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100% PURE New Zealand: Branding for back-packers

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Vacation Marketing

100% PURE New Zealand: Branding for back-packers

Claudia Bell
Journal of Vacation Marketing 2008 14: 345
DOI: 10.1177/1356766708094755

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100% PURE New Zealand: Branding for
back-packers
Claudia Bell
Received (in revised form):
Anonymously refereed paper
Department of Sociology, University of Auckland, P. 0. Box 92019, Auckland, New Zealand.
Tel: 0064 (0)9 3737 599 ext 88662 Fax: 0064 (0)9 3737 438. E-mail : c.bell@auckland.ac.nz
Dr Claudia Bell is senior lecturer in sociology at
the University of Auckland. Her research specialties
are everyday culture in New Zealand, national
identity formulation, and international tourism. She
has published books and articles on landscape
tourism, nation branding, small town promotion,
world Expos, vernacular culture, rural change,
backpacking, and contemporary New Zealand
art and artists. Books include Cultural Studies in
Aotearoa / New Zealand (co-edited with Steve
Matthewman, 2005); The Accelerated Sublime:
Landscape, Tourism and Identity (with John Lyall,
2002); Sociology of Everyday Life in New Zealand
(2002).
ABSTRACT
KEYWORDS: backpackers, branding,
environment, green, internet, landscape,
sustainability, tourism
Over ten million internet sites refer to ‘backpackers’.
More than one million refer to backpacking in New
Zealand. This research investigated the relationship
between internet advertisements for eco-tourism
backpacker accommodation in New Zealand, and
the actual experience of green practices at those same
hostels. This qualitative study is an ethnographic
examination of hostel managers’ understanding and
use of the 100% PURE NZ brand, and other
messages indicating sustainability and environmental
awareness. The goal of the fieldwork was to check
how, or whether, brand promises on the internet
corresponded with actual product deliveries. How
seriously are New Zealand’s promotional promises
Downloaded from jvm.sagepub.com at The University of Auckland Library on August 18, 2013
Journal of Vacation Marketing Volume 14 Number 4
based on environmental claims such as, ‘clean,
green and 100% PURE’, taken by tourist hostel
operators? Vacation marketing and destination
banding play a significant role in informing New
Zealand’s international image and reputation.
Keep New Zealand clean; other people
might want to use it.
Sign in a back-packer hostel,
Rotorua, New Zealand
PROMOTING NEW ZEALAND
LANDSCAPE
This study investigates the relationship be-
tween internet advertising of eco-tourist back-
packer accommodation in New Zealand, and
the experience of actual green practices at
those same hostels. The goal of the research
was to check how – or if – brand promises on
the internet corresponded with actual product
deliveries. How seriously are New Zealand’s
promotional promises based on environmental
claims, such as ‘clean, green and 100% PURE’,
taken by tourist hostel operators?
In this article a sociologist responds to the
call to collect ‘real world’ primary data concern-
ing resourcing various tourism products,
including low-impact, ‘genuine’ eco-tourism
holidays’.1,2 This largely ethnographic account
Journal of Vacation Marketing
observes how the processes and products of Vol. 14 No. 4, 2008, pp. 345–355
© SAGE Publications
back-packing, hostel accommodation, internet Los Angeles, London, New Delhi
use, nature, destination branding and promo- and Singapore
www.sagepublications.com
tional marketing all intersect in eco-tourism DOI: 10.1177/1356766708094755
Page 345
100% PURE New Zealand: Branding for back-packers
assurances and practices. Backpackers’ ex-
pectations and the actual experiences of hostel
operators are set in the macro context of
tourism as an important part of New Zealand’s
economy.
