Tourism futures and Working Holiday Maker schemes: a systematic review and scenario analysis

The intersection of travel and work has undergone profound transformation in recent decades, evolving from informal arrangements to sophisticated policy frameworks that shape global mobility. Where working holidays were once considered an informal, peripheral way for young people to fund travels through temporary work (Guthrie, 2004), structured opportunities now exist through formalised Working Holiday Visa (WHV) schemes that allow young individuals (typically aged 18–35) to work and travel in host countries for specified periods. This evolution reflects broader changes in global mobility patterns, labour market dynamics and policy responses to demographic and economic pressures (Barry and Azeredo, 2025).

The gradual formalisation of WHV through bilateral agreements has fundamentally altered the landscape of cross-border youth mobility. What began as small-scale cultural exchange programmes has expanded into significant tourist and migration flows, with countries like Australia issuing only 979 WHV in 1982–1983 but reaching 234,556 Working Holiday Makers (WHM) in 2023–2024. This dramatic growth reflects not merely increased demand but a strategic policy shift as governments recognise WHM schemes’ potential to address multiple objectives, such as cultural diplomacy, tourism development and labour market needs simultaneously. In Australia, for example, WHMs contributed approximately $3.2bn to the economy in 2019. They are also considered a “high return” tourist segment since they tend to stay longer and travel more widely across the country. They also significantly contribute to the labour market, particularly in sectors like horticulture and tourism (Hordacre et al., 2021).

However, the expansion of WHM schemes, often beyond their original policy intent, has created theoretical and practical tensions that challenge traditional conceptual frameworks. Travel and work, when combined, have always resisted neat categorisation, with scholars debating whether WHM should be understood as “working tourists” or “traveling workers” (Uriely, 2001). This definitional uncertainty has been further complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic’s disruption of mobility patterns and the emergence of new work-travel combinations such as bleisure, digital nomadism and workcations (Bassyiouny and Wilkesmann, 2023). These developments highlight how traditional boundaries between leisure and work, tourism and migration, temporary and permanent movement continue to blur (Shachar, 2020).

The growing significance of WHM schemes stands in stark contrast to the limited systematic analysis of their evolution, impacts and future trajectories. Despite their increasing policy importance and the substantial literature examining various aspects of WHM experiences, no comprehensive systematic review has synthesised this knowledge or explored potential future developments. Moreover, the academic literature reveals significant fragmentation across disciplinary boundaries, with tourism scholars, migration researchers and labour economists often examining WHM schemes through different conceptual lenses without meaningful dialogue. This theoretical fragmentation mirrors institutional divisions in policymaking, where WHM schemes often fall between tourism promotion, immigration policy and labour market regulation, creating coordination challenges and policy inconsistencies.

To address these knowledge gaps and theoretical limitations, this research employs a comprehensive methodology that combines systematic literature review with scenario planning to examine both the current state of WHM research and possible futures for WHM schemes. Through inductive content analysis (ICA) of 78 peer-reviewed articles and identification of emerging trends, we develop evidence-based scenarios that map potential evolutionary paths for WHM schemes. These scenarios consider key uncertainties, including changing labour market demands, evolving immigration policies, shifting youth mobility patterns and broader geopolitical developments affecting international mobility.

This futures-oriented analysis serves multiple purposes. First, it provides strategic guidance for policymakers and industry stakeholders tasked with adapting WHM schemes to meet emerging challenges and opportunities. Second, it contributes to theoretical development by synthesising fragmented knowledge and proposing new frameworks for understanding contemporary mobility phenomena. Third, it identifies critical research gaps and methodological limitations that require attention from future tourism scholars.

The theoretical development of Working Holiday Maker (WHM) research reveals a complex trajectory marked by foundational conceptual frameworks, institutional formalisation, empirical diversification and emerging critical perspectives. The foundation period in WHM research (1965–1980) established analytical frameworks that continue to influence contemporary scholarship whilst embedding problematic assumptions about mobility, work and cultural exchange. Boorstin’s (1964) influential distinction between travellers who were “working at something” and tourists who were “pleasure-seekers” established a persistent but theoretically damaging binary. This deceptively simple formulation embedded assumptions about leisure and work that reflected the mobility privileges available to Western middle-class populations whilst rendering invisible the economic necessities and structural constraints that characterise mobility for most global populations. Building on this binary thinking, Pape’s (1965) concept of “touristry” represented a crucial early recognition that travel could be systematically integrated into career development, identifying professionals who made “more or less permanent migrations in search of a better job, a better climate or a better neighbourhood” (p. 337). However, Pape’s focus on professional mobility and lifestyle choice established a conceptual orientation towards individual agency over the structural forces that increasingly shape contemporary mobility opportunities and constraints.

