This book describes, analyses, celebrates and interrogates the rise of rural tourism in the developed world over the last thirty years, while explaining its need to enter a new, second generation of development if it is to remain sustainable in all senses of that word. Contributors include 29 leading researchers, practitioners and commentators from ten countries around the world. Subjects covered include the ongoing evolution of rural tourism as a genre; its numerous niche markets, and market trends; community involvement, and its impacts on rural landscape conservation and society. Special attention is paid to product development in rural tourism, including food and beverage tourism, avitourism and landscape appreciation. Management Issues are also dealt with, as is the impact of internet booking systems on both commercial performance and regional and national rural tourism governance. There is a review of trends in academic research in rural tourism with an analysis of 1848 refereed and published research papers since 2000. This book is a worthy successor to Bramwell & Lane's pioneering 1994 publication, Rural Tourism and Sustainable Rural Development. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism.

The domain of international entrepreneurship has continued to gain momentum in an era that sees entrepreneurship and globalization as critical issues in the world of business. Given the flourish of new research in this area, there is a need to provide an up-to-date perspective on the field and its future. This volume draws together a team of experts purposely selected from both the entrepreneurship and international business fields to present a comprehensive resource on the cutting-edge conversations within international entrepreneurship. This prestigious reference book will offer students and researchers an introduction to leading scholarship in international entrepreneurship and also serve as a catapult for future research.

The theme of this book is the phenomenon of tourism and knowledge construction in tourism. Adopting a broad understanding of the paradigmatic field of tourism as the evolution and relationship between established and emergent schools of thought, this book explores the dynamics between tourism knowledge and the phenomenal world of tourism. It addresses contemporary epistemological debates and examines what constitutes tourism knowledge and how tourism knowledge is acquired. Issues examined in the chapters of this volume include: the nature and conceptualization of paradigms; the historical evolution of tourism knowledge production; embodiment, positionality and situated knowledges; paradigmatic proposals such as critical theory, feminism, humanism, cosmopolitanism, post-political theory and constructivism; a critical exploration of the power relations, contradictions and fragmentation in tourism research; ontologies and conceptualization of tourism and the tourist. This volume invites a critical evaluation and discussion of the anchorage of tourism as a knowledge domain and of tourism as science.

This volume provides a comprehensive account of the valuable tangible and intangible benefits of the development of heritage tourism. Tourism development is widely acknowledged as a crucial tool to foster the development of rural and urban areas. To this end, this book presents nine case studies from international authors that reflect how tourism development is helpful-economically, socially, and otherwise-for community capacity building. The case studies from the countries of Spain, Portugal, Australia, Dubai, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and India demonstrate the uses of various management strategies and methods for rural and urban areas, and cover some of the major topics related to community-based tourism, community capacity building, and community participation in developing heritage tourism. Chapters consider the conservation of heritage resources and tourism promotion of destinations that provide opportunities to local communities to strengthen their economies and social standards. Key features: water conservation in urban landscape as natural, cultural, and historic tourism resources spiritual and religious heritage tourism cultural tourism and the support of public and private funds economic development and its effect on cultural and natural resources public-private-partnerships to ensure sustainable development talent management challenges tribal tourism and tribal festivals, which are the mirror of their culture and could be major tourist attractions The methodologies and proposed management strategies discussed by the book's researchers and professors will be valuable for policymakers, administrators, tourism promoters, researchers, and academicians who are involved with the tourism industry.

Described as 'cultural crossroads' or 'mosaic', 'powder keg', 'border', 'bridge' or Europe's 'Other', the region comprising former Yugoslavia has, over time, conjured up ambiguous imaginaries associated with political unrest, national contest and ethnic divide. Since the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the succeeding Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, both the geography and historiography of the region have been thoroughly reconfigured, which has impacted the ways in which heritage is interpreted and used at local, regional and national levels. In this ongoing process of heritage (re)interpretation, tourism is more than just a 'dark' spectacle. While it can be seen as a catalyst through which to filter or normalise dissonant memories, it can also be utilised as a powerful ideological tool which enables the narrative reinvention of contested traditions and divisive myths. Drawing on case studies from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Kosovo, this volume generates new and fascinating insights into the contested terrain of heritage tourism in former Yugoslavia. It explores the manifold ways in which tourism stakeholders engage with, capitalise on, and make sense of sites and events marked by conflict and trauma. Unlike many previous studies, this book features contributions by emerging, early-career scholars emanating from within the region, and working across disciplines such as anthropology, art history, geography and political studies. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change.

