of a guidebook on Myanmar, there is definitely a need to investigate this relation between Lonely Planet guidebooks and backpackers further.
In co-ordination with an improved online questionnaire, there could be further investigations of differences between backpackers, as the majority of research has focused so far on separating backpackers from other tourists but not from each other. Loker-Murphy (1996:25) stated “to view backpackers as one homogenous group of travellers, different from mass tourists but not from each other, can be dangerous since it will surely result in at least some of these visitors being dissatisfied or not particularly well catered to” and this segment is too important to be treated in such a way. This study tried to evaluate different backpacker groups, howeverthis could be done with more precision.
It could be particularly interesting to test backpacker characteristics to Hartman’s (1991 as cited in McKenny, 1996:33) categorisation of youth travellers, according to their various motives and experiences, to further broaden Loker-Murphy’s (1996) identification of groups traveller by a massive online questionnaire. Uriely et al. (2002) approach, supported by qualitative research of the Israeli backpacker market, seems also promising, dividing backpackers into four distinctive categories: Experimental and Experiential, Humanistic, Diversionary and Recreational and Multitype backpackers. However, the blank categorisation of tourists as conducted by Cohen (1972) can be questioned, since it is rather impossible to put tourists into ‘pigeon-holes’ from an ‘ivory tower’-perspective, without supporting this categorisation by valid research.
Finally it is recommendable, to research the effects backpackers have on third world communities, thus increasing the knowledge conducted by Hampton (1996 and 1998). Will haggling and guarding against rip-offs help to protect the local community? Or have backpackers with their obsession of budgeting a cold heart and do not want to spend some extra pounds in a third world community, where the price of the backpacker’s flight ticket is sometimes higherthan the average national income (Riley, 1988)?
6. Bibliography
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Aziz, H. (1999) Whose culture is it anyway? In Focus (Spring): pp. 14-15
Bradt, H. (1995) Better to travel cheaply? The Independent on Sunday magazine, pp. 49-50, London February 12th
Burns, P.M. (1999) Tourism & Anthropology. London: Routledge
Butler, R. (1980) The concept of a tourist area life cycle of evolution: implications for management of resources Canadian Geographer 24, pp. 5-12
Cochrane, J. (1996) The sustainability of ecotourism in Indonesia: fact and fiction in Parnwell, M. and Bryant, R. (eds) Environmental change in South-East Asia London: Routledge
Cohen, E.
(1968) Nomads from affluence: Notes on the phenomenon of drifter-tourism International Journal of Comparative Sociology, XIV 1-2, pp. 88-103
(1972) Towards a sociology of international tourism Social Research No. 39 (1).
(1979) A phenomenology of tourist types Sociology No. 13, pp.179-201
Cooper, C. Fletcher, J. Gilbert, D. Wanhill, S. editors (1993) Tourism: principles and practice London: Pitman
Crowder, D. and Crowder, R. (2001) Dreamweaver 4 and Fireworks 4 San Francisco: Sybex
Desforges, L (2000) Traveling the world: Identity and biography. Annals of Tourism Research 27 (4) pp. 926-945
Elsrud, T. (2001) Risk creation in travelling: Backpacker adventure narration. Annals of Tourism Research 28 (3) pp. 597-617
Firth, T. and Hing, N. (1999) Backpacker hostels and their guests: attitudes and behaviours relating to sustainable tourism. Tourism Management (20) pp. 251-254
Foster, J.J. (2001) Data Analysis: Using SPSS for Windows (2nd edition) Sage Publications Limited, London.
Garland, A. (1997) The Beach Harmondsworth: Penguin
Gibbons, S.M. and Selvarajah, C.T. (1994) A study of the international backpacker visitor to New Zealand: Building a profile to assess value and impact. Unpublished report. Albany, New Zealand: Department of Management Systems, Massey University
Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age Cambridge: Polity Press
Gluckman, R. (2000) Postcards from the Beach. Asia Now. At URL: http://cnn.com/ASIANQW/asiaweek/99/0219/nat4.html Last accessed on November 13th 2001
Graburn, N. (1983) The anthropology of tourism Annals ofTourism Research 10 (1), pp. 9-33
Green and Higginson (1988) The backpacker market Cairns: Cairns Backpacker Association
Hall, C.M. (2002) The geography of travel and tourism and recreation: Environment, place and space 2nd edition London: Routledge
Hampton, M.P. (1996) Economic development impacts of backpacker tourism in the periphery: a case study of Lombok, Indonesia University of Portsmouth, Department of Economics.
Hampton, M.P. (1998) Backpacker tourism and economic development. Annals of Tourism Research 25 (3) pp. 639-660
Hutnyk, J. (1996) The Rumour of Calcutta. Tourism, Charity and the Poverty of Representation London: Zed Books
Jamieson, T. (1996) “Been There—Done That”: Identity and the Overseas Experience of Young Pakeha New Zealanders. Master of Arts in Social Anthropology, Massey University: New Zealand
Kerouac, J. (1955) On the road Harmondsworth: Penguin
Kinnear, TO. andTaylor, J.R. (1987) Marketing Research: An applied approach 3rd edition Singapore: McGraw-Hill International Editions.
Loker, L. (1993) The Backpacker Phenomenon - More answers to further questions. James Cook University of North Queensland, Department of Tourism.
