Backpacker Tourism: Concepts and Profiles

The search for new tourism experiences as well as changes in the tourism industry itself has led to new forms of individualised travel and consequentially new forms of backpacker tourism. This volume provides an up-to-date examination of the behaviour, attitudes and motivations of backpacker tourists as well as the growth of the infrastructure behind backpacker tourism phenomenon throughout the world. Drawing upon insights from geography, sociology, anthropology, management and marketing, "Backpacker Tourism" provides theoretically informed case studies of individual destinations of backpackers. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of backpacker tourism as well as those involved in the backpacker tourism industry itself.

Professor Kevin Hannam is Professor of Tourism Development and Head of Tourism at the University of Sunderland, UK. He is the co-editor with Mimi Sheller and John Urry of the journal Mobilities. He has published widely on cultural geography and conceptual aspects of tourism development, with a particular empirical focus on India and Scandinavia. Dr Irena Ateljevic is based within the Socio-Spatial Analysis Group at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. She is the co-editor of recent books on critical tourism including: Ateljevic, I. Morgan, N. and Pritchard, A. (2007) The Critical Turn in Tourism Studies: Exploring Innovative Methodologies (Elsevier Advanced Series); and Pritchard, A. Morgan, N. Ateljevic, I. and Harris, C. (2007) Tourism, Gender and Embodiment (CAB International). Her most recent research interest lies in analysing the political implications and powers surrounding the production of academic knowledge.