'For More than Just the Postcard': Student exchange as a tourist experience?

This paper aims to locate student exchange as a mode of tourism within a sociological framework. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with seven Australian undergraduate students who participated in an exchange program in 2005 or 2006. The results suggest that the exchange experience goes beyond tourism in the consumerist tradition of Urry's (2002a) influential The Tourist Gaze. Instead, participants identified their experience as a more authentic engagement with their host country and culture than encountered when they had backpacked or holidayed in the area. They attributed this difference to opportunities for sharing in the leisure activities of the local culture and participating in the routines of everyday life. Simultaneously, participants remained conscious of their 'foreigner status'. These experiences resonate with Cohen's (2004) Phenomenology of Tourist Experiences, though they cannot be classified within a single mode in this typology. This research concluded that student exchange is complex and not adequately articulated within these existing theories.