Cohen’s (1973, 1974) foundational work provided the most systematic early framework, defining “working tourism” as situations “in which youth from one country travel into another to work for short periods, mostly during summer-school vacations” (Cohen, 1973, p. 91). His broader typology included “tourist-migrants” who “arrive in their host-country as tourists but stay on”, “expatriates” who live abroad by choice and “tourist-employees” who engage in work only in a secondary sense. Whilst this represented important recognition of categorical complexity, Cohen’s emphasis on individual motivation and cultural exploration embedded assumptions about youth mobility patterns that would prove culturally specific rather than universal, creating theoretical foundations that systematically marginalised non-Western approaches to international mobility. The foundation period established three critical biases that would persist throughout subsequent theoretical development. These were that individual agency received analytical priority over structural constraint, cultural exploration was privileged over economic necessity, and Western mobility patterns were treated as universal rather than culturally specific.

The establishment of Australia’s first Working Holiday Visa in 1975 represented a crucial transition from informal arrangements to institutional formalisation and systematic policy frameworks. Rather than analysing emerging policy architectures and their effects on mobility patterns, scholarly attention in the 1980–2000 formalisation period remained focused on individual motivations and cultural exchange objectives.

During this period, few scholars focused on new combinations of work and tourism (Uriely, 2001; Uriely and Reichel, 2000). Uriely’s (2001) distinction between “traveling workers” and “working tourists” represented the most significant theoretical intervention of this period, attempting to systematise earlier insights through motivational analysis. He argued that travelling workers prioritised work instrumentally, whilst working tourists viewed work as secondary to travel experiences, with working tourists transcending “the dualistic division between work and tourism, engaging in work not only to travel, but as part of the tourist experience itself” (Pizam et al., 2000). However, Uriely’s framework suffered from the same individualistic bias that characterised earlier work, treating motivation as an individual psychological characteristic rather than understanding how institutional structures, visa conditions and labour market constraints shape participant choices. The gradual emergence of backpacker literature during this period established influential but problematic connections between WHM and broader youth travel cultures. Early backpacker research emphasised cultural exploration, adventure seeking and non-instrumental motivations that aligned with policy rhetoric about cultural exchange but created theoretical frameworks that could not accommodate instrumental and economic motivations that characterise many participants’ experiences.

The expansion of global WHM schemes largely followed the Australian “model” as bilateral and reciprocal agreements allowing young people (typically aged 18–35) to travel and work in partner countries for specified periods, usually one to three years (Talawanich et al., 2019). The Australian scheme exemplifies this approach, designed as “a cultural exchange program to enhance Australia’s international standing and bilateral links with partner countries and regions” (JSCM, 2020), with the scheme initially reflecting Commonwealth membership, language links and historical ties (Ghazarian, 2022; Hugo, 2006a), before expanding to include 19 primarily affluent countries, including Japan, South Korea and Germany. The expansion of WHM schemes worldwide created new empirical opportunities during the subsequent expansion period (2000–2010), with some empirical diversification and increasing recognition of cultural biases in existing frameworks.

Despite the increase in studies during the expansion period, systematic attempts to define WHM or explore them sociologically remained limited and revealed theoretical confusion. Williams and Hall (2000, p. 13) viewed WHM as young people “taking ‘time out’ from their studies or even their careers, usually to engage in some form of temporary mobility”, whilst Wilson et al. (2009, p. 4) characterised working holidays as involving “extended stays in other countries by ‘holidaymakers’ with consequential immersion, to varying degrees, in the economic, social and cultural dimensions of the host locales”. Brennan (2014b, p. 289) defined working holidays as “a form of travel offered to young international travellers who utilise special visas to pursue extended travel in another country for various personal reasons including, but not limited to, gaining new intercultural experiences, practicing language skills, and seeking paid employment, as needed, to finance further travel”.