In New Zealand, revenue from tourism
constitutes a significant part of GNP: almost
10 per cent. Morgan and Pritchard suggest
that New Zealand competes with about 90
other destinations for just 30 per cent of
the global tourist market. The target mar-
kets are primarily Australia, UK, USA,
Germany, Japan, China and Taiwan.3 New
Zealand promotes itself to the world largely
as a remote place with an incredible, unique
and varied landscape. For entrepreneurs in
New Zealand, the environment has always
played a fundamental part in commercial
image-making processes. Early enticement
of potential settlers to support the colonial
project, then the first advertising for New
Zealand’s tourist attractions, drew heavily
upon the pristine, beauteous and abundantly
productive environment. The dominant
nineteenth century promotion slogan for
the country was ‘Scenic Wonderland.’ New
Zealanders from the 1970s have taken pride
in describing their country as ‘clean and
green’;4 from the mid 1980s the nation proudly
wore the label ‘nuclear free’. In 1999 Tourism
New Zealand’s (TNZ) adopted the ‘100%
PURE New Zealand’ brand, which continues
to be vigorously advertised internationally.5 All
of these projects indicate a pristine, pollution-
free environment for potential tourists. The
TNZ’s 100% PURE website cleverly invites
visitors to send its images of glorious New
Zealand landscape to friends as postcards.6
As a commercial coding in reflection of self-
image, the dramatic and distinctively varied
New Zealand landscape has long been claimed
as superior in the international contest for
attention. The success of the local film industry
makes those vistas accessible to a global audi-
ence. As Jutel explains, in his discussion about
the adaptability of local landscapes to movie
location needs, images of New Zealand land-
scape have been readily utilized to ‘pander to
a global media spectacle… these images…..
suggest a variety of locations and historical
time periods from fantasy land, to tropical
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forest or oriental kingdom’ (p. 60).’7 The 2003
TNZ campaign still draws mileage from the
Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, repositioning
New Zealand as Middle Earth. The Middle
Earth campaign lined up nicely beside Scenic
Wonderland, ‘clean and green’, and ‘100%
PURE’. The movies series was notable for
its extraordinarily grand vistas of New Zealand
landscape, easily replicated in tourism mar-
keting and nation branding.8 Tourists submit
to a process of acquiring concepts of New
Zealand’s natural environment, like New
Zealanders themselves.
The Middle Earth tourism marketing
campaign was aimed particularly at young,
independent tourists, the most likely fans
of Lord of the Rings. Local landscape features
were pressed into service. Tolkien’s Shire
was re-sited comfortably in the New Zealand
pastoral landscape; majestic kauri forests
stood for Fangorn Forest; Mordor was mapped
onto the Volcanic Plateau. Local pride in the
achievements of film director Peter Jackson
made Middle Earth a highly acceptable strand
to add to national promotion campaigns. This
campaign increased business for hostels away
from the traditional well-trodden routes.
Each of the campaigns invited eco-tourists
in particular to enjoy experiences in New
Zealand’s natural environment. Eco-tourism
has been defined as follows:
purposeful travel to natural areas to under-
stand the cultural and natural history of the
environment, taking care not to alter the
integrity of the ecosystem, while produc-
ing economic opportunities that make
conservation of the natural resources bene-
ficial to local people.9
It wears various labels, such as sustainable
tourism, green tourism, nature tourism, land-
scape tourism,10 and responsible tourism.11
While the messages imply that the top-down
initiative drives the network of grass root
enterprises,12 in fact none of these labels is
assurance of any particular standard of actual
sustainability in product delivery. Eco-tourism
as tourist practice draws much criticism, in
particular for the paradox that as soon as a
natural ‘untouched’ space is made accessibly

to tourists, that very naturalness is modified.
Various tourism theorists have addressed the
usage of this term.13–15 Jamrozy calls the term
an oxymoron. He observes that this consumer-
orientated strategy is well established within
the economic marketing paradigm; but does
not necessarily imply protection of the envir-
onment.16 As Kirstges explains, ‘100 per cent
sustainable tourism is not possible, considering
today’s streams of travellers.’17 The term cer-
tainly may now be seen as a marketing tool, or
as a tourism niche.
Despite the critiques, the use of the term
persists as a hook to attract tourists to particu-
lar sites. There are almost four million internet
sites advertising ecotourism products at a
vast range of international locations. Nearly
25 per cent of these refer to eco-tourism in
New Zealand. The natural environment has
maintained its place as New Zealand’s premier
attraction. For backpackers travelling to New
Zealand, the experience of the environment
is indeed a central part of their purchase.
Tourists with this agenda are firmly targeted
in backpacker hostel promotion material, and
on TNZ’s own website
INTERNET ADVERTISING FOR
BACKPACKERS
There are various analyses of the impacts that
the new information communication technolo-
gies have made on destination marketing.18–21
Indeed, by 1997 travel had become the inter-
net’s second largest area of commerce, after
computer technology. Tourists can now pre-
view potential destinations; internet sites play
a significant role in shaping the perceptions
of the places being marketed. This includes
not just sites that explicitly advertise particular
destinations; but also blogs, web diaries and
My Space entries by travellers who have ex-
perienced particular places and events. Purchase
decisions may be based largely on information
found on the internet;22–24 tourists themselves
cannot ‘try before they buy’.
