Brief Research: Most online-suggested destinations for backpackers
Research by Enrico Porceddu (student at IMC University of Applied Sciences, Austria) November 2013
Introduction:
A review of web contents and scientific papers concerning
the backpacking market revealed an apparent lack of statistics data in terms of
revenues and international travel patterns. Only Australia seems to be paying
particular attention to this specific market, providing accessible statistics
through institutions’ reports and other sources. On the other hand, many
authors such as Cody Paris, Gregs Richard and Mark Hampton have been very busy
in explaining the social phenomenon of Backpacking and its development process.
From these considerations was born the idea to create an approximated index representing
the propensity of a specific country to be suggested for a backpacking travel.
Research methods:
The analysed sample is composed of 20 different websites
(travel blogs, online-magazines, online-newspapers and organizations’
homepages), selected within the very first page of results shown on google.com/de/at/es,
so that the statistic could be considered representative of the most visited
platforms. All the websites were accessed on the 7th November 2013.
The researched keywords are: “most visited countries by backpackers”, “countries
for backpackers”, “top backpacking destinations”, “backpackers destinations”, “most
popular backpacking countries”, “backpacking must-see”, “top 10 backpacking
countries”, “best countries for backpacking”, “top 10 backpacking”, “top 10
backpacking Reiseziele”, “top 10 destinos mochileros”. Different websites
presenting the same list of countries in the same identical order were
systematically not considered in order to avoid the use of repeated data. Only
websites listing a minimum of 5 and maximum 10 countries were selected for the statistic.
Several times, near countries such as Chile and Argentina or Vietnam and
Thailand were listed in the same voice/suggestion, in these cases the
suggestion was split and considered as two ones. During the research, a clear
propensity to associate the terms “Best backpacking-destinations” and “Cheapest
backpacking destinations” was detected and therefore, also rankings listed as
“cheapest” or “on budget” destinations were included. Some of the websites
reported the decision to not included Australia among their suggested
backpacking destinations because considered too obvious. Said this, we can
assume that results concerning Oceania may be not representative. At the end, a
total of 186 suggestions were collected.
Research Results:
As result, 64 different countries from all-over the world
were suggested and almost 50% of them (31 countries of 64) were suggested only
once. The most online-suggested country resulted to be India with 7% of the
total suggestions, there follow Argentina and Turkey both with 5.4%, and
Thailand with 4.8%. When grouped into continents, Asia was first for number of
suggestions with 30,1% of the total, then Europe at the second place with
19,3%, third with 15.5% was South America, then come Africa and Oceania,
respectively with 9.1% and 8.1%.
Analysis of the results:
The large number of different countries suggested, is a
factor that represents the high subjectivity in determining the country to be
recommended. This subjectivity may be based on readings, personal experience
and other people’s experiences. As we can see in the chart, the majority of the
most-suggested countries, are nations which offer a very low cost of life and
many of them are still considered as undeveloped ones. We can then affirm that
a strong relationship between low life-cost and most suggested countries
constitutes one of the main characteristics of Backpacking. The most important
point of the results, is the lack of correlation with international standards (UNWTO Tourism Highlights 2013). Curiously,
only three countries of the UNWTO top 10 ranking are present in the top 20 of
the most online-suggested ones; France, which is the first of the top UNWTO
destinations, was not even suggested once across the collection of data, the
same is true for United Kingdom and Russian Federation, which were respectively
eighth and ninth. This indicates that backpackers are more likely to choose
their destinations avoiding international trends, creating new patterns and
defining alternative touristic flows, outstanding as a different and
independent market. This pattern is better represented when the most online-suggested
countries are grouped into continents, This pattern is better represented when
the most online-suggested countries are grouped into continents, see the graphs.