Tourism throughout the world raises environmental issues that are often concerned with conflicting rights and responsibilities: the inherent right of mankind to travel, the no-less inherent right of indigenous people to guard their environmental heritage, and the responsibility of governments - local, national or (in the unique case of Antarctica) international - to protect environments over which they exercise stewardship. Additionally, the presence of international commercial enterprises, especially marine and other mass transport modes, represent unique governance challenges.This book deals mainly with environmental issues and the management implications arising from polar tourism, one of the fastest-growing sectors of world tourism. However, many of the issues discussed here arise no less urgently in temperate and tropical wilderness areas, and indeed in any region where sensitive environments are subjected to mass tourism. The principles and guidelines discussed here are of interest and practical use in tourism studies generally.

Crossing Borders examines how translocal, transnational, and internal borders of various kinds distribute uneven capabilities for moving, dwelling, and circulating. The contributors offer nuanced understandings of the politics of mobility across various kinds of borders and forms of cultural circulation, showing how people experience and practice crossing many different borders. Several chapters draw on interviews and ethnographic methods to analyze transnational migration, while others focus on material relations and cultural practices. Rather than the usual narrative of mobility as a kind of freedom, border crossing emerges here as an instrumental practice for building translocal livelihoods, a tactic for simply getting by, and a material practice potentially generating new forms of future sociality. Ultimately these diverse perspectives on crossing borders offer new ways to think about the mobility of political relations and the politics of mobile relations in a world of growing circulation across borders, but also flexible forms of (re)bordering. This book was originally published as a special issue of Mobilities.

The use of sporting and other mega-events to bring about transformation of socially deprived areas of major cities is becoming an increasingly important part of the raison d'etre for hosting such events, especially given the immense costs involved and the current economic climate. The tax-paying public increasingly has to be persuaded of the benefits, beyond the event itself, to spend the nation's resources in this way. This edited book, written by international experts, critically explores these multiple facets of the Mega Event legacy looking at the various economic, environmental and social impacts and benefits in multiple continents. It considers topics such as volunteering, participation, economics, sponsorship, ethics and technology in relation to legacy. This timely book provides a further understanding of the legacy discourse, as well as the potential pitfalls connected to legacy in relation to mega events. Filling a gap in the literature on legacy research, Legacies and Mega Events will be of interest to events, sports, tourism, urban development students, researchers and academics.

Mega-events have long been used by cities as a strategy to secure global recognition and attract future economic investment. However, while cultural mega-events like the European Capital of Culture have become increasingly popular, cities have begun questioning the traditional model of other events such as the Olympic Games with many candidate cities cancelling bids in recent years. This approach to planning and developing cities through mega-events introduces a broad range of physical effects and nuanced institutional changes for cities, particularly for the more sensitive heritage areas of cities. This book explores these issues by first examining the dynamics of cities' attempts to reduce overall costs and increase the sustainability of these large events by further embedding them within the existing fabric of the city and second by studying in depth the impact on the heritage of host cities. This book investigates three World Heritage Cities: Genoa, Liverpool and Istanbul, each of which have hosted the European Capital of Culture and introduced a variety of opportunities and risks for their heritage. The book highlights the potential benefits and challenges of integrating event and heritage planning to provide lessons that can help future historic cities and heritage decision makers better prepare for such events.

The practice of packing a bag is a situation where subtle, daily processes can attune us to the relationships and experiences formed in mobile situations. There has been great attention to mundane and material practices in tourism, yet the process of packing, which is integral to any journey, remains unexamined. Everyday Practices of Tourism Mobilities: Packing a Bag expands on the foundational theories of tourist practices through a rich assortment of photographic documentation and interviews with tourists in hostelling accommodation. It presents the intricacies and relations emerging through packing and the connections to an array of actors entwined in both touristic and everyday experiences of movement. Using case studies in Iceland and Nepal, the book explores how idealised tourist destinations influence everyday actions. The disjuncture between mundane routines and the heightened immersive environments is conducive to tourists attuning to the entanglement of actors and experiences beyond individual expectations. The book traces these moments of collective experiences to reflect on the intersections of globalised mobility and everyday tourist practices. The international scope of this highly original and intriguing book will appeal to a broad academic audience, including scholars of tourism, cultural and social geography, mobilities studies, and environmental humanities.

