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Backpackers: The next generation?
5 Needs, usage, and industry response
This thesis seeks to extend current knowledge of older travellers’ needs and
preferences in backpackers’ accommodation. Obernour, Patterson, Pedersen,
and Pearson (2006) suggest that deeper insights about preferences and needs can
be gained through qualitative analysis of respondents’ “rich, contextual voices”.
These findings provide that depth, offering selected, representative comments
from both the guests and hosts to elaborate on already published quantitative
research. This chapter’s findings and discussion focus on the following research
questions.
• What are the needs and preferences of older travellers?
• What are their research and booking patterns?
• What has the industry response been vis à vis both facilities provision and
marketing?
Needs and preferences of older travellers
What do travellers expect from their accommodation choices, and how do they
measure satisfaction? Nash et al. (2006, p. 526) suggest that “customers will be
satisfied if the services they receive are at least as good as they were supposed to
be”, noting that there are elements of expectation associated with such services.
Cave et al.’s (2007) study quantitatively compares the needs and satisfaction
ratings of younger (under age 30) and older (over age 30) backpackers at hostels
and backpackers’ accommodations in New Zealand and Scotland. They
conclude that “expectations of backpacker / hostel accommodation appear to be
changing from the communal, cheap, ‘just a bed’ option that it was once
believed to be to something more in line with the accommodation experience of
the mainstream tourist” (2007, p. 364). Their study finds that, in New Zealand,
older backpackers are only somewhat more demanding of basic amenities than
are their younger peers. This is similar to Moshin and Ryan’s (2003) findings that
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