Backpackers or Working Holiday Makers? Working Tourists in Australia

Abstract

This article looks at a potential divergence of characteristics between backpackers and working holiday makers in Australia. While both are often lumped together within academic study, working holiday makers have a legal right to pursue employment and are entitled to rights and standards of work that come with paid employment, whereas backpackers, as young budget travelers, do not. Drawing on data from autoethnographic fieldwork, qualitative interviews, and empirical analysis of previous studies, this article identifies a conceivable divergence between backpackers and working holiday makers in Australia: the activity of paid employment. The investigation highlights empirical factors and circumstances that contribute to a separation as compared to previous discussions and studies. The paper concludes by suggesting that more emphasis should be given to working holiday makers as a distinct group of working tourists who, in fact, have rights as workers, disjoining them from the label “backpacker,” which is more commonly understood as a form of young budget tourist.

Asymmetrical understandings of the value of time between Taiwanese Working Holiday Makers and the Australian government: Cultural exchange or serving time?

“…Studies have found that young Asian WHMs have their cultural imaginations of the West, and connect their time of working holiday with a desire to experience freedom and different lifestyles, accumulate social capital, and appreciate Western cosmopolitanism (Tsai & Collins, 2017; Yang & Wen, 2016). WHMs’ experiences are thereby suitable to examine the complexities of time meanings and values given the symbiosis of dual identities among them – as tourists and workers (Anderson, 2018; Brennan, 2014).…”

“…The uniqueness of WHMs lies in that they are not simply temporary migrant ‘workers’ (Anderson, 2018; Brennan, 2014; Reilly, 2015). For some of them, given spending time in another country is often a once-in-a-lifetime experience (Clarke, 2005), how to maximize their time values in Australia is important.…”

“…Here we can see that participating in specified work involves a stark shift in identity from tourist to worker (Anderson, 2018; Reilly, 2015). Yet, Patty’s narratives show the clear boundaries WHMs draw between money-time (work) and life-time (travel and holiday) (Brennan, 2014). When doing the specified work, most WHMs feel they are fulfilling their duty (serving time) in order to have more fun (life-time) afterwards – they value the latter much higher than the former.…”

“…For example, whether or not the government's understanding of temporary migrant workers' time value is consistent within its policy narratives and with the ways migrants themselves perceive their time spent in the host society. Temporary migrant workers' perceptions of time values are important given their unique lived experiences (as both tourists and workers) in relation to government regulations (in addressing the industrial needs, migrants' length of stay, potential exploitation, etc., see Anderson, 2018;Brennan, 2014;Reilly, 2015).…”

“…Behind this ideal scenario and the discussion around policy regulations, however, less is known about how WHMs themselves understand the meaning of time associated with their migration flow and articulate their time values in Australia. As a group with 'dual' identity as both tourist and temporary worker (Anderson, 2018;Brennan, 2014), they inevitably face the conflicting time values of traveling and working to make money. To date, most studies focus on the multi-stage trajectories of temporary migrants and the dilemmas of 'permanent temporariness' or 'long-term temporariness' they face (Mares, 2016;Robertson, 2019Robertson, , 2021Wang, 2020a).…”