Backpackers in Global Sydney Final Report Dr Fiona Allon, Australian Postdoctoral Industry Fellow, Centre for Cultural Research With Associate Professor Robyn Bushell and Professor Kay Anderson, Centre for Cultural Research And assistance from Dr Nathalie Apouchtine Centre for Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney, 2008 i About the Research Team Fiona Allon is Research Fellow at the Centre for Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney. She has published extensively in the field of Cultural Studies, and her work on backpacker tourism is well known and cited internationally. She also specialises in the analysis of contemporary Australian culture and politics, and is the author of Renovation Nation: Our Obsession with Home (2008). She researches and writes on a broad range of subjects including urban culture, suburbs, mobility and globalisation. Kay Anderson is Professor of Cultural Research at the Centre for Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney. She has a long history of intellectual engagement with issues of race and space, as signalled by her (award-winning books) Vancouver's Chinatown (1991, 2008) and Race and the Crisis of Humanism (2007), as well as publications on Aboriginal Redfern in Sydney. She has co- edited texts on the culture concept in Human Geography (Inventing Places 1991/1999; Handbook of Cultural Geography 2003), is an elected Academician of the Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences (UK), and elected Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. Nathalie Apouchtine is a freelance journalist and academic researcher. Her production credits include numerous news and current* affairs specials for SBS Television, the documentary Reporting the Nation: 50 years of ABC Television News and Current Affairs (2006) and the educational CD-ROM series Making Multicultural Australia (1999). Her main research interests are media past and present, immigration history, and inter-cultural exchange. She has travelled the world as a backpacker, and was for a long time a resident in an area of Sydney that is a backpacker hub. She is currently researching the ABC's engagement with Asia since 1956. Robyn Bushell is Associate Professor at the School of Social Sciences and Centre for Cultural Research, UWS. Her research examines the relationship between tourism, health, wellbeing/quality of life and local community; protection and conservation of cultural and natural heritage; the values of place to people and the interpretation of these values into planning processes and visitor education. She is actively involved in research and policy making with a range of local, national and international bodies related to tourism planning, heritage conservation and community development. ii Table of Contents Acknowledgements vii List of figures and tables ix Executive summary Robyn Bushell and Fiona Allon x 1. Introduction 1 1.1 ‘On a shoe string’ that is getting longer and longer … 2 1.2 The discerning backpacker — flashpackers, gap-packers and grey nomads 3 1.3 More than just tourists 6 1.4 Working holiday makers (WHMs) 7 1.5 International students/student backpackers 8 1.6 Definitional problems 9 1.7 Getting to know the locals? 10 1.8 Backpacker hostels 11 1.9 It’s all about the experience! 12 1.10 Community relations 13 1.11 Community responses to backpacker tourism 14 1.11.1. ‘Backpacker tourism as an asset’ 14 1.11.2. ‘Backpacker tourism as a liability’ 16 1.12 A research gap 19 2. Project Aims 21 2.1 Summary of aims 21 3. Methodology 23 3.1 Focus groups 23 3.2 In-depth interviews 23 3.3 Online surveys 24 3.4 Forums 24 3.5 Meetings 25 4. Survey and Findings Kay Anderson 27 4.1 Outline of survey method: administration and distribution 27 4.2 Survey objectives in overview 27 4.3 Limitations of the survey method 28 iii 4.4 RESIDENTS SURVEY 29 4.4.1. Demographic profile 29 4.4.2. Resident opinion about neighbourhood change and backpacking 29 4.4.3. Resident responses by Local Government Area (LGA) 31 4.5 BACKPACKERS SURVEY 34 4.5.1. Demographic profile 35 4.5.2. Backpacker opinion about their Sydney experience 36 5. Discussion of Interviews and Focus Groups Fiona Allon 39 5.1 DESTINATION SYDNEY 39 5.1.1. Sydney as a tourist destination 39 5.1.2. Sydney as a ‘global city’ 39 5.1.3. The branding of Sydney 40 5.1.4. Mixed messages 42 5.2 MORE THAN JUST TOURISTS 43 5.2.1. Beyond the backpack 45 5.3 FAIRNESS AND EXPLOITATION 46 5.3.1. Other vulnerabilities: health, safety and risk 48 5.3.2. Moving beyond stereotypes: backpacker, visitor, community, host … 49 5.4 ACCOMMODATION 52 5.4.1. Wherever I lay my pack, that’s my home …?: budget accommodation for travellers 52 5.4.2. Authorised/legitimate backpacker hostel accommodation 54 5.4.3. Affordability and lack of supply 54 5.4.4. Room size requirements 56 5.4.5. Illegal/unauthorised backpacker accommodation 57 5.4.6. Real estate agents 59 5.4.7. Strata Title 60 5.4.8. Loss of compliance, rates and stamp duty revenue 61 5.4.9. Overcrowding 61 5.4.10. Boarding houses 62 5.4.11. Conversion of residential units into serviced apartments 63 iv 5.4.12. Unauthorised accommodation in residential communities 64 5.4.13. Out of place or in the wrong place?: authorised versus unauthorised accommodation 65 5.4.14. Zoning 66 5.5 COMMUNITIES 67 5.5.1. Community benefits 67 5.5.2. Scope of complaints 68 5.5.3. Amenity impacts 69 5.5.4. Noise 70 5.5.5. Sleep deprivation and smoke 71 5.5.6. Dumped rubbish, garbage and dumped cars 72 5.5.7. More than NIMBYism? 