Loker-Murphy, L. and Pearce, P.L. (1995) Young budget travellers: Backpackers in Australia. Annals of Tourism Research 22 (4) pp. 819-843
Loker-Murphy, L. (1996) Backpackers in Australia: A motivation-based segmentation study. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 5(4) pp. 23-45
Marteau, J.Y. (1998). Les enfants du voyage routard. Espaces (Paris) no153 pp. 56-59
McKenney, S. (1996) An examination into the factors that motivate the backpacker to travel independently. Unpublished Master of Science Dissertation, School of Sport and Leisure Management, Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom
Murphy, L. (1999) Australia’s image as a holiday destination- perception of backpacker visitors. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 8 (3) pp. 21-45
Murphy, L. (2001) Exploring social interactions of backpackers. Annals of Tourism Research 28 (1) pp. 50-67
Noronha, F. (1999) Culture Shocks. In Focus (Spring): pp. 4-5
O’Connor, J. (2000) The Big Squeeze. In Focus (Summer): pp. 4-5
Pearce, D.G. (1995) Tourism Today: A geographical analysis 2nd edition Harlow: Longman
Pearce, P.L. (1988) The Ulysses Factor: Evaluating visitors in tourist settings New York: Springer
Pearce P.L. (1990) The Backpacker Phenomenon - Preliminary answers to basic questions. James Cook University of North Queensland, Department of Tourism.
Pendry, R. (1998) Thailand Backpackers: Full Moon Party. A First Circle Films Production for Channel 5 Broadcasting Ltd.
Polit, J.J.P. (1991) Ecotourism: Proposals and Reflections for a Community Development and Conservation Project. In Ecotourism and Resource Conservation: A Collection of Papers, Volume 1, J. A. Kusler, ed., pp. 357-361. From the 1st International Symposium on Ecotourism, 1989, Merida, Mexico, and the 2nd International Symposium on Ecotourism and Resource Conservation, 1990, Miami, FL.
Riley, P.J. (1988) Road culture of international long-term budget travellers. Annals of Tourism Research 15 (2) pp. 313-328
Ross, G.F. (1997) Backpacker achievement and environmental controllability as visitor motivators. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 6 (2) pp. 69-82
Scheyvens, R. (2002) Backpacker tourism and third world development. Annals of Tourism Research 29 (1) pp. 144-164
Sharpley, R. (1994) Tourism, tourists and society 2nd edition Huntingdon: ELM Publications
Speed, C. (2000a) The Backpacker market: who’s counting? The need for formal recognition in Tourism Statistics Paper presented at the 5th International forum on Tourism Statistics, Glasgow Caledonian University June
Speed, C. (2000b) The Backpacker market in Scotland- Preliminary findings Unpublished paper, Glasgow: Napier University Spreitzhofer G (1998) Backpacking Tourism in South-East Asia. Annals of Tourism Research 25 (4) pp. 979-983
Sutcliffe, W. (1997) Are you experienced? Harmondsworth: Penguin
Tittel, E and James, S.N. (1997) More HTML for Dummies 2nd edition Foster City, California: IDG Books
Tourism Concern (2000) Lonely Planet Boycott at URL: http://www.tourismconcern.org.uk/campaigns/frame.htm Last accessed on April 12th 2002
Towndrown, J. (2002) Growing menace of cold-blooded killers who stalk Britain’s young globetrotters Sunday Express, London, pp. 10-11, April 14th
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Uriely, N. ; Yonay, Y. and Simchai, D. (2002) Backpacker experiences: A type and form analysis Annals of Tourism Research 29 (2), pp. 420-538
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Wheat, S. (1995) Interview with a tour guide The Independent on Sunday magazine, p. 50, London February 12th
Wheat, S. (2000) Beach nut: An interview with Alex Garland, best-selling and occasionally controversial author of “The Beach” February 11th 2000 URL: http://www.salon.com Last accessed on April 5th 2002.
Wheeler, T. (ed.) (1992) South-East Asia on a shoestring (7th edition). Hawthorne (Victoria, Australia): Lonely Planet Publications
Withey, L. (1997) Grand Tours and Cook’s Tours: A history of leisure travel 1750-1915 London: Aurum
7. Appendices
7.1. The responses to the questions
η= 206 unless otherwise stated.
Question 1: Please state your age.
Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten
The sample shows a typical bell-shaped ‘normal distribution’, which would result if repeated samples were drawn (Veal, 1997). Median: 24 years; Mean: 25.5 years. Thus in line with previous research, Pearce (1990) and Loker-Murphy (1996). Interesting is the fact that there does not seem to be an age-barrier to backpacking. Though it is unlikely that backpackers are younger than 17 years old, there are still backpackers in their forties and even one at an age of 57. They might live through their second youth, which is becoming an ever-increasing trend in our society.
Question 2: Please state your continent of origin.
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48.8 percent of respondents come from Europe. 33.2 percent from North America, while Australia/Oceania contributes with 13.2 percent the only other significant number of backpackers. These results are fully in line with former research, even though the high number of North American respondents surprises. This might be due to the more advanced use of the Internet in the USA and a higher penetration by ‘wishful thinkers’, who do not actually participate in backpacking, but wish to do so and access relevant websites.
Question 3 “Which of the following characterises a backpacker?”
The most significant answers were:
High independence in travel itinerary: 65.3% agreed
Low budget: 57.9% agreed
Traveller instead of tourist: 48.5% agreed
But only very few backpackers agreed on the following statements:
A life less ordinary: 38.6% agreed
Discovers new places: 32.2% agreed
Mostly member of a Western society: 26.2% agreed
16-35years old: 21.3% agreed
Travellingalone: 10.9% agreed
Question 4: Which kind of backpacker are you?
Options: Gained first time experience in backpacking; Advanced but still limited to the Western World; Independent but still sometimes in need of Western Culture; Living constantly on the road.