This innovative volume focuses on tourism through the twin lenses of cultural theory and cultural geography. Presenting a set of innovative case studies on tourist destinations around the world, the contributors explore the paradoxes of the tourist experience and the implications of these paradoxes for our broader understanding of the problems of modernity and identity. The book examines how tourism reveals the paradoxical ways that places are both mobile and rooted, real and fake, inhabited by those who are simultaneously insiders and outsiders, and both subjectively experienced and objectively viewed. The concepts of travel and mobility long have been used to explain modern identity and social behavior, but this work pushes beyond the established literature by considering the ways that place and mobility are inherently related in unexpected, even contradictory ways. Travel, the international cast of authors contends, occurs 'in place' rather than 'between places.' Thus, instead of offering yet another interpretation of the ways modern societies are distinguished by their mobilities-in contrast to the supposed place-bound quality of traditional societies-the chapters here collectively argue for an understanding of modern identity as simultaneously grounded and mobile. This rich blend of empirical and theoretical analysis will be invaluable for cultural geographers, anthropologists, and sociologists of tourism.

The Routledge Handbook of Cultural Tourism explores and critically evaluates the debates and controversies in this field of Tourism. It brings together leading specialists from a range of disciplinary backgrounds and geographical regions, to provide state-of-the-art theoretical reflection and empirical research on this significant stream of tourism and its future direction. The book is divided into 7 inter-related sections. Section 1 looks at the historical, philosophical and theoretical framework for cultural tourism. This section debates tourist autonomy role play, authenticity, imaginaries, cross-cultural issues and inter-disciplinarity Section 2 analyses the role that politics takes in cultural tourism. This section also looks at ways in which cultural tourism is used as a policy instrument for economic development. Section 3 focuses on social patterns and trends, such as the mobilities paradigm, performativity, reflexivity and traditional hospitality, as well as considering sensitive social issues such as dark tourism. Section 4 analyses community and development, exploring adaptive forms of cultural tourism, as well as more sustainble models for indigenous tourism development. Section 5 discusses Landscapes and Destinations, including the transformation of space into place, issues of authenticity in landscape, the transformation of urban and rural landscapes into tourism products and conservation versus development dilemmas. Section 6 refers to Regeneration and Planning, especially the creative turn in cultural tourism, which can be used to avoid problems of serial reproduction, standardisation and homogenisation. Section 7 deals with The Tourist and Visitor Experience, emphasising the desire of tourists to be more actively and interactively engaged in cultural tourism. This significant volume offers the reader a comprehensive synthesis of this field, conveying the latest thinking and research. The text is international in focus, encouraging dialogue across disciplinary boundaries and areas of study and will be an invaluable resource for all those with an interest in Cultural Tourism. This is essential reading for students, researchers and academics of Tourism as well as those of related studies in particular Cultural Studies, Leisure, Geography, Sociology, Politics and Economics.

Globally rainforests are under threat on numerous fronts, including clearing for agriculture, harvesting for timber and urban expansion. Yet they have a crucial role in biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation and providing other ecosystem services. As the term is used in this book, rainforests include both temperate and tropical, although the emphasis is on tropical rainforests. Rainforests are also attractive tourist spaces and where they have been used as a tourism resource have generated significant income for local communities. However not all use of rainforests as a tourism resource has been sustainable. This book argues that sustainability must be the foundation on which tourism use of this complex but ultimately fragile ecosystem must be built upon. It provides a multi-disciplinary perspective, incorporating rainforest science, management and tourism issues. The book is organized into four sections commencing with Rainforest Ecology and Management followed by People and Rainforests, Opportunities for Rainforest Tourism Development and finally Threats to Rainforests. Each major rainforest region is covered, including the Amazon, Central America, Africa, Australia and south-east Asia, in the context of a specific issue. For example rainforests in Papua New Guinea are examined in the context of community-based ecotourism development, while the rainforests in Borneo are discussed in an examination of wildlife issues. Other issues covered in this manner include governance, empowerment issues for rainforest peoples and climate change.