72 5.6 GOVERNANCE AND REGULATION 73 5.6.1. Council constraints 74 5.7 BACKPACKERS — EASY TARGETS? 75 5.8 COEXISTENCE AND MANAGEMENT 76 5.8.1. Positive stories, positive images 76 5.8.2. Growing recognition of the need for a balance between marketing and management 77 6. Recommendations Robyn Bushell 78 Appendices 86 Appendix 1. Council profiles 86 A1.1 City of Sydney profile 86 A1.2 Manly profile 88 A1.3 North Sydney profile 90 A1.4 Randwick profile 92 A1.5 Waverley profile 94 A1.6 Woollahra profile 96 Appendix 2. Tourism NSW backpacker statistics 97 Appendix 3. Stakeholder input 99 A3.1 Online surveys 99 A3.1.1. Residents Survey: selected results 99 v Table A-1: Selected responses to Residents Survey 99 A3.1.2. Backpackers Survey: selected results 104 Table A-2: Selected responses to Backpackers Survey 104 A3.1.3. Additional survey figures 107 Figure A-1: Residents Survey response rate, by LGA 107 Figure A-2: Resident opinion of ‘benefits’ associated with backpackers 107 Figure A-3: Resident opinion of ‘problems’ associated with backpackers 108 Figure A-4: Resident response to ‘problems’ with backpackers, by LGA 108 Figure A-5: Resident opinion of local council response to complaints about backpackers, by 109 LGA Figure A-6: Backpackers Survey response, by age 109 Figure A-7: Backpackers Survey response, by gender 109 Figure A-8: Backpacker self-classification 110 Figure A-9: Sydney LGA most visited by Backpackers Survey respondents 110 Figure A-10: Backpacker perceptions of local residents’ views of backpackers 111 Figure A-11: Type of accommodation chosen by backpackers 111 Appendix 4. Case studies of successful strategies 112 A4.1 Successful strategies: City of Sydney Council 112 A4.2 Successful strategies: Manly Council 112 A4.3 Successful strategies: Waverley Council 114 Figure A-12: Waverley Council Christmas 1991-1993 117 Figure A-13: Waverley Council Safe Summer Initiative 2007/8 118 References 119 vi Acknowledgements This Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Scheme project has benefited from the support, assistance, and contributions given by a large number of people. Without their involvement the project would not have been possible. The research team would especially like to thank all those backpackers and residents who participated in focus groups, agreed to be interviewed or completed surveys. Many residents gave the researchers very generous assistance, including access to newsletters and newspaper archives. We would also like to thank council staff, councillors, resident precinct committees, backpacker hostel operators, staff at Tourism NSW (in particular John Bates and Jill Whitehouse), Work Australia and other stakeholder group representatives for contributing to the project. During the project the research team was fortunate to develop a close, collaborative relationship with our partners: the City of Sydney, Randwick, Manly, North Sydney, Waverley and Woollahra Councils. This collaboration has not only been successful but enjoyable. We would like to acknowledge the staff with whom we worked closely, and who provided invaluable assistance and input, in particular, Phillip Raskall, Allan Graham, Paul Spink and Bobbi McIlwraith, Asanthika Kappagoda and Benjamin Boyd, Jennie Minifie and Anna Nikolov, Michelle Easton and Tim Tuxford. Nathan Ryan, the former Shared Accommodation Officer at the City of Sydney, was a Partner Investigator in the early stages of the project, and made an important contribution to the project’s development. Kym Wildman worked as a Research Assistant at the start of the project, providing literature searches, conducting interviews and focus groups. Dr Nathalie Apouchtine, in her role as Research Assistant for the majority of the project, made a major contribution, conducting literature searches, coordinating the online surveys, and organising focus groups and conducting interviews. Dr Apouchtine also co-authored the project’s Interim Report. Hannah Wilde, a research student undertook a preliminary investigation of planning and management issues, Myat Mon Yi from the School of Information Technology at UWS, provided assistance to Fiona and Nathalie over many months with SurveyView, and Glen Fuller did some interviews with backpackers.