The increasing participation of Asian WHM participants revealed systematic differences in motivations, experiences and outcomes that could not be accommodated within existing theoretical frameworks without fundamental reconceptualisation (Ho et al., 2014, 2017; Zhu, 2022). These findings should have prompted fundamental theoretical revision, yet the field responded by treating Asian experiences as deviations from normal patterns rather than questioning the cultural assumptions embedded in theoretical frameworks. The emergence of labour market integration studies represented important empirical development but revealed disciplinary fragmentation that constrained theoretical synthesis. Tourism scholars continued emphasising cultural exchange, whilst migration researchers focused on labour market outcomes, creating parallel literature that could not communicate effectively or develop synthetic understanding of WHM phenomena.

The most recent critical period of WHM scholarship (2010-present) has been characterised by systematic documentation of exploitation, discrimination and structural vulnerabilities that fundamentally challenge the theoretical foundations established in earlier periods (Ho, 2019). Research consistently documents wage theft, workplace discrimination, sexual harassment and other forms of systematic exploitation affecting WHM participants, revealing structural vulnerabilities that cannot be understood through frameworks emphasising individual agency and cultural exchange. As studies indicate the original intentions for “cultural exchange” have been increasingly turning towards a reliance on WHMs as temporary migrant labour (Berg and Farbenblum, 2017; Barry and Azeredo, 2025), this critical period has exposed the inadequacy of theoretical frameworks that treat work experiences as incidental to cultural exploration objectives.

Wright and Clibborn’s (2018, 2020) analysis of WHM schemes as “de facto low-skilled immigration policy” provides crucial insights about how WHV schemes can evolve beyond their original policy intent. Barry and Azeredo (2025) demonstrate how the Australian WHM scheme creates “uneven mobilities” that produce vastly different opportunities for people seeking extended stays or permanent migration depending on their passport, revealing systematic contradictions between cultural exchange rhetoric and labour market realities that require critical analytical approaches rather than accepting policy discourse at face value.

Given the ambiguous positioning of WHMs between tourism, labour migration and youth mobility and their evolving role across tourism and non-tourism sectors, the theory–policy gap has become increasingly problematic as schemes have expanded to include diverse participant populations with different cultural backgrounds and structural constraints. The failure to develop theoretical frameworks capable of analysing institutional architecture and policy effects represents a crucial missed opportunity that continues to constrain contemporary understanding. A systematic analysis combined with scenario planning was chosen to enable both synthesis of existing knowledge and exploration of potential futures for WHM schemes.

Given that narrative reviews face scrutiny due to their inherent subjectivity and susceptibility to bias, and the availability of data suitable for meta-analysis is often constrained (Petticrew, 2001), this study opts for a systematic literature review, combined with scenario planning, as a method to chart the existing body of knowledge on WHM’s in English-language scholarly output. Although systematic literature reviews demand a substantially greater degree of exertion compared to conventional literature reviews, they are an invaluable tool for the examination of nascent developments within academic fields (Pickering and Byrne, 2014). They can aid in delineating the confines of the existing literature, pinpoint areas where generalisations are made and reveal the extent and even limit of those generalisations. Systematic literature reviews can identify gaps in current research to suggest areas for further investigation (Pickering et al., 2015).

To ensure that systematic reviews offer an impartial assessment, they must adhere to a reliable, rigorous and transparent methodology (Xiao and Watson, 2019) and must be systematic, transparent and reproducible. Using a process adopted by Tranfield et al. (2003) and Pickering and Byrne (2014), planning and conducting this review follows a systematic process. As a first step, a research question is formulated to guide the overall review. The research question chosen was: “What are the existing theoretical and methodological foundations applied in the study of WHM in scholarly research, and what are the outcomes for future research?” After the formulation of the research question, a scoping of studies within the subject area was undertaken to minimise potential bias. The process of preparation, searching, screening and extraction stages of the review was conducted by the main author and independently assessed by the second author.