Images of travel therefore have to look
seductive in this medium, with vibrant photo-
graphs, ambient sound, and opportunities
to book trips at considerable discount. Any
tourist who chooses from a vast array of
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Bell
possibilities, visits those locations that best fulfil
their own needs, such as excitement, social
interaction25 and re-invention of themselves
as adventure heroes. 26 In their account of
the application of destination image theory,
Selby and Morgan explain that these early
impressions of place are dependent on the
amount, sources and apparent objectivity of
available information.27
Tens of thousands of internet sites refer to
New Zealand backpacker accommodation.
On many of the sites, there is an emphasis on
eco-tourism experiences, and messages draw-
ing from the traditional ‘clean, green’ mytholo-
gies about New Zealand. However, there is
no local green accreditation scheme operating
in New Zealand, though New Zealand does
have the largest number of Green Globe 21
tourism accredited businesses (not just hostels)
in the world.28 Self-promotion as ‘green’ by
any specific business is no guarantee that
it embraces and implements contemporary
environmental management practices.
Many of the hostels that appeal strongly to
tourists are located near wind swept beaches,
on the edge of forests, close to thermal areas, or
with mountain and sea views. Hostel operators
might seem modest players in the overall re-
venue generated by tourism. But as one of
the hostel owners in this study pointed out,
the availability of this accommodation strongly
benefits other sectors of the economy.
The people who stay at my hostel just want
the cheapest accommodation. We get them
here; then they spend their money in the
local shops, and with the local businesses.
What we get is just a small fraction of what
they spent. The shops down the road sit
back creaming it.
Hostel manager, Rotorua
MARKETING NEW ZEALAND TO
BACKPACKERS
Backpackers fit the model of ‘fully independ-
ent travellers’ (FITS). These tourists are not
usually bound to a group. As a category of
tourist, they fit somewhere between Cohen’s
‘individual mass tourists’ and his ‘explorers’.29
They tend to purchase many of their travel
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100% PURE New Zealand: Branding for back-packers
items once they have arrived in New Zealand
(rather than by pre-payment), for instance,
domestic air tickets and other transport,
accommodation, meals, sight-seeing and
entertainment. This means that their travel
is very flexible, with scope for revision at
any time. As Loker-Murphy and Pearce ex-
plain, these travellers are also eager to meet
other travellers, and are taking longer rather
than brief holidays.30 The Tourism Research
Council of New Zealand (TRCNZ) estimates
that this sector is an estimated 55 per cent
of all of the annual two million tourists to
New Zealand. Their length of stay averages
30+ days, with the use of backpacker hostels
reducing travel costs. According to the
TRCNZ, they commonly state that the key
reason to visit New Zealand is to interact with
the landscape.31
Typically, these tourists collect much of
their information from websites, seeking
on-line travel details and bookings. It is a
characteristic of FITs that they favour par-
ticipation in experiences as individuals or
small groups. They visit New Zealand for the
scenery, particularly enjoying sea kayaking,
scenic flights over glaciers, whale watching and
hiking through spectacular landscape. They
prefer to be participants, rather than observers,
with a strong drive towards adrenalin-inducing
tourism activities. The unique New Zealand
element is the setting. According to TRCNZ
these travellers experienced the greatest overall
satisfaction with their holiday, compared to
that experienced by tourists to New Zealand
overall. Indeed, 78 per cent said their holidays
exceeded expectations (compared with 69 per
cent of all tourists). This finding demonstrates
that New Zealand successfully delivers to this
travel sector, more than to tourists to New
Zealand in general.
FITS are targeted in major promotion
campaigns, for several reasons. First, New
Zealand has a limited budget for promotion
to would-be visitors, compared with that of
competing nations, for instance, Australia.
