| In modern society, people have closely and orderly arranged their work, study, intercourse, and even rest, etc in a most pragmatic, efficient, and economical way. These formulary behaviors widely existing in everyday life make people feel monotonous, dull and comfortless. Toward this, many people have a strong feeling of "being lived", and thus they feel the meaning of life is gradually decreasing. Tourism, as an important way of entertainment in human life, provides people with an opportunity to merge with themselves, with others and with nature, and gives people a sense of relaxation and pleasure. Most importantly, people in tourist world can immerse themselves in it, meditating on the meaning of life, seeking for the liberation of life and the freedom of personality.Backpacking provides an important way to be self-relization for individuals in modern society. The statement is not only a criticism to daily life, but also an approval and recognition to the positive role of tourist experiences. Discussion on this topic is scarcely seen in domestic tourist academic circle. Recently, most of the domestic researches on tourist experiences are to discuss the design of tourism products based on the theories of tourist experiences, thus showing neglect to the research on the subject of tourist experiences (tourists). Although this special tourism style—backpacking—different from mass tourism, is surging at home, the reaction of domestic academic circle is tardy. Therefore, to understand deeply backpackers’feelings in tourist experiences becomes an important topic that requires domestic tourism researchers’concern.The research objects of this thesis are backpackers, with the purposes of analyzing the tourist experiences of backpackers, and thus disclosing the positive meaning of tourist experiences. The thesis intends to answer the following questions:what kind of group do domestic backpackers belong to? What are their purposes in tourism? Which aspects are the characteristics of their behaviors reflected in? What are their cognition and perception toward backpacking? What kind of meaning do tourist experiences in unusual environment bear toward backpackers? What on earth can this unusual environment bring people, different from usual environment?The research has collected sample data through questionnaires, depth interviews, and tourist dairies, etc. After random sampling, target type sampling and snowball sampling, it conducts quantitative research and qualitative research on the449questionnaires,17interviews with backpackers and54tourist dairies on the internet it altogether collects. After comprehensively analyzing the data collected through various means, the thesis arrives at the following conclusions:(1) The thesis gives a new definition to "backpackers":backpackers are those engaged in tourist experiences in unusual environment with some outstanding features, in self-help way, not mass tourism, with the purpose of self-construction.(2) Through investigation, the thesis gives a silhouette for domestic backpackers from6aspects:personality characteristics, demographic characteristics, work\entertainment, tourist motives, tourist attitude, and tourist behavior, a. personality characteristics. Backpackers are a group of people who have a thoughtful mind, a curious heart, and the spirit of adventure, they are "young people" who love tours, long for free life, seek for themselves and real value of life, and hate being bound; they love thinking and self-examination, touring with various dreams and questions, seeking for the value and meaning of human life, experiencing anger, grief, joy and happiness of tours, and reexamining the meaning of life; they are curious about the world, and under their curious look, even ordinary things take on new values, becoming interesting; they have the spirit of adventure and the sense of exploration, daring to plunge themselves in a strange environment, challenge themselves and seeking for affirmation of themselves, b. demographic characteristics. Members of backpackers are mostly youngsters; different from the situation of male superiority in old days, now more and more females participate in backpacking, accounting for5%; most of them are city dwellers, from economically developed areas; most of them are students, ordinary office workers in companies and enterprise workers, professionals, business managers, teachers, government servants and their equals, and have received higher education; in terms of profession and income, most of them belong to the middle class, c. work\entertainment. Most domestic backpackers are engaged in brainwork that needs creativity. Although it does not require much labor, they feel tired and even anxious faced with grave working strength, pressure and responsibility. Daily repetitive work, delicate and complex career human relations reduce the interest of work. All of these have buried the seed of entertainment (including touring). What’s more, most of their work pattern "five days, eight hours" provides them with more chance for entertainment. They have many hobbies. Their favorite leisure activities include activities indoors and outdoors, mental and physical, among which outdoor activities such as touring and mountain climbing are their favorites, d. tourist motives. The tourist motives of domestic backpackers are mostly evasion and relaxation (evade repetitive life, responsibility, pressure, problems and complex human relations; relax oneself), seeking knowledge, exploring\searching (explore mysteries of the Globe, seek freedom, oneself and a dream homeland), experiencing (watch the scenery and other people, experience local customs and practices, others’lifestyles, and the beauty of life) and social intercourse, e. tourist attitude. Members in this special subculture group like neither noisy metropolis, nor famous scenic spots that many others visit, but rather they like to travel in places where few have visited. Their favorites are remote areas with natural beauty and special customs. They hope to get real experiences in tours. They like to travel alone or with a few pals. They love to communicate with strangers they meet in tours. They are willing to penetrate into destinations to get opportunities communicating with natives, f. tourist behaviors. Before tours, backpackers always get relevant information from the internet, sightseeing experiences, introductions by friends and relatives, TV programs and movies; they tend to invite friends they’ve made on the internet. The routes for their tours are highly flexible. When they tour, they have only one rough schedule, which can be changed when necessary. They have strict control on tour budgets. They are economical during tours, and choose cheep accommodations. Most of the time, they travel on foot or take public transportations; they usually tour for a comparatively long time. After tours, they love to publish their tour experiences on the internet to share with other.