Beyond Backpacker Tourism : Mobilities and Experiences

Building on previous work on backpacking, this book takes the analysis of backpacker tourism further by engaging both with new theoretical debates into tourism experiences and mobilities as well as with new empirical phenomena such as the rise of the ‘flashpacker’ and alternative destinations. Chapters include material on flashpacking, the virtualization of backpacker culture, the re-conceptualisation of lifestyle travellers, backpackers as volunteer tourists, as well as backpackers' experiences of hostels, mobilities and their policy implications. It sets a new benchmark for the study of independent travel in the contemporary world.

Kevin Hannam is Professor of Tourism Mobilities at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK. Previously he was Associate Dean for Research at the University of Sunderland, UK. He has particular research interests in heritage and nature based tourism with a geographical focus on South and South-East Asia. He has supervised to completion over 100 master’s theses and 18 doctoral students. He is founding co-editor of the journal Mobilities (Routledge), andco-author of the books Understanding Tourism (Sage) and Tourism and India (Routledge). Most recently he was co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Mobilities Research and co-editor of Moral Encounters in Tourism (Ashgate). He has a PhD in geography from the University of Portsmouth and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS).

Anya Diekmann is Professor of Tourism at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium. Her research focuses mainly on cultural tourism, urban ethnic and slum tourism as well as social tourism.