Backpacking: Diversity and change

Backpacking is a controversial subject: while often imagining themselves as the ‘real’ travellers as against the conventional tourists (e.g. Uriely et al., 2002; Welk, Chapter 5 of this volume), backpackers are often condemned for their appearance, conduct – especially sexual freedom and use of drugs – superficiality, stinginess and seclusion in backpacker enclaves. While tourism officials and the tourist industry depict backpackers as exploiters of poor locals from whom they seek to live on the cheap, researchers have recently highlighted their neglected but significant economic contribution to marginal communities in less developed parts of the world (Scheyvens, 2002). Governments of many developing countries have in the past sought to upgrade the tourism services of localities that are popular with backpackers (e.g.Wilson, 1997) or to put restrictions on backpacking visits. While some Thais have recently begun to recognise the economic potential of this type of tourism (The Nation, 2001), the Thai authorities are still disinclined to backpackers, and seek to develop luxury tourism (e.g. Niyamabha, 2002).