The first and second authors independently identified keywords from several seminal papers and policy reports. The search terms Working Holiday Maker, working holiday, working backpacker and working tourist were used, as these were common keywords. Pickering and Byrne (2014) contend that the terminology employed in a systematic literature review should facilitate the discernment of pertinent scholarly works whilst avoiding an excessive overlap with unrelated fields of study. The second stage entails the comprehensive recognition of all published research within the designated field. The literature search was firstly conducted by using academic databases, including Scopus, the Web of Science and Google Scholar. The authors conducted a search of the databases for articles with search terms present in either the titles or abstracts, and as of January 2023, the search yielded 140 records. These records were exported to the MAXQDA 2022 software for data management. Figure 1 illustrates a flowchart depicting the number of papers that underwent screening and subsequent exclusion at various phases of the review. Key points in the process included identifying and eliminating duplicate references, after which the remaining records underwent a screening process based on the established selection criteria. About 46 records were rejected, as they were undergraduate or postgraduate theses, policy documents, editorials, conference papers and book chapters. Four studies were discarded at this stage due to the research context and focus. For example, Meng and Han (2018) looked at Chinese WHM within China, whilst Hugo (2008) looked at WHM in passing.

The study used inductive content analysis (ICA) to analyse the final sample of 78 peer-reviewed articles. ICA is an approach commonly used with text-based data to both produce an overall summary of the content of the dataset. The authors initially employed the following code categories or sets, encompassing details pertaining to the author (including affiliation and country), publication information (such as year, article title and journal title), article classification (distinguishing between empirical and non-empirical), methodological frameworks (categorising quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods), research focus, utilisation of theoretical frameworks as well as information related to the research sample and whether a particular WHM perspective was taken. In addition, ICA is a type of qualitative analysis that also aims to produce an understanding of the meaning(s) of the content of the dataset (Vears and Gillam, 2022). Analysis is built up inductively, from a close reading of the texts rather and involves a process known as “coding”. This process entails annotating segments of text within each article or document and utilising these annotations to identify and group text segments that exhibit similarity across documents. ICA is appropriate, as this is the first systematic literature review of the topic, as there is insufficient knowledge about the topic and existing knowledge is fragmented, with no standard body of literature about the topic area (Vaismoradi et al., 2013).

To systematically explore potential futures for WHV schemes, a 2x2 scenario matrix was developed based on the ICA. Whilst the ICA was used to produce a deep understanding of meanings within the dataset, this analysis also revealed underlying patterns and potential future trajectories in how WHM schemes are conceptualised and operationalised. Whilst constrained by English-language publication bias, the absence of longitudinal studies and overwhelming geographic concentration in Australian contexts, the ICA findings were integrated with broader trend analysis examining the changing nature of work and mobility, the evolution of immigration policies, shifts in youth travel preferences and economic and labour market dynamics. These driving forces were systematically analysed for their potential impact and degree of uncertainty to determine the key axes for the scenario matrix.

The scenario development phase utilized cross-impact analysis to explore how different combinations of themes identified through ICA might interact with broader trends to create distinct future states. Within each quadrant of the matrix, plausible future narratives were constructed by synthesising findings from the ICA with projected developments in mobility and immigration policies. These scenarios were refined based on the detailed content analysis findings and consideration of emerging policy developments. The final step involved impact assessment, evaluating the implications of each scenario through the lens of historical development patterns identified in the ICA and potential future policy and industry responses. Throughout this process, researchers maintained reflexivity about assumptions and methodological choices to enhance analytical rigour.

The 78 peer-reviewed articles were published in 55 different journals, with authors publishing in tourism (n = 14) and non-tourism journals (n = 41). The journal with most published articles was the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (n = 5), followed by the Journal of China Tourism Research, Journal of Industrial Relations, Journal of Vacation Marketing, Population, Space and Place and Tourist Studies with four publications each. First-person authorship was fragmented, with 35 authors publishing just one article on WHM. Nine authors published twice on the topic, seven published three times and one published four articles. Based on the first-author affiliation, the selected papers were published across 39 different universities and colleges. Most articles were published by authors in the host WHM destination, rather than the source market, although some of the authors used their ethnic background and/or native language to engage informants whilst at the destination. Authors affiliated with the University of Adelaide, Australia, dominated, with eight publications, whilst first authors represented nine different universities from across Australia.

