The Backpacker Market: Targeting a Mobile Population Through Online Communities

Over the last several decades, backpacking has becomea mainstreamed travel phenomenon. The backpackermarket is one of the fastest growing segments oftourism. Backpackers often spend more money duringtheir trips than other mass tourists, and can have aneven greater local economic impact as they are morelikely to consume local tourism products andservices. As the backpacker market has grown, it hasbeen commonly examined as a single entity. Previousbackpacker studies are often limited to a particulardestination or region, and methodologically limitedto hostel-based or auto-ethnographical researchconducted by researchers who themselves arebackpackers. These traditional methodologies canoften only provide a glimpse of the overallbackpacker market. This book provides a transnationalexamination of the backpacker market through alifestyle segmentation. In order to overcome theinherent problems of backpacker mobility and thehostel-based research methodology, backpackers weretargeted through their self-identifying membership ofbackpacker specific online communities. The detailedprofile of the segments in this study will be usefulfor backpacker service providers.