Tourism in China has grown rapidly since the country started implementing its open-door policy in 1978. Tourism development is now an essential agenda item for the Chinese government's plan for economic & social growth. Policy and policy-making for tourism therefore provides the essential background to understand tourism development in China. This is the first book to set the development of tourism in China since 1949 in its policy context. Underpinned by a strong conceptual framework, this systematic study of China contributes to an in-depth understanding of how public policy-making for tourism works and how it affects the development of tourism in the real world. The text explores tourism policy during three distinct leadership periods since creation of the People's Republic of China in 1949: Mao Zedong (1949-1978); Deng Xiaoping (1978-1997) and the Collective Leadership Era (1997-the present). The attitudes and values of leaders and central government agencies towards tourism are considered, as well as the interactions of ideological orthodoxies, socio-economic conditions and institutions in their influence on national policy-making and tourism development. A separate chapter is devoted to policy-making in China's two Special Administrative Regions, Hong Kong and Macau, as well as Taiwan due to its political separation from the Mainland, and Tibet, given its distinctive characteristics. Drawing on China's experience over sixty years the book concludes with both theoretical and practical implications for tourism policy-making. This timely volume offers important insights into China's Tourism as well as contributing to a wider pattern of debates about the respective roles of government policy and the market in the past and future. The material draws on exclusive in-depth interviews with key informants in China and on government documents and official sources not generally available in the international literature. This will be of interest to higher level students, academics & researchers within Tourism, Policy studies, Politics, Geography and China Studies.

Sustainable development is a highly topical issue and is of critical importance to tourism as the environment is of utmost importance for the continued development and prosperity of the industry. There have been numerous texts written on sustainable tourism and the measures to mitigate and manage this but none which acknowledges Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as a mechanism of doing so despite being an emerging area of research. ICT in this context refers to innovative tools which form an integrated system of software and networked equipment that facilitates data processing information sharing communication and the ability to search and select from an existing range of products and services for an organisation's benefits. Despite the symbiotic relationship, which exists between ICT and sustainable tourism, there has been little research, which has considered how the use of such technology can be used to make sustainable tourism development a more workable reality. This opportune book is the first to provide a focus on the interrelationship of these two important topics demonstrating their synergies and providing insight into a new and innovative approach to managing sustainable tourism development. It considers the use of technology to reduce the negative impacts of tourism from both the demand and supply side perspectives. A critical review of a range of cutting edge technologies used by tourists and businesses to assess their usefulness in managing sustainable tourism development from the macro to the micro level is also discussed. It further integrates examples and practical applications to show how ICT can be an invaluable mechanism in the management of sustainable tourism development. This cutting-edge volume provides a wealth of information on an important yet neglected subject. This book will be invaluable reading for students, researchers, academics and members of the tourism industry looking for new and innovate ways of fostering a more sustainable tourism industry.

The West is one of the strongest and most enduring place images in the world and its myth is firmly rooted in popular culture - whether novels, film, television, music, clothing and even video games. The West combines myth and history, rugged natural scenery and wide open spaces, popular culture and promises of transformation. These imagined places draw in tourists, attracted by a cultural heritage that is part fictional and mediatised. In turn, tourism operators and destination marketing organisations refashion what they present to fit these imagined images. This book explores this imagining of a mythic West through three key themes, travel, film and frontiers to offer new insight into how the imagination of the West and popular culture has influenced the construction of tourism. In doing so, it examines the series of paradoxes that underlie the basic appeal of the West: evocative frontier, a boundary zone between civilisation and wilderness and between order and lawlessness. It draws on a range of films and literature as well as varying places from festivals to national parks to showcase different aspects of the nexus between travel, film and frontiers in this fascinating region. Interdisciplinary in character, it includes perspectives from cultural studies, American studies, tourism and film studies. Written by leading academics, this title will be valuable reading for students, researchers and academics in the fields of cultural studies, tourism, film studies and media studies and all those interested in film tourism.

What is important to ethical consumers when thinking about going on holiday and how do they incorporate their lifestyle choices into these holidays? What values inform their lifestyles and how do they satisfy these values on holiday? Do ethical consumers automatically become ethical tourists or is the situation a little more complex than this? In an attempt to answer these questions, this book explores: The ethical dilemmas associated with tourism The concerns and motivations of ethical consumers on holiday The role and importance of values in holiday decision-making This book offers a highly original contribution to the debate surrounding the demand for ethical and responsible holidays. It explores the consumption concerns of ethical consumers and their motivational values, and offers a detailed examination of how they manage these values on holiday. This book offers a new and challenging perspective to the study of responsible tourism by providing a unique empirical insight into how responsible tourists incorporate their norms and values into their holiday decisions. The text will be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and tutors on courses that have tourism and the tourist at their centre, and to academics in other disciplines such as marketing and consumer behaviour. It will also be highly relevant to the global tourism industry.

