From visiting cultures to travelling cultures : local communities, backpacker tourism, and the consumption of authenticity in Sydney

In Australia, the backpacker industry is a dynamic, rapidly expanding, and diversifying market. While government and academic research on international backpacker travellers has tended to concentrate on the economic advantages of this market segment, local council reports and highly publicised media incidents indicate that the increasing numbers of the backpacker travellers are causing significant social tensions within local communities. Conflicts have emerged, particularly over the changing identities of places and the production of landscape and locality as tourist commodities. One of the key aims of this paper is to understand the transformation of localities as a consequence of backpacker tourism, and to explore the consumption of difference, the signs of authen-ticity, and place.