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43.6% of backpackers are in the third category, 30.4% in the first, 17.2% in the second and 8.8% live “constantly on the road”. That seems to suggest that backpackers are mostly a member of the third category and do not want limit themselves to the western world. Even though they require its comfort from time to time.
Question 5: Are you planning to travel to Thailand?
Options: ‘Been there’ ; ‘Will go there soon (max. in one year’s time)’ ; ‘Will go there some time in future’ ; ‘Not interested’
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87.4 percent of the respondents have either been to Thailand or they want to visit it later in their life, 14.1 percent within the next year and 35.4 percent thereafter. Only 12.6 percent are not interested in visiting the country, while 37.9 percent have already visited Thailand. The “land of the beaten track” (‘The Beach’, page 139).
Question 6: Which of these are important to you during a backpacker holiday?
Most important were for the respondents:
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Question 7: Roughly, during your last backpacking trip, how much time did you spend socialising with the local population in comparison to fellow travellers?
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70.7% of respondents spent less time with the local population than with fellow travellers. However, even that low result might be due to ‘wishful thinking’, as one respondent observed (Comment 15) : a large proportion of travellers probably fall in the 0 -10% range (or even 0 - 5%). It can take quite a lot of effort to even make 15 - 20% genuine socialising with local people.
Question 8: From your last backpacking experience, do you think cultural differences between backpackers were...
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97.1% stated that cultural differences between travellers were an advantage or mostly enriching/sometimes disturbing. Only 2.9% found it disturbing.
Question 9: Fellow backpackers can only become superficial friends. There is no possibility of developing close friendship due to backpackers’ love of freedom. Strongly agree to strongly disagree.
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69.4% disagreed/strongly disagreed with this point. While only 10.7% agreed that fellow backpackers can only become superficial friends. Thus supporting the view taken in ‘The Beach’
Question 10: You are travelling to a beautiful place and you will not tell fellow backpackers about it because you try to keep the place unique and secret?
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54.9% disagreed/strongly disagreed whilst only 18% agreed to this notion of ‘The Beach’.
Question 11: When you are travelling in Thailand, you would for example drink the blood of a snake so you can say: “Been there, done that”?
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57.6% disagreed/strongly disagreed with the notion that they would drink the blood of a snake. 21.5% however agreed/strongly agreed with this point.
Question 12: All travellers want to do something different, but in the end we all do the same things! Strongly agree to Strongly disagree.
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50% of the respondents strongly agree/agree that backpackers ‘all do the same’ despite wanting to something ‘different’. Only 28% strongly disagreed/ disagreed with this notion.
Question 13: You would be happy living on an island where you will have to find and grow your own food. You’d live there with fellow backpackers forming a community based in the jungle, living in tents. Strongly agree to Strongly disagree.
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63.6% disagreed/strongly disagreed with the idea that they would like to live on an island, living in similar conditions like Richard in ‘The Beach’. 20.5% agreed/strongly agreed with that point, representing 42 backpackers.
Question 14: Backpackers, who glorify the Vietnam war by using military language and trying to act in soldier-like behaviour by crawling through the bush, are behaving in an ethically inappropriate manner! Strongly agree to Strongly disagree.
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61% strongly agreed/agreed that it is ethically inappropriate to use Vietnam-war language when travelling. 14.5% strongly disagreed/disagreed with this point.
Question 15: Self-fulfilment is more important than the needs of other people. Strongly agree to Strongly disagree.
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56.8% disagreed/strongly disagreed that self-fulfilment is more important than the needs of other people. On the other hand, 18.4% strongly agreed/agreed to this point.
Question 16: Marijuana is an indispensable part of the backpacking experience. Strongly agree to Strongly disagree.
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76.2% stated that marijuana is not an indispensable part of the backpacking experience, while only 5.3% agreed to this point. This result is contrary to the fictional presentation of backpacking.
Question 17: The handing-out of nicknames to fellow travellers, like Daffy Duck or Conan, is usual between backpackers. Strongly agree to Strongly disagree.
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51.5% strongly disagreed/ disagreed with this point, while only 11% agreed with the statement. The highest single result received the neutral answer with 36.8% of the votes, indicating that backpackers were only mutually interested in this question.
Question 18: You would travel to places where human rights are being violated, like Israel or China, where not many other travellers go. Strongly agree to Strongly disagree.
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53.2% would travel to places like Israel and China, even though Human rights are being violated. Only 23.8% disagree/strongly disagree with this.
Question 19: The protection of nature is more important than a travel experience, which could harm the environment (Scuba diving, flying, etc.). Strongly agree to Strongly disagree.
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58.2% think the protection of the nature more important than a travel experience, whilst 15% strongly disagree/disagree to this point.
Question 20: Have you read the book “The Beach” by Alex Garland?
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40.8% have read the book “The Beach”, that is almost every second backpacker, hence a very significant figure.
7.2. Significant results from cross-tabulation
While several hypothesis have been tested, e.g. the difference in responses from backpackers from different continents, different age groups etc., only the following crosstabulations have proved to be of significant value. This was not the case when comparing for example Asians backpackers with backpackers from other continents, as the sample number of seven was far too small to be of any significance.
Figure 1: [Continent of residence*read the book]-cross-tabulation
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Europeans were much more likely to have read ‘The Beach’ than North Americans or Australians/Oceanians. This might be due to the fact that ‘The Beach’ was published first in London and was more successful in the UKthan the USA.
Figure 2: [planning to go to Thailand* read the book]-cross-tabulation
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A respondent who has read ‘The Beach’ is much more likely to have been to Thailand than someone who has not read it.