Pacific Island Countries have been shown to be especially vulnerable to such external influences as natural disasters, political unrest and downturns in the global economy and their tourism industries have been notably affected. In particular, they typically have a narrow resource base and a fragile and often vulnerable natural environment. While there is some research on islands and small states, there is a dearth of information on the South Pacific and very little research is being undertaken in the region compared to other geographical regions in the world. This volume brings together current work in Pacific Island tourism. In this collection, three main themes arise: Images of the South Pacific; Socio-economic Impacts of Tourism; and Pacific Island Countries and the Outside World. The first focus is on the question of image, namely, stereotypes of a destination held by tourists and potential tourists, the extent to which residents, for their part, really welcome visitors, and the role tourism might play in changing pre-established images. The second theme is tourism's impacts, notably the economic and socio-cultural effects of international tourism's intrusion in the region which, though often hotly debated, have attracted relatively little empirical research. The third focus is on the challenges of how PICs articulate with their external geo-political and physical environment. These involve existing relations with formal colonial centres, geographical isolation, the need for greater air access to the outside world and for more tourists, and the continuing threat to several PICs of global warming, which increased air travel will inevitably exacerbate. This text will be of interest to tourism students, researchers and academics in the fields of tourism, development studies and cultural studies.

As researchers in emerging economies, scientists are often the first foreign visitors to stay in remote rural areas and, on occasion, form joint venture ecotourism and community tourism projects or poverty alleviation schemes between local agencies or NGOs, the local community, and their home institution or agency. They therefore can contribute to avenues for the conservation of natural resources and the development of rural communities as well as influencing the future tourism development through its perceived legitimacy and the destination image it promotes. This book for the first time critically reviews tourism debates surrounding this emerging market of scientific and research oriented tourism. It is divided into three inter-related sections. Section 1 sets the stage of the discourse of scientific research in tourism; Section 2 evaluates the key players of scientific tourism looking particularly at the roles of NGOs, government agencies and university academic staff and Section 3 contains case studies documenting the niche of researchers as travelers in a range of geographical locations including Tanzania, Australia, Chile, Peru and Mexico. The title's multidisciplinary approach provides an informed, interesting and stimulating addition to the existing limited literature and raises many issues and associated questions including the role of science tourism in tourism development and expansion, the impacts of scientific and research-based tourism, travel behaviors and motivations of researchers to name but a few. This significant volume will provide the reader with a better understanding of scientists as travelers, their relationship to the tourism industry, and the role they play in community development around tourism sites. It will be valuable reading for students and academics across the fields of Tourism, Geography and Development Studies as well as other social science disciplines.

Lifestyle Migration and Residential Tourism represent a major trend in individualized societies worldwide, which is attracting a rapidly growing interest from the academic community. This volume for the first time, critically analyses the spatial, social and political consequences of such leisure-oriented mobilities and migrations. The book approaches the topic from a multidisciplinary and international perspective, unifying different branches of research, such as lifestyle migration, amenity migration, retirement migration, and second home tourism. By covering a variety of regions and landscapes such as mountain and coastal areas, rural and inland communities this volume productively engages with the formal and analytical variations of the phenomenon resulting in an enriching debate at the intersection of different areas of research. Amongst others, topics like political contest and civic participation of lifestyle migrants, their impacts on local communities, social tensions and inequalities induced by the phenomenon, as well as modes of transnational living, home and belonging will be thoroughly explored. This thought provoking volume will provide deep analytical and conceptual insights into the contested geographies of lifestyle migration and further knowledge into the spatial, social and political consequences of leisure-oriented mobilities. It will be valuable reading for students, researchers and academics from a plethora of academic disciplines.

Conferences and conventions are one of the fastest growing areas of the events industry. This is a substantially important sector yet research into many dimensions is in its infancy. This timely book, uniquely presents a 'state of the art' synthesis of the research on both demand and supply sides of the industry as well as insights into how current and future trends are affecting conferences and conventions. This volume provides a critical review of the players involved in conferences and conventions; destination image and impacts; and current and future trends. The players in the industry include attendees/delegates, professional conference organisers, and association meeting planners. On the destination side, conference venues and facilities, along with convention and visitor bureaux are examined, as well as how destination image can be developed and improved. Further, this section considers the economic, social and environmental impacts of conferences and conventions. The final section considers some of the major trends that are likely to impact on the industry, including climate change, new technologies and risk and crisis management. To reflect the sector's international nature case studies and examples from different geographical regions are included throughout. By identifying gaps in our knowledge, and presenting a collection of themes to guide future research, this book not only adds to our current knowledge, but will underpin the advancement of knowledge in the future. This book is essential reading for all those interested in Events.

