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specifi c descriptors. For example, the needs of 'drifters' in the 1970s were not met, and it wasn't
until youth independent travel remerged in the early 1990s that the label 'backpacker' came to
be produced as a clearly defi ned discursive category. It was only then, governments and
entrepreneurs began to have a practical sense of this world and its inhabitants' needs, their
dispositions seen as durable through economic downturns and unforeseen events, making them
an attractive long-term investment. Backpackers today are viewed as strategically important by
an increasing number of businesses, regions, institutions and governments (O'Regan 2010), their
mobility becoming central to many economics and livelihoods.
As it was with backpacking, the paradigm shift may be better described as a nudge with a
snowball effect developing as more individuals seeking better control of their social and spatial
positioning proved vocal, persistent and motivated in their preferences, undermining the
central assumptions of the mass market approach and homogenized templates. The advent of
technological forces and the Internet in particular has made many existing and emerging niches
visible, encouraging new relationships between consumers, between consumers and small
producers and amongst/between producers. Slowly, but with increasing momentum, those who
sought to transform themselves into the kinds of people they're supposed and want to be, are
infl uencing the direction of their own moves and experiences and standing out more because,
for once, they were not being herded together with the masses or left in the margins. As people
share similar habits, practical knowledge, assumptions and routines, and refl exively recognize a
shared pattern that is inter-subjectively communicated, so a process is initiated, the 'beginning of
institutionisation' (Jenkins 1996: 128). As new social labels emerged (i.e. wine tourist) or such
labels become understood with reference to an internal-external dialectic of identifi cation
(Jenkins 1996) such as 'backpacker', where 'all identities - individual and collective - are
constituted' (Jenkins 1996: 20). The specifi c nature of the skills, competencies, knowledge and
interactions between those who react to such labels has become an interest for academic
researchers who see tourism from an 'interior, subjective perspective as well as a positivistic,
external objective position' (Novelli 2005: x). As researchers looked behind macro descriptions
of tourism and the tourist (which are often value laden) to uncover 'other, socially differentiated
realities' (Favell et al ., 2006: 2), they are fi nding individuals explicitly acting to fashion their
identities by regulating their bodies, their thoughts and their conduct in new ways from within
a fragmenting industry, along with diverse businesses developing and marketing diverse tourism
products catering to diverse but specifi c needs and wants.
Niche tourism
The term 'niche' may be used where a particular social group might occupy a space (Chinatown)
or even when a subculture (i.e. urban explorers, environmental activists, artists, free-runners)
occupy a specifi c niche within a larger community by appropriating specifi c places or
infrastructure. As an expression of identity and belonging, these 'niches' often encompass
alternative spaces and sites of interaction that work outside mainstream societal codes, regulatory
over sight, civic law or rules and may even challenge the habitual and the routine. Over time,
a niche might become associated with the language of business and become a specialized market,
since niches can be identifi ed with distinct consumption patterns, and demand for specifi c tailor-
made products and services. Such niches may even sustain their own economies that exist under
the radar of large Fordist-style fi rms, since as limited markets, they may be attractive for
entrepreneurs as well as smaller and flexibly organized businesses. Entrepreneurs may have
been co-participants in a niche before getting involved in developing products and services for
that niche; or niche businesses eager to escape competition enter a niche by exploiting some
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