Figure 3: [planning to go to Thailand*Continent of residence]-cross-tabulation
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Europeans and Australians/Oceanians are much more likely to have been to Thailand than North Americans. Is this because ‘The Beach’ was much more successful in Europe than in the USA, one can only speculate.
Figure 4: [planning to go to Thailand*Kind of backpacker]-cross-tabulation
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The ‘independent- but sometimes in need of western cultures’-respondents are much more likely to have been to Thailand and less than 5 percent of these are not interested in going there, while ‘first time experienced’-respondents are firstly less likely to have been to Thailand and also nearly 1/6 is not interested at all in visiting Thailand. This shows in some way that the classifications reflect their travel choices and have therefore been correctly set.
Figure 5: [Continent of residence*Protection of nature]-cross-tabulation
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Europeans and Australians/Oceanians, compared to North Americans, are much more likely to set a strong emphasis on the protection of the environment, reflecting somewhat the higher importance is given to environmental protection in Europe ratherthan in the USA.
7.3. Valuable comments received from backpackers via the questionnaire
Comment 1 (26 year old European backpacker) The story in 'The Beach' is not really about backpacking, though, is it? If you really want to know what it's like, why don't you pack a bag and buy a plane ticket? My definition of a backpacker is someone who is not on a package tour, or with transport/itinerary arranged in advance, but makes their own arrangements as they go.
Comment 2 (40 year old Australasian/Oceanian backpacker): Backpackers are generally the young middle class for whom the world exists to go round.
Comment 3 (27 year old Australian/Oceanian backpacker): Travelling is about getting off the beaten trail and experiencing human nature in the raw. Full immersion in life. Tourism is about being able to say "been there, done that"...
Comment 4 (24 year old European backpacker): It sounds like your questionnaire draws strongly on ‘The Beach’. This book gives a very superficial look at backpacking & backpackers --Thailand is just a small part of the world, yet most Brits think it isit &a bit.
Comment 5 (24 year old European backpacker): Most of my travel is activity based (hiking in NZ, surfing in the US and hopefully soon- Mexico, skiing in Canada, etc.) If parties happen to occur after the day is done, no complaints, but I'm not one to fly all the way to Goa just to get drunk with rich Brits and Americans...
Comment 6 (19 year old North American backpacker): Where did you get these lame questions? Some of them don’t even contradict each other... Does caring about selffulfilment most mean you do not care about other people's needs ? I think not. For some it is even theirway of self-fulfilment...
Comment 7 (24 year old European backpacker): With regards to the question of whether or not Lonely Planet travel books are important, I recently backpacked around Peru and was amazed to find at Machu Picchu people spending more time reading the LP than enjoying being immersed in that awe-inspiring place. Sad but true. People had travelled halfway around the round to compare a place to the picture in the LP.
Comment 8 (29 year old Australian/Oceanian backpacker): It is obvious this questionnaire is heavily based on events within the plot of the book The Beach. By asking the questions you have asked, it seems you are testing the validity of the books narrative, and not actually trying to discover anything new or real about backpacking.
Comment 9 (24 year old North American backpacker): backpacking is self-indulgent by nature, which isn't the worst thing in the world, but it fails to provide much fulfilment beyond the initial thrill of complete freedom.
Comment 10 (21 year old South American backpacker): I think there is a difference between the characteristics of the "idealised" independent and adventurous backpackers, who are perceived as typical or even exemplary, but probably constitute only a minority, and the backpackers of the real world.
Comment 11 (32 year old North American backpacker): When answering this question, you are tempted to list the qualities of an ideal backpacker (or the qualities that you think to have on your own travels) - for example I put "independence" and "avoiding the crowd". But when you consider all the backpackers who spend the greatest part of their journey in Dahab, Goa, Ko Samui, Chiang Mai, Khao San Road (Bangkok), where all the other backpackers go, you start to wonder if it is really the case... I am not so sure.
On the other hand, "16-35" and, to a lesser extent, "western society" characterize the majority of the backpackers you meet, but I don't think that they are essential qualities of backpackers... the majority of backpackers probably also have two eyes, but this doesn't have anything to do with backpacking per se (and I am sure there are also a few one-eyed backpackers, just like there are 70 year old or Pakistani backpackers, for example).
Finally, I think some of your questions are difficult to answer because of the causalities you imply: e.g. I wouldn't have a big problem with drinking the blood of a snake (maybe it tastes great, who knows?), but not because I want to say "been there, done that". For example, sheep liver sandwiches are now a regular part of my diet - they may sound gross, but once you try them, you might like them (and I do).
Comment 12 (57 year old European backpacker): I have backpacked in 174 countries so I have some experience. Backpackers are just tourists on a lower budget. Packaged tourism does less damage to the environment because visitors are herded in controlled groups. The only things holding backpackers back is theirtypical laziness and lack of means.
Comment 13 (26 year old European backpacker): Not all backpackers are "Richard" clones. ‘The Beach’ is a brilliant book, and it raises many valid questions about the nature of travelling, but I don't think many people would actually try and model themselves after Richard (by drinking snake blood, or crawling through the jungle to avoid the VC, etc., etc.).
Comment 14 (20 year old North American backpacker) : I don't agree that human rights are being violated in Israel and strongly object to your personal opinion entering into this questionnaire, and cannot possiblytake it seriously as a result.
Comment 15 (26 year old North American backpacker): Some of these questions could be better formulated. For example, Q9 - I agree with much of the statement (primarily superficial relationships), but disagree with the suggested reason (love of freedom), so can't really answer the question.