Tourism New Zealand’s marketing attempts
to be more effective by make a big impact
with a smaller target group. Second, there is
the issue of finite resources. It is not generally
possible to increase the assets of nature based
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tourism. Therefore rather than try to increase
the volume of visitors, it is logical to target
potential visitors most likely to appreciate
the present tourist products, and to maintain
a high quality visitor experience. Third, the
‘proposition match’ means it is logical to attract
the visitors who have the greatest chance of
being highly satisfied. Their word-of-mouth
reports will increase tourism. Indeed, TRCNZ
research shows that these tourists influence
their peer group. They follow personal recom-
mendations from people they respect, includ-
ing friends and local people the meet on their
travels.32
The strategies to attract FITs correspond to
the goals of the New Zealand National Tourist
Strategy, 2010, developed in 2001. This joint
industry–government initiative aimed to pro-
vide a world class, sustainable visitor experi-
ence; to develop a compelling, distinctive brand;
and to develop seasonal and regional spread:
ideally, establish and maintain a consistent
flow of visitors to every region, throughout the
year.33
EXPLORATORY STUDY
In this small exploratory study, twenty-five
New Zealand backpacker hostels were visited
over the summer of 2003. Given the national
green rhetoric, the primary objective of this
research was to see whether and how hostel
operators – as promoters as well as beneficiaries
of the green reputation – expressed ideas around
issues of environmental consciousness.
Those hostel operators selected had all
advertised their hostels on the internet as
environmentally friendly, clean, green or in
other terms that implied these values. They
were located in various popular tourism resort
areas in both the North and South Islands
of New Zealand: Rotorua, Coromandel,
Nelson/Takaka, Hamner Springs, Akaroa.
The owners or managers of each were inter-
viewed (their anonymity assured) about their
hostel’s philosophies and practices. The field-
workers explored the following:
• how the actual practice of these hostel
operators matched or fulfilled the agendas
implicit in their advertising.

• what ‘clean and green’ meant to them.
• whether their use of the green concepts
were simply a marketing ploy, unrelated
to commitment to actual hostel practices.
• their responses to clean and green and ‘100%
PURE’ as images for New Zealand.
• what the operators saw as their own role
in the green promotion of New Zealand.
Qualitative methodological approaches
were selected as the mostly likely to produce
richly detailed findings; the goal was not to
try to establish exact objective measures of
sustainable practice, but to explore hostel
operators’ thoughts and attitudes to both
green promotion, and to possible strategies
for green product delivery. This project was
carried out in accordance with descriptive
and explanatory social research techniques.
Descriptive research is about defining and
differentiating the ‘objects of study’ (for ex-
ample, in this article, backpackers to New
Zealand and not elsewhere; they in turn are
differentiated by choosing ‘eco’ establish-
ments). Explanatory research places an em-
phasis on contextual issues, in this case the
arena of ‘green’ values. The goal of such
applied research is to advance fundamental
knowledge about the social world, while
the research maintains the ethical position of
social critic and conscience of society. Inevit-
ably, and appropriately in the discipline of
sociology, through the very choice of topic, and
of this research methodology, the investigator
is critiquing the status quo.34 This contrasts
with totally objective, numerical quantitative
studies.
A survey featuring the use of open-ended
questions gave respondents the best oppor-
tunity to express their views. The fieldworkers
noted responses on their interview schedules,
while also tape recording all interviews, and
taping general discussion about the issues.
The tapes were later transcribed by a research
assistant. The small sample enabled the re-
searcher relatively easy analysis of the data, by
simply going through the individual inter-
view schedules and the transcriptions. For such
a small project there was no need for a com-
puter programme to analyse results, because
the findings were required for a predominantly
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Bell
theoretical discussion; not for statistical analysis.
All of the 25 hostel operators appeared happy
to co-operate; none challenged the final use of
the findings (for an academic paper).
During the hostel visits, the fieldworkers
also spent time with hostel visitors, and inevit-
ably talked about travel, and travel planning.
Every backpacker spoken with said they used
the internet to help them make choices about
destinations, accommodation, and about find-
ing a ‘match’ for expectations of green values
in New Zealand, both at tourist attractions,
and at their accommodation. ‘Green’ appeared
to mainly mean some proximity to beautiful
nature, rather than particular interest in every-
day sustainability practices.
This research is a marked contrast to that
undertaken by Lai and Shafer. 35 In their
research on the marketing of ecolodges in
Latin America and the Caribbean, their meth-
odology was a content analysis of the online
marketing information of a selection of eco-
lodges. They acknowledge that it was not
known if there was ‘any congruence between
the messages delivered through the internet
and the onsite operations of the eco-lodge
businesses. Onsite evaluations…would help
enhance understanding of congruence or the
lack-there-of.’36, 37
FINDINGS
A. Environmental responsibility
This research showed that when it came to
‘environmental responsibility’ most of these
establishments, in their domestic ‘green’ prac-
tices, had limited commitment to match
practice to image. The findings illustrate that
the sector lacks a coherent environmental
mission or strategy. While ‘green’ hotels and
hostels are now a growing hospitality sector,
there are no international formal bench
markets to assure visitors of the actual green
status of their accommodation.38
Some findings from the interviews:
1. Environmental Policies:
• Only one hostel had a written environmental
policy: a YHA hostel, where the policy was
provided by the parent organization.
