Attraction

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To conclude, affordability is surely an essential consideration for any tourist, but this might be more essential for backpackers. The more affordable, then the destination is perceived to be more attractive according to budget travelers. It might not be difficult to understand, considering the terms itself are synonymous to budget-conscious travelers, often resulting in a pejorative pun like ‘beg-packers’. Besides price, one unique attribute that sought by backpackers, and perhaps no other types of tourists, is the availability of work while travelling. It allows them to sustain their travel and provides the opportunity to get immerse more in the local culture. Furthermore, affordability does intersect with three factors that will be discussed next. That is to say that backpackers would prefer affordable attraction, affordable accessibility, and affordable amenities.

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Cultural attraction, surprisingly, doesn’t show a strong result in comparison to natural attractions based on CTA. However, participant observation reveals that many travelers are drawn into one destination because they want to experience an encounter with the alien culture. This is coherent with a study by Yang et al. (2010) in China which affirms that foreign tourists tend to be drawn more into cultural sites, rather than natural ones. Most (if not all) travelers are fascinated with the culture in their destination.

Then why is there a disparity between CTA findings and autoethnography? Perhaps the tourists are always assuming Asia as exotic, making the conversation on cultural attractions becoming irrelevant and less discussed. The idea of Asia being exotic has been held since a long time ago, as Said (1978) in his book Orientalism, had argued how Western explorers and scholars see Asia as the “exotic Orient”. This research hypothesizes that the same thing applies in the mind of travelers, at least in the context of Western travelers who are dominating the posts on online forum. In short, Western travelers perceive any cultural encounter in Asian destinations as an exotic experience.

Artificial attraction could be the most juxtaposing attribute in this factor. On one hand, artificial attractions are not that appealing, as indicated by the CTA and participant observation because of two main reasons. The first reason is very practical, enjoying an artificial attraction is often considered to be either unaffordable or not worth the price, which representing the ideal price characteristic for budget travelers as discussed. The second reason is that an artificial attraction is simply perceived to be less interesting than other attractions. Cohen (1972) argues that drifters are the type of tourists who are looking for strangeness and novelty while travelling. One important motivation of backpackers is to encounter a different culture (Howard, 2005). Meanwhile the artificial attraction often offers something indistinctive, familiar, unauthentic, or even they can find easily or similar in their home country. As an illustration, shopping malls or theme parks in Seoul

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might not offer a completely different experience compared to Manila or the other parts of the world. Furthermore, applying Cohen’s (1979) modes of tourist experiences, it can be argued that drifters have the highest propensity to be in the “existential mode” among other modes. Meanwhile artificial attraction mostly provides merely the leisure feature or the “recreational mode”, the shallowest one that is the complete opposite, thus makes it a less favorable option in the eyes of the drifters.

On the other hand, there are exceptions for two types of artificial attractions, which are party towns and museums that often become backpackers’ favorite. Party towns offer the opportunity to submerge into the backpacking sub-culture while enjoying artificial attractions such as pubs, bars, and other hedonistic entertainment. Most of the backpackers drawn into this destination are in the “recreational mode” according to Cohen’s (1979) typology, arguably purely. Many backpackers who favor this kind of attraction tend to be less interested in making interactions with locals, making them either part-time or inward-oriented drifter, again adopting the concept by Cohen (1973). It is parallel to studies stating few backpackers mingle with locals and many are more interested in activities associated with partying, drug takings, excessive alcohols, and sexual encounters (Azis, 1999; Howard, 2005; Howard, 2007; Maoz & Bekerman, 2010;

Paris, 2010; Paris et al., 2015; Uriely & Belhassen, 2006). This affirms Cohen’s (1973) observation, stating that there is a strong connection between drifting and drugs since the early drifters.

As for the museum, there is one note taken about the differences between Asian and Western travelers. According to the observation, museums manage to attract more Western budget travelers compared to Asian ones, especially when it comes to museums exhibiting contemporary history collections. For example, the war museums and Independence Palace in Vietnam might attract more interests of Western travelers than

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Asian ones (other than the Vietnamese themselves). The reviews on a popular travel website, TripAdvisor, also show that the reviews of museums are dominated by Western travelers. So is the Death Railway or also known as the River Kwai Bridge in Kanchanaburi, Thailand that much related to the Japanese attempt to colonize Southeast Asia but many Japanese travelers visit only the bridge since it is the icon of the town – and not the museums. Other than technical issues such as language barrier, this research hypothesizes it also happens because of relatability. Asian travelers might have limited historical tie, making them not be able to relate much to the history, especially colonialism that happens in other Asia countries due to no knowledge, propaganda from the government, etc. However, this finding is different from a study by Huang (2008), which found Asian travelers are more interested in museums than Western travelers when visiting Taiwan. In that case, it might be caused by Western travelers who might not be able to relate much with the history of Taiwan that might be less known in the West compared to Vietnam for instance.

The significant result of ‘cuisine’ in CTA makes it a compelling feature for budget travelers. It is acknowledged by UNWTO (2016) as a significant attractor for youth travelers. Some destinations might leverage its cuisine attraction as a part of its branding strategy, explaining why more than five destinations have a significant result on this attribute. This attribute might stand alone (Enright & Newton, 2004; Lee & King, 2006;

Cibinskienea & Snieskieneb, 2015; March, 2004) or paired with the cultural attraction (Buhalis, 2000; Dwyer, 2003), artificial attraction, and events and activities – that can be found in the form of night market or food festivals. Besides, this attribute is also related to the factor “amenities”, in which it functions as a food-catering facility.

Unlike the other types of attractions, events and activities are unable to become an attraction without involving another type of attractions. Therefore, events and activities

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play a role as the enhancer of tourist experiences. Activities can enhance the experiences of natural attractions through diving, snorkeling, camping, and so on. The experience on cultural attractions is augmented through festivals like Holi or Songkran that always draws backpackers all around the world. As argued by Buhalis (2000), events and festivals might stimulate the demand, even in a low-season. Other than drawing visitors, local festivals also involve the local community (Crouch & Ritchie, 1999; Dwyer & Kim, 2003) that might help to shape the atmosphere. There are countless of other practical examples of the combinations between core attractors and events and activities.

The last one is “diversity”. The CTA result is in contrast with the autoethnography which highlights its significant importance. Diversity is an important component in attracting backpackers. It gives a range of attractions that travelers could enjoy, attracts different kinds of travelers, thus provides a competitive advantage for a destination (Dwyer & Kim, 2003), which encourages travelers to spend a longer time or make a repeated visit. Moreover, most backpacker enclaves tend to have a high diversity of attractions.

Then why doesn’t the CTA result show a favorable result? This research argues that it could be because the technical method of manifest coding and directed CTA that adopted in this research could not capture ‘diversity’ as indicated by the users. The limitation is that the research adopts words on posts as its unit of analysis, not phrases, sentences, nor the whole posts then interpret them. For example, a user might ask several things about mountains, temples, surfing, food, and so on. Then the CTA fails to interpret the post as a ‘diversity of tourism products’, they are instead interpreted as a separate attraction, i.e. ‘natural’, ‘cultural’, and ‘cuisine’.

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To sum up, attraction is a significant pull factor that draws any tourist to a destination – including most backpackers. The backpackers are found to be more interested in natural-, cultural-, and cuisine- to some extent rather than artificial-attractions except for the party town. Events and activities as well as diversity function as an enhancer of the attraction, as they manage to invite more travelers to come and encourage them to stay longer. Though almost all backpackers visit a destination because of particular attractions, some budget-travelers might not always be attraction-oriented.

There are some other sources out of the factor “attraction” that can act as an attractor.