Also, Q. 7's a good question, but the calibration is possibly off - a large proportion of travellers probably fall in the 0 - 10% range (or even 0 - 5%). It can take quite a lot of effort to even make 15 - 20% genuine socialising with local people. I consider myself as someone who makes a lot of effort to do so, but the only reason I fall into the 26-50% category is that I spent some time staying with friends who worked in Thailand & Vietnam & so socialised with their local friends (and I'd argue that that's not really backpacking at all).
Comment 16 (21 year old North American backpacker): I think a distinction needs to be made between Backpackers and Travellers. The former fits the dope smoking caricature whilst the latter are a more mature experience seeking journier.
Comment 17 (25 year old European backpacker): The beach was a shitty book, I hated Khao San Road, travelling alone is an important part of backpacking, forces you to experience yourself and your environment in a way usually not felt.
Comment 18 (28 year old European backpacker): Just a note about the question 20: I have not read but seen the movie “the beach” and I loved it. What's more, I've been to China, and it was a wonderful experience: even if human rights are violated, the Chinese people are really welcoming and friendly. They are curious about the differences between the eastern and western worlds, for they know they will never be able to travel.
Comment 19 (23 year old European backpacker): Protection of nature is more important? I love to scuba dive, and will do it. In a one off situation where I am shown that it would be inappropriate, I would not do it, but I don't see scuba diving as intrusive to the environment.
The Vietnam question is weird. I have come across some people like this, but you just let them do their own thing and don't get involved. I don't think they harm anyone, but the people I met did have very little respect for local culture, and were very much of the opinion they were better than all those around them, but I don't think that is unique to this type of traveller either
P.S. Dope can be fun, but when in Malaysia or Thailand I value life more than temporary fulfilment, and can still have fun without it.
Comment 20 (25 year old North American backpacker) : #10--I'd be selective about who I’d tell. Loud frat boy types won't be informed. 11 don't we travel to experience things we can't experience at home? I'd eat snake too, if it were offered. Local supermarket doesn't carry it.
12--depends on age and experience. Everyone goes to the Eiffel Tower on their first trip to Paris!
Comment 21 (21 year old North American backpacker): #19 Scuba Flying hardly damage the environment. Scuba saves more reefs because they are worth more alive than dead from fishing if Scuba Divers go to them. "fin strikes" do little damage if the diver is well trained and aware to prevent them.
Comment 22 (21 year old European backpacker): is this about ‘The Beach’ ? I didn't read the book, but saw the film-it was ridiculous! and it is true all backpackers think they are better than tourists, but they are no different-just spend less money.
Comment 23 (28 year old European backpacker): I visited East Timor in 1996 and I strongly believe people wanted us there to be witnesses . Countries who practice human rights abuses have a harder time doing it when there are people visiting from outside the country.
Comment 24 (24 year old Australian/Oceanian backpacker): a backpack distinguishes a backpacker.
Comment 25 (22 year old North American backpacker): Some questions too leading but hey, why not. Link to the beach could have been balanced with maybe some other books (like Are you Experienced... etc) Overall - quite fun.
Comment 26 (23 year old European backpacker): I'm guessing from the questions that you are trying to establish how true to life the stereotype of a backpacker is?? Just because I've been to Thailand, and happen to have read The Beach does that make me a typical backpacker?? Anyway, I thought this quote was a good one:
"Those who visit foreign nations, but associate only with their own country-men, change their climate, but not their customs. They see new meridians, but the same men; and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home with travelled bodies, but untravelled minds."
- Caleb Colton
Good Luck with the dissertation. Heather
Comment 27 (22 year old North American backpacker): I feel that you are only basing your questions on "The Beach". That isn’t what backpacking is about. It’s a small part of it and something that happens in Thailand. Every country has its own individual "adventure" and that’s a Thai one. You do not seem very objective. I think you are looking at a very small picture. I think Danzigers Travels by Nick Danzigers is also a backpackers dream but very few of the questions above relate to it. If you are going to do a survey on backpackers, please paint a picture for the contestants and you shouldn’t judge the many by the few. I think a backpacker is someone who goes from place to place with a backpack.
Comment 28 (28 year old North American backpacker): This a "Beach" heavy questionnaire. That is simply a backpacker fantasy book and only represents one fantasy, along the same lines as National Geographic calling me and sending me somewhere exotic for a high paid photo expedition. Sure, I'd love it in theory, but that would be simply a possible travel fantasy, like living out the story. it isn't a theme in everyday backpacking life. Good luck,
Comment 29 (31 year old North American backpacker): A decent questionnaire but a bit laden with "the beach" analogies. While it was a poignant piece of backpacker literature, to confine your dissertation to backpacker culture by using "the beach" as such a guiding focus of your questionnaire is to limit the breadth of your work and trivialize the subject to the confines of Backpacker culture and the search for holiday paradise in Thailand.
7.4. Book Review of the backpacker novel ‘The Beach’
The author of this study is very much aware of the fact, that ‘The Beach’ was also adapted as a movie, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, which provoked much controversy due to building work on a National Park beach in Thailand (Scheyvens, 2002), which provided the original settings for the novel. This subject alone could have been the foundation for an undergraduate dissertation. However, due to the limits of this study, the important discussion of the movie had to be entirely neglected including its ethical implications.
‘The Beach’ was the very first explicit backpacker novel ever. There had been Kerouac’s ‘On the road’ (1955) among others before, but Alex Garland was the first to write about mass backpacking. This Book review will try evaluating its key backpacker characteristics, which form the basis for a comparison with real-life backpackers in the online questionnaire, rather than accurately following the story line. Academic areas that could have been looked into include academic literature evaluation of ‘The Beach’, tourism presentation of South East Asia, tourism development and sustainable tourism, which all have been mentioned in ‘The Beach’.