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100% PURE New Zealand: Branding for back-packers

• Of the remainder, nine said they had 7. Guests’ attitudes to hostel’s conservation
‘unwritten’ policies transmitted to staff and efforts:
guests verbally.
• The remainder (15 hostels; more than half) • 21 said that guests ask about recycling /
had no policy. expect this/were positive about recycling.
• Only one said that guests do not like re-
2. ‘Environmentally aware’: cycling systems.

• In the interviews all but one (24 of the 25)

said they considered they were an ‘envir- B. Facilities
onmentally aware’ hostel. The meaning of The fieldworkers checked:
this term was vague.
• signs around the hostel advising guests of
3. Beneficial to business? eco practices
• dual toilet flushing systems
• Five out of the 25 said there had been no • laundry hot and cold water use
benefit to their business through being • frequency of washing sheets (washed after
environmentally aware; 20 said there was. each guest; not daily)
• A total of six considered their business • conservation of water in bathrooms (water
would benefit if they were more environ- quantity controls)
mentally aware. • air drying versus clothes drying
• Green-ness was seen to increase their com- • composting
petitive advantage, as environmental issues • recycling bins and instructions to recycle
became recognized as a key element in • smoking / non smoking
marketing of hostels. • heating

4. Main reason stated for current environ- The fieldworkers found that the facilities at
mental practices only two of the hostels lived up to what they
implied in their ‘environmentally friendly’
• Cost effectiveness (20). promotion material.
Sixteen of the operators pointed out that
5. Changes they would like? conservation practices were in their interests,
as these were also money-saving activities for
• Two specified changes they would like to the hostel; for example, conserving hot water.
implement: (One wanted more environ- Only two of the operators had in place
mental practices, a written policy, and arrangements consistent with systematically
composting; the other wanted the local good conservation practices, according to
council to run a better recycling system). the Environmental Consciousness Index de-
veloped by Zimmerman.40
6. The main reasons stated for not increasing Almost all hotel operators reminded the
environmental performance were cost. interviewer that they were in, or close to, a
national park or (other administrated) protected
• 20 said this: some wanted solar heating area; or the sea.
but found installation costs prohibitive;
(one wanted a self composting toilet but Just look out the window! All our rooms have
the quoted $5000 installation cost was views of bush and sea. When the tourists
prohibitive). want ‘environment’, that’s what they want!
• Two cited lack of local back up by their The drive out here – there are not many
local councils, which stymied increased places in the world as stunning as this! The
environmental performance. tourists love it!

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C. Market Niche
Four major conclusions emerge from this
research:
• The use of ‘eco friendly’, ‘clean and green’
and other such terms in advertising were
used to attract clients to the operators’
accommodation.
• The use of these terms did not necessarily
accurately reflect actual conservation
practices at their hostel.
• Reference to the ‘environment’ or ‘eco’
or ‘clean and green’ drew from popular
promotional images of New Zealand.
• Primarily, these terms referred to the
hostel’s proximity to particular natural
attractions.
SUBSCRIBING TO THE PROMOTION
MATERIAL
This study shows that the tourism entrepre-
neurs interviewed certainly subscribed to the
promotional myths. Indeed, this was the
overwhelming finding of this study. When
they commented on their response to this as
an image for New Zealand, all of the owners
considered it a good or very good image. ‘The
Pure campaign looks great and promotes our
point of difference.’
Some (nine of the 25) qualified this by
pointing out that this was a true representation
of New Zealand, relative to other countries.
Eight respondents said that with more sup-
port and hard work, then it could be true. ‘It
could be appropriate but we have to work
harder to earn it.’ Twenty-one said they were
happy with the present campaigns. Only two –
both from Nelson – thought them exaggerated
or misleading. One backpacker operator
pointed out that, ‘We can’t have GE and 1080
(poison for killing possums) and be PURE as
well. The PURE message is exaggerated and
misleading.’ Another said, ‘we need to become
as PURE as they say we are.’