(3) The structure of backpacker image includes7dimensions, i.e. thought and character, ownership identity, travel preference, self-realization, environment condition, characteristics of experience, and mode acceptance. Backpackers of different demography have different perceptions toward the image of backpacking:a. backpackers of different age groups differ greatly in the dimension of "thought and character":those under20have the strongest "thought and character", and those above41the weakest; b. backpackers of different educational levels differ greatly in the dimensions of "environment condition" and "mode acceptance":comparatively speaking, those with higher educational levels give low evaluation to "environment condition" and conservative evaluation to "mode acceptance".(4) Through the analysis on backpackers’tourist experiences, the thesis discusses from several dimensions, such as epistemology, ontology, axiology, and the road to be selfrealization—the basis to confirm the value of tourism. The meaning of tourist experiences mainly lies in the following four aspects:first, tourism means freedom. Limited space, dull repetitive steps, indifferent human relations, restraint of policies, bound of responsibility etc. comprise the dark side of modern life, which becomes shackles restricting people’s freedom. In tourist world, tourists are so happy with the changeable and novel conditions, real intercourse experiences, and the state of being scarcely supervised by others. The "freedom" in tourist experiences is not only a "liberation", but also a "permission", which means tours enable people to temporarily get rid of the factors that trouble themselves in their everyday life, human relations, social responsibility, and daily occurrences. Thus they are liberated physically and spiritually, and they can get rid of restrictions, to act on their own, travel freely, explore freely, risk freely, and so they can get freedom for the soul. Second, tourism means self identity. Backpacking provides sufficient conditions and an effective way for the change of "self identity". By means of gaze, intercourse, games and other ways of experiences, backpackers interact with the key components of tourist world. During a series of interaction, they realize self identity through self-observation, self-reflection and self-construction."Self-identity" in tourist experiences is embodied in two dimensions:"individual identity" and "social identity". The former means:backpacking provides more opportunities for individuals to be with themselves. Unfamiliar environment full of changes and uncertainties provides individuals with more opportunities to try and challenge, and they can get relaxation, peace, freedom, liberation once the pressure is released. During the reactions with space once and again, individuals become stronger, braver, happier and more confident. Backpackers’"social identity" is reflected not only outwardly in their dress, equipment, whereabouts, the routes they choose, the places they enter, the people they contact, but also inwardly in their spirit. Third, tourism means aesthetic experiences. While appreciating the beauty, backpackers get sensual aesthetics and symbol aesthetics, including sensory experiences, cognitive experiences, emotional experiences and introspective experiences. They are experiencing a mental change from being shallow to being deep. Whatever levels they are, aesthetic experiences can bring tourists emotional and physical benefits, and even elevation of spirit. The elevation of spirit reveals the greatest function of tourist aesthetics, and is its highest state, which finally leads people to integrity. Last, tourism means social intercourse with others. Tourist intercourse can not only meet backpackers’needs of social intercourse, but also encourage harmonious human relations, waken individuals’moral sense. They acquire knowledge, experience, communication techniques and new ideas toward the world, and thus continuously enrich and develop themselves, disclosing the meaning of tourist experiences.The innovation of the research lies in the choice of topic, content and viewpoints. First, the discussion on the value of tourist experiences through large sample investigation statistics and empirical study aims to fill the gap in domestic research on tourist experiences. The choice of topic is innovative. Second, there are few discussions on backpackers’tourist experiences at home, so the thesis conducts a research on backpackers, to foster better understanding on them. Then, the research gives a new definition to "backpackers", and is the first to compile a questionnaire on the image of backpacking. Last, through the analysis on backpackers’backpacking experiences, the thesis draws a conclusion on the meaning of tourist experiences in4aspects:"freedom","self-identity""aesthetic experiences" and "social intercourse". It discusses from several dimensions, such as epistemology, ontology, axiology, and the road to be self-realization—the basis to confirm the value of tourism, which reveals the significance of research on tourist experiences. Thus the thesis is innovative in content and viewpoints. The limitations of this research:first, the author has collected the data through internet survey, field investigation, depth interviews, etc, without adopting participant observation method, so the author does not have personal experience and perception toward the tourist psychology of this group and cannot understand their behaviors thoroughly. Second, although the research has handed out a great number of questionnaires, and has collected data through various means to enhance the representativeness of the sample, there are still limitations as far as the massive group—backpackers are concerned. Third, the research uses relevant documents home and abroad for reference and depends on the qualitative data collected to conclude the value of tourist experiences, but due to the limitations of the researcher’s theoretical level and knowledge structure, the design on the content of interviews lacks further consideration, the processing and analysis to statistics is not thorough, and the explanation to some viewpoints is not detailed and explicit. |
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