In our ever-shrinking world, where popular Western culture seems to have infected every nation on the planet, it is hard to find even a small niche of unspoiled land. This is the situation in Alex Garland's debut novel, The Beach. Human progress has reduced Eden to a secret little beach near Thailand. Richard is a rootless traveller rambling around Thailand on his way somewhere else, after having arrived in Bangkok on the famous Khao San Road where no other purpose, than hanging around and smoke marijuana, seems to matter (page 5). There is basically no contact with the local Thai population only with fellow travellers, thus Richard notes (29) that “I suddenly found myself surrounded by Thais. I’d half forgotten which country I was in, stuck in backpacker land, and it took me a few minutes to adjust to the change.”
Richard is given a hand-drawn map (page 14) by a madman who calls himself Daffy Duck (24). He and two French travellers set out on a journey to find this paradise. When asked by Richard what they have done so far, Étienne answers (19): “Raft, trek. I want to do something different, and everybody wants to do something different. But we all do the same thing. There is no ... ah... Adventure.” Even though Richard has just met the couple, he already embarks onto a trip with them that could only be described as being the most adventurous of his life. Richard describes how backpackers are trying to discover “authentic” places, further and further away from the crowds, only to realise that by doing so, they already put the new destination on the list of overcrowded and out-of-date destinations in a couple of years time (49-50).
Étienne and Françoise question Richard whether he had ‘spilled the beans’ and told other backpackers about the beach. “It should be a secret.” Françoise explains. At their departure point before leaving for the secret island, Richard witnesses the results of backpacking on Ko Samui, resulting in many hostels, even more marijuana and some prostitutes (51). Richard uses more and more Vietnam war language, once landed in ‘Garden Eden’, i.e. the beach (155). The book explores why we search for these utopias, be they mysterious lost continents or small island communes.
Garland weaves a gripping and thought-provoking narrative that suggests we are, in fact, such products of our Western culture that we cannot help but pollute and ultimately destroy the very sanctuary we seek (Amazon, 1997). Comparing Alex Garland’s attitudes (Wheat, 2000) with the criticisms Richard states against the backpacking culture (Thailand, land of the beaten track) and Lonely Planet (if one destination is included into the Lonely Planet, the end is near), one can get the impression, ‘The Beach’ has been written like an autobiography, excluding the fictional elements such as crawling through the bush to avoid the Vietcong, etc.
7.5. Interview with Alex Garland
By Sue Wheat interviewing Alex Garland www.salon.com | February 11, 2000
There was something comforting about the suggestion by Alex Garland that we should meet outside a tube station in London. Pretentious is something he certainly isn't, despite his meteoric rise to fame through the success of his first book, ‘The Beach’- a story of backpackers in Thailand who set up an idyllic community on a remote island that ends in "Lord ofthe Flies"-style disaster.
Published only four years ago when Garland was 26, it has gained cult status -- 700,000 copies have been sold in the U.K., and nearly 300,000 in the U.S. -- and has been translated into 27 languages. And Friday the film adaptation starring Leonardo DiCaprio opens in theatres across the country.
Garland's second book, "The Tesseract," has also become a bestseller. Any author facing such affirmation should be riding the crest of a wave. Any man described as "the man to have" by Vogue would also be justly pleased. What I met was a man who seemed neither excited, confident nor vain. With slightly more weight than in his moody publicity pictures, he looks less pinup and more real. His good looks are rather Mediterranean, tempered by a beard that I can't help interpreting as a disguise.
Wheat: How has the success of your book ‘The Beach’ and now the commercial hype of the movie affected you?
Garland: The success that comes from my books is not something I feel very comfortable with. Past a certain point you have to accept the idea that the success is a lot to do with the timing and luck and that divorces you from it massively. There are aspects of it that I haven't got used to at all. But I've enjoyed some parts of it massively. It relates to the same reason I did a lot of backpacking -- partly for the experience -- it's something to tell my grandkids. It's a weird chain of events to have in your life. I find that very rewarding.
What do you think about travel now?
I like that question because it's very blunt but it leads to such a complicated set of responses. I think in "The Beach," I tried to get across an argument that wasn't polarized -- it wasn't saying it's all good and it wasn't saying it's all bad -- it was saying there's a middle road of common sense that hopefully the book suggests. I think I still feel a version of that. I still really enjoy going away and I do it a lot; in fact I do it more [now] than I ever did really. I went to Asia twice last year and I'm going to Sudan in March to write a short story for UNICEF, which they'll publish in a book with others.
Is Asia still your favourite destination?
Yes, probably.
Do you feel sad going back there -- especially if you see bits that you like gradually being bulldozed?
It depends what happens to the destination and it depends on what you feel about change. Manila has changed massively in the 11 years since I've been going there. And some of the changes I think are a pity and some are good. I generally don't feel depressed when I see a McDonald's has opened in some Southeast Asian town because it seems like part of a stabilizing process to me -- that it's as much about jobs and livelihoods as anything else.
What about tourism in Thailand? Do you think the film will be destructive?
I have absolutely no idea what the effects of the film will be. But on a separate side point, I am wary of viewing a place like Thailand as something delicate that will get stamped on by the West, because it removes any sort of notion of Thailand being complicit in what happens to it. To represent Thailand as a poor disempowered country is misleading. It goes out of its way to attract all sorts of tourism, and the people who are really disempowered in Thailand are the poor -- which obviously make up the majority of the country. But there's a massive middle class there and there's also a ruling elite. They make decisions about their country, as they should, and the effects of tourism are only partly the responsibility of the West and of backpackers. I don't feel comfortable writing Thailand out ofthat equation.