Those last comments convey unease. While
subscribing to the myths for market advantage,
these operators can see that the messages might
be exaggerated or misleading. For some, the
implied environmental standards were growing
harder to match in their own establishments;
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Bell
not easier. A genuinely green entrepreneur
trying to line up with best practice was under-
mined by the slippage between the green-wash
and the greening.
As one 2004 study showed, ‘best practice’ in
marketing green tourism was better supported
by governments in Sweden and Australia than
in New Zealand. These authors noted that ‘the
New Zealand Government was not doing as
much as the Australian State Governments in
supporting eco businesses…. Businesses that
we spoke to in New Zealand indicated that
no such support was available.’ 40, 41
As Liu explains, and as this study illustrates,
eco-tourism is not necessarily promoted for
the purpose of conservation, but as a market-
ing strategy. Ecotourism can function as an
attempt for a destination to diversify local
tourism products; or to compensate for the dis-
advantages of lacking the popular sun/sea/sand
attractions.42 For hostel operators in remote
regions surrounded by beautiful natural fea-
tures, an easy commercial strategy is to label
what they are offering as ‘ecotourism’, then
simply tell the visitor to take a walk in nature.
This is a very low cost form of entertainment
for both entrepreneur and tourist. This is evi-
dent in the large (though fluctuating) number
of rural based tourism operators identified
in New Zealand.43 Meanwhile, the Middle
Earth campaign was seen by hosteliers to be
of value:
They are having the time of their lives!
And I’m making my living from it! This
Middle Earth thing has given this region
a real boost.
Nelson (South Island) hostel owner.
Some expressed skepticism about the nature
of backpacking itself:
Backpackers have changed a lot. Nowadays
they expect double beds and en suite bath-
rooms, they have credit cards, cell phones,
lots of digital gear. They use dedicated bus
services to go from one hostel to another.
They are not really backpacking – not
hitch-hiking, winding up broke in the
middle of nowhere. I think safety issues
and richer kids has ended real backpacking.
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100% PURE New Zealand: Branding for back-packers
But they call themselves backpackers
because it looks a bit more adventurous.
Going on a Kiwi Experience tour from
one site to another to see Lord of the Rings
locations isn’t backpacking, in my opinion.
And there is nothing particularly ‘green’
about what they do
Nelson (South Island) hostel owner.
Even if we try to stick to (green) rules,
how do you make the tourists co-operate,
without the hostel turning into a boot
camp? A lot of them these days really are
spoilt brats; they waste water, they expect
electric blankets and the internet; they
really want 5 stars on a hostel budget. For
a lot of them, it is not about being green,
but about being cheap…
(Rotorua hostel manager).
Another commented on backpackers:
There are still those ones on bikes, they
carry everything and bike the length of the
country. But they are a bit unusual. Most
of them pick out the ‘must-sees’, they even
have web pages they’ve downloaded and
want to see the same views. Or they have
the Lord of the Rings location guide, and
they’ve done the tour.
Akaroa (South Island) hostel manager.
Most material on branding refers to the mar-
keting impact of various strategies, with limited
testing of the matching of the product to the
branding campaign. In tourism marketing,
‘brand’ represents a unique permutation of
product characteristics and added values.
Morgan and Pritchard have described brand-
ing as the most influential weapon available
to contemporary destination marketers. ‘It has
become the basis for survival within a globally
competitive marketplace.’44 Each brand strives
to dominate a unique market niche. As Anholt
explains, ‘the idea that countries behave like
brands is now fairly familiar to most marketers,
and to many economists and politicians, too…
its values are… fairly well understood’.45
New Zealand nature is now firmly posi-
tioned as a consumer item; an utterly reliable
quality product, the evidence present in the
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tourist numbers. We see ‘commitment, cor-
roboration and synergy’ among the main
purveyors of the country’s image in the global
media.46 The awe and wonder inspired by
nature has been massaged into a prescribed and
marketable sentimentality. Entrepreneurs
construct an economically viable ‘tourist space’
within the nation, particularly designated to
facilitate these forms of consumption. Back-
packing provides affordable access to this.
THE PARADOX OF MARKETING
‘SUSTAINABILITY’
We are all local and so can tell them about
the non-tourist places to go. This keeps the
magic going.
Hostel Manager, Rotorua.
