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Backpackers: The next generation?
backpackers’ accommodations but who were not currently travelling. The site
selection, defined as “a bounded context in which one is studying events,
processes and outcomes” (Miles & Huberman, 1984, p. 28) allowed for the high
probability of interactions with the people needed for interviews. This achieved
several purposes outlined by Decrop (1999): first, it was easy to approach the
owners/managers to build rapport with them so that they actively supported
this project, in other words, to negotiate entry into the research setting. Second, it
was viable to schedule meetings around the activities of interviewees, thus
accommodating their needs and more easily build the necessary relationship
groundwork with them. As Gray (2004) and Morse (1991) suggest, this also
allowed for hours of observation about the pace and atmosphere of each
accommodation to be undertaken, as well as noting ongoing interactions of
guests and the host /guest relationships. One hundred percent of owners and
older guests approached agreed to participate and, indeed, several people who
were not demographically appropriate (younger than age 40) also wanted to
participate and be “heard”.
The credibility (internal validity), dependability (reliability), and confirmability
(objectivity) of this study (Denzin, 1978) was enhanced by collecting the data
from multiple sites; by ensuring that the data was during both high and
shoulder seasons; and by collecting data from multiple points of view, in this
case, those of older guests and the accommodations’ owners.
The dependability of site data collection was strengthened by choosing locations
on the North Island to reflect city (Auckland), town (Paihia), and rural
(Northland and Coromandel Peninsula) settings. Specific accommodations were
selected by two methods: for each new geographic location, facilities were
chosen based on the user-assigned ratings in the BBH guidebook, with the
reasoning that older backpackers also would choose lodgings ranked fairly
highly on cleanliness and friendliness. Snowball sampling and purposive sampling
were then used to expand the initial facility selection. Snowball sampling was
described by Gray (2004, p. 88) as using an initial small number of subjects to
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