Has writing ‘The Beach’ changed your perspective on global tourism? Are you positive about it?
No I'm not. But I'm not entirely against it either. The thing about tourism is just that it's incredibly powerful. It's like a gun and it's incredibly easy to be irresponsible with it. And the speed of the impact that tourism can have on a place can be quite breathtaking. It doesn't take years, it takes months. That's how quickly it works. And it can be quite a bleak thing to witness. But I just think there's a toned-down version of it. I don't think tourism, for example, does any damage to Britain. Here we simply benefit from it -- it keeps people employed, brings in a lot of money, is part of the profile of our country. So if a third world country can get some kind of relationship with tourism that approximates the one we have here, then it seems absolutely fine
But the difference is one of power, isn't it? Third world countries are disempowered because of their standing in the global economic system. They have to repay debt, they have to face structural adjustment policies imposed by the World Bank, so they don't have the power to control their own tourism. Whereas we set the rules, we have the power to control it.
This is true, this is absolutely true. And it's tricky -- the only way a country can often make itself economically powerful enough to deal with tourism is through tourism. There's also such a poor system of wealth distribution; tourist dollars tend to stay with hotel owners and don't really reach the people who work there. But that's a political problem the countries need to sort out for themselves. It needs people paying taxes in a different way and local politics to work differently -- irrespective of whether tourists are going there or not.
So now are you still a backpacker?
Well, technically I am, just because a backpack is such a convenient way to carry your stuff round. But I never had that cheap backpacker psychology. I never used to haggle. If I was getting completely ripped off then I might say, "Come on, give me a break," but it was never a source of pride for me. Now if I'm really tired I deliberately put myself into an expensive hotel, because I want air conditioning and room service and that's great. Although obviously I still stay in cheap places too because that's often the only accommodation there is. But I've neverfelt there's any great virtue in slumming it.
Did you have that sort of sneering attitude to package tourists that many backpackers have? Do you think there's a difference between travellers and tourists?
No. Although the very first time I went away I was 17 and I probably did then. I felt backpacking was more adventurous. Of course there are differences. You end up doing things package tourists would never do, but whether that makes you any better than a package tourist, I don't know. About three years ago I went with my friend to their parents' villa in Spain near Benidorm; it had a swimming pool and all that, and was absolutely fantastic. I haven't done it since but I really would love to.
How have people reacted to ‘The Beach’?
Sometimes you get backpackers who are just furious and contemptuous and say it's completely wrong. I suppose they feel the person you're attacking is them, which is understandable. People also write and ask, "OK where is this place? Stop keeping it secret."
Really? People really think ‘The Beach’ exists?
Oh yes.
There's a famous quote from ‘The Beach’ about Lonely Planet. Do you think they're taking responsibility for their impact?
I've got a lot of comeback from that actually. Some people get really pissed off. Joe Cummings from Lonely Planet wrote a very dismissive piece in the Bangkok Post. I'm not surprised he was sort of nettled. A lot of my problem with guidebooks comes not from the books, but the way they get used. All of the Lonely Planet books for example, have a really good breakdown of the country, explanation of customs and so on, but I just don't know how many people read it, which isn't Lonely Planet's fault. Having said that, Lonely Planet has really, really irritated me in the past. They put out a certain kind of ethos -- or they appear to - - that puts too much emphasis on the pack-your-bag-and-go side of things, like it's all a sort of a big bourgeois adventure. And I've seen the Lonely Planet do things that I personally consider very irritating.
The cherry on the cake for me was a video guide to Vietnam where the back blurb states that it "translates into video the Lonely Planet philosophy" and invites travellers to "fire an AK47 and experience Vietnam." And I felt --1 know exactly what they're doing -- they're tapping into the romantic traveller adventure mind-set and selling a piece of the Vietnam War, but that's not OK. That's like saying, "Fire a sniper's rifle, experience Bosnia" or "Lay a land mine, experience Cambodia." It's not acceptable for a big powerful publishing company to exploit a situation in that way. So I hold them accountable for that.
They always seem to me that they're still constantly surprised at where they are. But they're trying to pretend they can deal with it.
Yes. And I do think if you asked me, "Are you worried about the ill effects of the film and the book?" the answer is, yes I am. But that would be a drop in the ocean next to the effect a guidebook can have on those places. I don't think DiCaprio fans are going to start flocking to Thailand, and anyway, if you look at Thailand, the place is absolutely saturated with tourists already and how much more extreme can you get? That's not to say it's OK, it's not to say that if the film or book has a bad effect that I feel comfortable with that; I don't. But I don't see them leading the spearhead charge of tourism in Thailand. We're part of a huge army. I also feel that ‘The Beach’ is clearly a criticism of the travel scene, it's not celebrating it, and that seems to me to be a reasonably responsible thing to have done on my part.
Richard said he travels without a camera; do you travel with one?
No. For exactly the reason I described in "The Beach." You end up just remembering the things you took a photo of. As I hate having my picture taken myself, I always felt there was something very intrusive about it. I can remember early in my travels seeing some picturesque old guy in ethnic clothing with a camera stuck right in his face like he was some sort of chimpanzee in the zoo, and thinking "there's something a bit weird and fucked up about this." But sometimes I travel with a Filipino photojournalist and I'm glad he's doing it because then I have great pictures. You know -- I'm a hypocrite in all sorts of ways.
What do you think of the environmental criticisms about ‘The Beach’?
