A clash of cultures or definitions? : complexity and backpacker tourism in residential communities

In this chapter, we take the imprecision surrounding the term ‘back­packer’ and its recent offshoot 'flashpacker', to highlight the increasingly complex definitional and management challenges of the independent traveller market in Sydney, Australia. Drawing on findings from a 2005-2008 study of six local government areas that are popular backpacker destinations, we suggest the Sydney case reflects an increasingly affluent traveller cohort with associated pressures for more diverse accommodation options. More likely to carry a laptop and a trolley-style suitcase than a tent and a backpack, this sector pursues leisure and work in a mix that has been increasingly enabled through changes to Australian immigration regulations. The growth of this sector has not, however, seen any diminution in the flow of a set of international travellers to Sydney thought by many residents to conform to much more conventional stereotypes of the young, male, European, hedonistic backpacker. Attracted to the sun and surf of ‘sentient Sydney',these still predominantly UK/Irish (21%) and other European travellers generate much heat in the city's coastal residential communities. But, just as the traveller market is itself increasingly differentiated,so too are the responses of the varioustakeholders in Sydney to the ‘backpacker phenomenon’ both diverse and complex