Analysis Of Backpacking

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In international tourism, an ongoing trend is the growth of the sector for independent travel (Hyde & Lawson, 2003), particularly the sub-market of backpacking. Backpacking is an increasingly significant sector of world tourism (Richards & Wilson, 2004a), on top of, and interlinked to, the growth of the student travel market (Reisinger & Mavondo, 2004). They also pointed out that the majority of backpackers are, or previously have been, students (Richards & Wilson, 2004a). Over the last two decades, conceptualizations about adequate life paths have come to take in a period of time spent travelling, something which is now underlined to many school leavers and university graduates as a vita enhancing activity (O’Reilly, 2006). Once a minimal …show more content…

One of the main motivations of these ‘‘budget travelers’’ is that they want to ‘‘meet the people’’ and engaging in all, even the everyday features of a ‘‘localized’’ culture (Riley, 1988). Some motivations for people to go backpacking include the opportunities for acquiring new knowledge (Pearce & Foster, 2007), the chance to experience the local way of life and to be ‘‘at one with the locals’’ of the countries they visit (Maoz, 2007), and the odds of meeting other travelers (Oliveira-Brochado & Gameiro, 2013). Backpackers travel with an autonomous and malleable trip arrangement in mind (Pearce, 1990), and unlike other tourists, backpackers are less motivated for expensive travel (Larsen, Øgaard, & Brun, 2011). To obtain the unique travel experiences linked with backpacking, backpackers often visit longer and go to other places than those of conventional tourists. The study aims to understand and assess the motivations as to why backpackers engage in traveling within the Philippines, and to investigate on the behavior of local backpackers as well. Travel motivations are essential to figure out what pushes a backpacker to travel and what pulls them to choose a certain destination. Studying these main factors that motivate local backpackers is the stepping stone into furthering the study to reach the foreign market as well. The destination must first establish its local backpacker market before it can cater efficiently to the foreign

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