The Backpacker Tourist: A Contemporary Perspective

Previously viewed as a relatively small group of errant travellers rooted in counter-cultural ideas, backpackers have now become a powerful tourist sector of predominantly young travellers, planning and preparing their own trips, and looking for direct cultural contact, novelty and spontaneity all around the globe.

The Backpacker Tourist: A contemporary perspective explores the increasing number of people traveling around the world as backpackers and analyses the great diversification of this demographic and their varied experiences while traveling.

Martins and Costa highlight the conflicting interpretations in the literature on backpackers and the comparative reflexion between Western and the growing number of Eastern backpackers, particularly relating to their travel motivations and the way they experience destinations. The Backpacker Tourist presents new perspectives to researchers of Tourism Studies and the Sociology of Travel, but also to those who looking for a synthetical, contemporary and critical analysis of contemporary backpacker tourists.

Márcio Ribeiro Martins is a geographer with a PhD in Tourism and is Assistant Professor at Polytechnic Institute of Bragança as well as Associate Researcher of the research unit on Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policy), working in the group on Tourism and Development.

Rui Augusto da Costa holds a PhD in Tourism and is Assistant Professor in the Tourism Area in the Department of Economics, Management, Industrial Engineering and Tourism at University of Aveiro. He is member of the Executive Committee of DEGEIT, integrated member of the Research Unit on Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policy and Coordinator of the Research Group of Tourism and Development.