It was 95 percent bullshit. I was worried about it and went to have a look at the film set, but when I got there it was a DiCaprio story, it wasn't an environmental story. Danny Boyle, the director, has argued that it raised the profile of environmental issues in Thailand so overall that's a good thing. I'd agree with that. I think the net result of it will probably be positive. But there's absolutely no doubt that some environmental damage was done by the film process. It's very hard for a film of that scale to be done and not have any impact.
The whole Hollywoodization of your book has taken over the imagination on a global scale, hasn't it? Is that rather disturbing?
The thing about it is that I had nothing to do with the filming; all I did was watch it and I found that interesting because I like watching films. But in general I felt very divorced from it. At the time I was trying to write "The Tesseract" and doing other things -- it was something happening in the periphery. Also the biggerthe film got, the less I felt connected to it.
So did you like the film?
Yes. I was surprised at how emotionally attached to it I was.
What about seeing Leonardo DiCaprio play the role of Richard, when Richard is so much based on you and Leonardo DiCaprio is so different from you?
Well it's a different Richard. And that helped me watch it.
Why did you decide not to go to the premiere in L.A.?
That's a long story. But it's like -- you've got to try and keep your distance from it. The film industry is like a black hole; there's a huge gravity that seduces you and sucks you in and you have to constantly fight against it.
What have you done since "The Tesseract"?
I wrote the screenplay for "The Tesseract" for the BBC. But a film isn't definite until they start shooting it, and even then sometimes they fall apart, so we'll wait and see. I'm waiting forthe publicity from the film to die down before I start writing again.
And what do you want to do next?
Oh, I just want to write another novel. That's what I feel myjob is really. The only thing I don't feel my job is, is being a sort of commentator on the travel scene, which somehow has happened. I don't know that much about tourism or the environment -- I've got a reasonably informed layman's perspective on it, that's all.
Do you intend to still use foreign countries as locations for future books?
Yes, if I manage to keep doing this job then probably I will. There's something about writing stories set in foreign countries that helps you feel separate from your subject matter. But I'm also quite interested in the idea of trying to write something set in Britain.
"The Tesseract" has some similar elements to "The Beach," particularly paranoia. Did you create that theme or is it something that's part of your reaction to life?
It's probably part of my reaction to life. But it's not a coincidence that I started writing "The Tesseract" in a run-down hotel in Manila, which is quite like the one in the book, thinking "why am I here? I keep finding myself in these bloody places, why can't I just stay at home and have an easy life?" I think that probably happens once every time I go away.
7.6. Justification of questions
The questions of this questionnaire can broadly be put into three different categories. First of all, it was tried to verify whether the “respondents” qualify as backpackers, due to their age, origin, which kind of backpacker they are and what is important for them during a backpacker holiday (questions 1-4,6). The second category tried to discuss certain issues, characteristics, statements or behaviour as expressed by the backpacker characters in ‘The Beach’ (questions numbers: 5,7,9-17,20). The questions derived from ‘The Beach’ what the author of this study found most appropriate for the discussion within the questionnaire. The justification for the ‘The Beach’ questions can broadly be taken from the literature review of ‘The Beach’ (see appendix 7.4.).
Finally, some questions were added to critically evaluate backpackers’ opinions on selected issues, such as their opinions on cultural differences, human rights and environmental concerns (questions 8,18 and 19). These questions provided further contextual material and are hence being justified:
8: Cultural differences
This question wanted to verify whether backpackers were satisfied in their motivations, as ‘meeting the people’ is one of their primary goals for travelling. Have the holdiday experiences added up to the expectations backpackers had before travelling. This question was choses because in the literature there has been quite some research on the issue that backpackers are interested in meeting the people but never whether backpackers were satisfied.
18: Human rights and backpackers.
This question wanted to verify whether backpacker are being put off by countries who violate human rights. The following choice of countries was given:
China for prosecution of religious minorities and its role in the 1989 massacre of democratic students on Tianmen square, Beijing; Israel for continuing illegal occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza-strip since 1967, ignoring UNO security council resolutions 242 (1967) and 383 (1973). Whilst acknowledging that some respondents might have felt offended and two commented angrily to these propositions, this question was of particular interest to the author, as it has been previously not researched in backpacker literature and it was sought to evaluate if backpackers cared about political systems or the behaviour of certain countries against other peoples. This is particularly important since Tourism Concern (2000) has called for a boycott of Lonely Planet, due to its release of a Burmese guidebook.
19: Backpackers and the environment.
More than only testing backpackers’ attitudes towards the environment, this question wanted to evaluate how much backpackers are familiar with the results of travelling on the environment, e.g. not many travellers know the disastrous effects flying has, due to emissions. As the author saw by himself the negative impacts of scuba-divers on the Great Barrier Reef (Australia), when divers destroy corals with their flippers, mostly incidental, this notion was also tested against backpackers’ attitudes. As Hall (2002:157) has rigorously explained the problems that can arise when tourism takes hold of coral reefs, “skin divers and snorklers can damage coral by hitting it with their fins”. As the film 'The Beach has provoked much controversy due to building work on national park beaches in Thailand, this question was also of particular importance in relation to 'The Beach'.
20: The Beach.
It had to be verified how many backpackers had read the book to evaluate its importance for the backpacking sub-culture and to allow its results to be used for significant crosstabulation. The statement of the focus of this study, i.e. the comparison of backpacker attitudes with the ‘The Beach’ was omitted to the respondents until the end of the questionnaire to avoid bias.
[...]
1 comments can be found in appendix 7.3.
2 translates probably as journey-maker
3 J Full results can be found in appendix 7.2.
- Quote paper
- Lars Helbert (Author), 2002, The Beach - A correct critique of backpackers, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/107305