Backpacking and ecotourism have the poten-
tial to facilitate changes in environmental
beliefs and practices; but this case-study indi-
cates that there is more lip-service than action
to these ends. With these user groups (back-
packers seeking ‘green’ accommodation and
experiences) there is an opportunity for the
New Zealand tourism industry to develop and
maintain standards that could receive global
recognition as exemplary application of green
ethos; indeed, to really deliver just what the
green brand promises.
Price writes of the scope to foster ‘environ-
mental literacy’ in the face of widespread
acceptance of environmental degradation as a
by-product of economic progress: an inherent
part of Western ideology. That so-called pro-
gress he sees as,
a major obstacle to the development of oper-
ational environmental literacy whereby
an individual has the capacity to regularly
perceive environmental issues, gather and
evaluate relevant information, examine
and choose among alternative, and take
options and actions that work to sustain and
develop the foundations of environmental
knowledge.47
But while tourism produces profits, it incurs
environmental costs which degrade the quality

of the product. The key problem is that even
with eco-tourism, green-ness might not be
sustainability implemented; large numbers of
backpackers are taken off the beaten track,
but it can become beaten into something of a
highway. Meantime, however, the green myth
is infinitely sustainable: an ongoing project of
spin. New Zealand can conceivably continue
to construct itself as remote, exotic, clean and
green, indefinitely.48 As noted elsewhere,
a wonderful thing about having nature
as the main promotional imagery for a
country, is that, if protected, the value of
dramatic mountains and steep untouched
bush or raging rivers cannot be depleted.
In fact, as development proceeds elsewhere
and many of the world’s wilderness areas
are destroyed, (relatively) untouched nature
becomes rarer and so more valuable.49
While this study of backpacker hostel oper-
ators shows satisfaction with the clean green
image, it also shows that the greenwash needs
further investigation. Is the spin being over-
stated, at the expense of under-resourcing
green-ness? Is the process of seducing tourists
via these promotional nature slogans, in fact
detrimental to the environment of New
Zealanders, and to their children’s heritage?
The findings of this study indicate that
‘green’ is as much a niche marketing ploy, as it
is a series of actual practices. If a backpackers’
hostel is set in an attractive natural environment,
that is sufficient, it seems, to claim it as ‘green’;
it may give the particular business what Liu
refers to as ‘an apparent green edge’.50 This
study of backpacker hostel is a straight-forward
case study to explore whether the ideology and
the practice work together; or not.
MacCannell51 in Empty Meeting Grounds,
writes that ‘tourism is not just as aggregate
of merely commercial activities; it is also an
ideological framing of history, nature and
traditions; a framing that has the power to
reshape culture and nature to its own ends.’
Tourism, as it becomes the dominant generator
of revenue on the planet, gains in that power.
New Zealand’s ‘clean and green’ mythologies
are a perfect illustration of this process. A quick
Google search reveals over eight million sites
Downloaded from jvm.sagepub.com at The University of Auckland Library on August 18, 2013
Bell
that combine words ‘New Zealand green’.
It is difficult to imagine any relinquishment of
the use of the terms, as a readily recognizable
attractor of tourists to New Zealand; rather,
the web designs simply become slicker.
This survey of New Zealand backpacker
hostels recognizes that when it comes to de-
livering the green myth, a large part of that
delivery is delegated to tourism entrepreneurs
and service operators. The myths are being
fed out into the world. The visitor comes to
see; the hostel operator is one part of the
machinery that earns its keep through ful-
filling these visitor expectations. There is a
significant ‘Say/Do’ gap between eco-tourism
practices, and the explicit and implicit assur-
ances of the marketing programmes; between
the brand promises, and product delivery.
There are obvious implications for the tourism
industry as a whole, including recognition of
the need for practical support in return for the
contribution made by these small-time players.
(This would not be unprecedented: a parallel
up-skilling was made available to tourism
entrepreneurs in the 1980s, with the ‘kiwi
host’ programme, which provided workshops
and programmes for the development of
greater hospitality skills.) These operators
have inadvertently become the on-the-ground
ambassadors of ‘green’.
This case-study supports recently pub-
lished ‘eco-criticism’52 in drawing attention to
the need to advance awareness, and provide
resources, to create both a more realistic under-
standing of what constitutes sustainable eco-
tourism practices; and practical means to
action these practices. Woodland and Acott,
for example, reiterate the message inherent
in my study that grass-roots and top-down
approaches need to function synergistically
to establish an institutional framework within
which the local branding system can actually
deliver.53 To paraphrase Anholt54 it is only
the brand name that is the infinitely renew-
able resource.
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