For post-pandemic travel it won’t be budget travellers bad, rich tourists good – backpackers bring unique benefits to the places they visit
- Spain and New Zealand are among countries saying they desire a ‘better class’ of tourist when normal travel resumes, but not all will want to be so choosy
- Backpackers’ money will more likely go directly to local communities, research shows, while their environmental impact is less than wealthy tourists
The global travel industry and the economies that have come to depend on it have been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic. However, not all tourism authorities are in a rush to go back to how things were.
New Zealand, in particular, sees the pandemic shutdown as an opportunity to appeal to a “better class” of visitor, and it has created the Premium Partnerships Programme to provide sponsorship to tour operators who target individuals worth more than US$1 million. Spain’s tourism minister, Reyes Maroto, echoed the ambitions of other destinations when he told the Financial Times newspaper in May: “We are moving from a model of ‘the more tourists, the better’ to one of higher expenditures, more nights and premium tourists.”
In Asia, Thailand and Sri Lanka have indicated that they will try to appeal to higher-paying visitors, and Viktor Laiskodat, governor of Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara province (which includes Flores and Komodo), was reported on news site Tempo in November 2020 as saying: “Those visiting this place must be wealthy. If you’re not classified as such and still negotiate deals, it’s better to go elsewhere, such as Jakarta, Bali or Lombok.”
However, not all destinations can afford to be that choosy. And nor may they wish to be.
“Some will still want to target budget markets as there will certainly be demand for it,” says Denis Tolkach, a senior lecturer in tourism at Australia’s James Cook University who was, until last January, an assistant professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
