| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立虎尾科技大學 === 休閒遊憩系碩士班 === 105 === Against the background of the growing “heterogenization” of contemporary backpackers, and the strong “extraversion trait” manifested in the business philosophies, space creation, hospitality and main customer bases of many backpacker hostels, this study intends to explore, interpret and analyze in depth the lodging experiences and demand preferences of introverts. The research issues include introverts’ experiences “during the course” of their stay, the meanings of such experiences, their behavioral and psychological adjustments; their self-transformation during the “course” of their stay; and their motives of staying, cognitive attitudes, and demand preferences as well as the individual and social factors that influence such preferences.
This article adopted the narrative research method, and in consideration of the time constraint and its research orientation, purposive sampling was used to select two subjects with rich lodging experiences both “quality-” and “quantity-wise”, yet showing significant differences in the overall narrative features – Miss Sharon and Miss PJ. The key traits Sharon manifested in the overall narrative were ‘upholding the spirit of traditional backpackers, at ease in any situation, and pursuing the meaning of travel,’ while Miss PJ exhibited the traits of “a typical introverted personality, minding only her own business, and pursuing lodging prices and quality.” However, both possessed, though in varying degrees, the identity traits of both “an introvert” and “a backpacker.” Hence there are commonalities in the differences and differences in the commonalities in the contents of their overall narratives, rendering the results of the study to have double implications. On the one hand, this paper describes in greater detail “backpackers’” subjective feelings and the meanings of their experiences in their lodging experiences, presenting the diverse faces within the backpacker group. On the other hand, it unveils the little-known presence of introverts in backpacker hostel, confirming their existence therein, and discovers that their lodging experiences and demand preferences are indeed very different from [those discoursed in] past literature because of their introverted personality.
Finally, this study proposes some practical recommendations on “how to build an introvert-friendly backpacker hostel.” However, as it is but an exploratory study, further research is still required to expand the quantity and quality of samples to present a complete picture of the introvert group in terms of research topics and put forward practical recommendations of greater generalizability.
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