Backpacker ethnography

This paper presents an ethnographic study of the travel culture of international backpackers. Their sociodemographic characteristics are described, the contours of a concept of tourism culture are delineated, and on that basis, that of backpackers is outlined, with particular focus on the key phenomenon of road status. The analysis of backpacker tourism as a culture furthers the comprehension of change within the phenomenon. Examples of factors of change include the guidebooks, the short-term backpackers, and in particular the internet. This study demonstrates the merit of a dynamic concept of culture where culture takes place whenever activated by social circumstances.     

The evolution of tourist arts

Tourist arts with ethnic content are at the nexus of changing tourism, ethnicity and art in the modern world. This paper explores the range of varieties of tourist arts, the dynamics of change between various types of artifacts, and the interaction between tourist arts and notions of ethnic self-perception. The analogy between language and art is pursued to illuminate the nature of the various communication codes embodied in tourist and ethnic arts. The paper concludes by stressing that tourist arts are not an end-point, but one possibility within the fluid relationships between material symbols, outsiders' demand, and the defense and reformulation of ethnicity. It also concludes that the evolution of ethnic awareness, combined with increased education and travel opportunities, is bringing a uniformity of attitudes towards tourism, material heritage, and museums among the middle classes of all nations. Thus minority ethnic symbols have become the manipulated “totems” of touristic identity.