Commemorative Events emphasise remembering. They are held on the anniversaries of significant past events, either annually or after significant time periods. Commemorative events provide fascinating insight into how societies see themselves, their heritage and their identity. These events however carry high propensity for controversy as memory and identity are highly subjective and other stakeholders hold different views of what should be commemorated and why. This is the first book to provide an in - depth critical examination of commemorative events, particularly what they mean to societies and how they are used by governments as well as impacts on other stakeholders. The book fully explores these issues by reviewing all the major types of commemorative events including, nationhood or independence, wars, battles, famous people and cultural milestones from varying geographical regions and stakeholder perspectives. By doing so the book furthers understanding of these types of events in society as well as furthering knowledge of social and political uses and impacts of events. This thought provoking volume will be valuable reading for students, researchers and academics interested in events.

Peace through tourism refers to a body of analysis which suggests tourism may contribute to cross-cultural understanding, tolerance and even peace between communities and nations. What has been largely missing to date is a sustained critique of the potential and capacities of tourism to foster global peace. This timely volume fills this void, by providing a critical look at tourism in order to ascertain its potential as a social force to promote human rights, justice and peace. It presents an alternative characterisation of the possibilities for peace through tourism: embedding an understanding of the phenomenon in a deep grounding in multi-disciplinary perspectives and envisioning tourism in the context of human rights, social justice and ecological integrity. Such an approach engages the ambivalence and dichotomy of views held on peace tourism by relying on a pedagogy of peace. It integrates a range of perspectives from scholars from many disciplinary backgrounds, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), tourism industry operators and community, all united by an interest in critical approaches to understanding peace through tourism. Additionally diverse geo-political contexts are represented in this book from the USA, India, Japan, Israel, Palestine, Kenya, the Koreas, Indonesia, East Timor and Indigenous Australia. Written by leading academics, this groundbreaking book will provide students, researchers and academics a sustained critique of the potential and capacities of tourism to foster global peace.

The receipt of knowledge is a key ingredient by which the tourism sector can adjust and adapt to its dynamic environment. However although its importance has long been recognised the fragmentation within the sector, largely as a result of it being comprised of small and medium sized businesses, makes understanding knowledge management challenging. This book applies knowledge management and social network theories to the business of tourism to shed light on successful operations of tourism knowledge networks. It contributes specifically to understanding a network perspective of the tourism sector, the information needs of tourism businesses, social network dynamics of tourism business operation, knowledge flows within the tourism sector and the transformation of the tourism sector through knowledge networks. Social Network Analysis is applied to fully explore the growth and maintenance of tourism knowledge networks and the relationships between tourism sector stakeholders in relation to their knowledge requirements. Knowledge Networks and Tourism will be valuable reading for all those interested in successful operations of tourism knowledge networks.

There has been a phenomenal growth of backpacker tourism from the overland routes to India in the 1960s, to present-day backpacker tourism across the less developed world. As a result there has been significant economic development impacts of backpacker tourism upon local communities especially in areas with the largest concentrations of backpackers (South and South-East Asia particularly Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and India), as well as increasingly in Latin America. This volume provides a focused review of the economic development impacts of backpacker tourism in developing regions furthering knowledge on how backpacker tourism can play a crucial role in development strategies in these areas. First, it reviews the origins of the backpackers with a detailed examination of their "hippy" predecessors on the overland trail, before discussing the emergence of modern backpackers including social and cultural aspects, and how new technologies are changing their experience. It then analyses the powerful economic development impacts of backpackers on local host communities in cities and rural areas with a special focus on coastal destinations. Extensive case study material is used from backpacker destinations across Asia, Latin America and Africa. In doing so the book provides original insights into how backpacker tourism is highly significant for poverty alleviation and effective local development since it has strong linkages to the local economy, and less economic leakage than conventional tourism. Written by a leading academic in this area, this volume will be of interest to students of Tourism and Development Studies.