From the 78 peer-reviewed articles, 58 were empirical in nature and the remaining 20 were non-empirical, secondary-data-driven or conceptual. There were two quantitative research studies (Bui and Wilkins, 2016; Tsaur and Huang, 2016), but when combined with quantitative studies as part of the mixed-method approach, there were eleven in total (Allon et al., 2008; Allon and Anderson, 2010; Bui and Wilkins, 2017; Jarvis and Peel, 2013; McGrath-Champ et al., 2011; Nagai et al., 2018a; Nagai et al., 2020; Underhill et al., 2019; Wang and Connell, 2021). Few of these studies adopted scales and measurements from previous studies or from other disciplines, and there were no longitudinal studies. Within the 58 empirical papers, 35 used qualitative methods only. When combined with qualitative approaches used within mixed methods studies (Allon et al., 2008; Allon and Anderson, 2010; Bui and Wilkins, 2017; Clarke, 2004a, b, ; Coderre and Nakache, 2022; Hanson and Bell, 2007; Jarvis and Peel, 2013; McGrath-Champ et al., 2011; Nagai et al., 2018a, 2020; Oishi, 2022; Robertson, 2014, 2016; Underhill and Rimmer, 2016; Underhill et al., 2019), there were 49 in total. The primarily focus of papers is related to WHM in Australia and New Zealand (Table 1). Whilst most papers (n = 50) took on the perspective of a particular nationality or source region, 27 took no WHM source country into account.

About 19 papers largely treat the WHM as an analytical category, rather than seek to label them in any sociological sense. Hanson and Bell (2007) argue that WHM are only distinguishable by their visa status, which gives them their privilege and freedom to work, move and stay for an extended time. These papers explore specific structural advantages and disadvantages of the WHV, such as eligibility criteria, age restrictions, country quotas and visa duration limits. However, most papers argue WHM are a social phenomenon as much as a visa class. The papers are divided between papers who view WHM as partial or full tourists and thereby reflecting the official and original conceptualisation of WHM, and those who see them as temporary migrant workers (TMW).

Tourism scholars only slightly push at the tourism category, with a small number of papers linking WHM to types of youth mobility such as the gap year (Conradson and Latham, 2005; Li, 2020, 2022; Wilson, 2008). Other papers have sought to use the term sojourner, who are typically characterised as individuals temporarily visiting a foreign country and subsequently returning to their country of origin (Peng and Hebbani, 2014; Rice, 2010; Robertson, 2016; Sussman, 2002; Talawanich et al., 2019; Vosko, 2023). For 17 papers, WHM are either interchangeable with backpackers, “a subgroup of backpackers” (Ho et al., 2014, p. 480) or a “subset, or niche, of the larger backpacking market” (Harris and Prideaux, 2011, p. 73). These papers has sought has to explain WHM motivations, certain collective behaviours and preferences by drawing on the historical links between the non-institutionalised working tourist (Cohen, 1972) and backpacking. Ho et al. (2014, p. 465) argue that extensive literature on backpacker motivations “provides an abundant theoretical background and information for studying the WH phenomenon in this tourism motivational context.” For Bui et al., (2014, p. 137), “[b]ackpackers often travel for a longer period, sometimes up to a year as in the case of working-holiday makers in Australia”. These papers argue that like backpackers, WHM have non-instrumental travel purposes and are motivated by personal and cultural growth, adventure, exploring new environments or experiencing different lifestyles (Tsai and Collins, 2017; Zhu et al., 2021).

For 42 papers, predominantly looking at the Australian context, WHM are TMW and are merely one aspect of Australia’s temporary immigration schemes designed to make up some of the (regional) sector workforce suffering labour shortages (Hanson and Bell, 2007). They are framed as part of the 1.8m foreigners in Australia (2023) on a temporary working visa, who have instrumental purposes beyond travel. When considered as TMW, the papers find many WHM hope to assimilate into workplace culture and norms by seeking job experiences and economic capital rather than travel experience. They wish to position themselves as “migrant workers” (Robertson, 2016) and cultivate the performance of a desirable, effective, culturally proficient professional. Papers found they wish to earn money (Brennan, 2014a; Chiu, 2022; Ho et al., 2014, 2020; Li, 2022; Lin et al., 2020; Nagai et al., 2018b; Zhu et al., 2022), gain work experience (Ho, 2017; Kato, 2013), improve language skills (Bui et al., 2014; Bui and Wilkins, 2017; Choi, 2020; Kawashima, 2010; Onozuka, 2018; Oishi, 2022; Shaheer et al., 2021; Maksay, 2007; Peng and Hebbani, 2014; Yoon, 2014a,b), pay debts (Robertson, 2014), save money and send remittances home (Hugo, 2009; Reilly et al., 2018; Zhu et al., 2022) and achieve permanent residency or full immigrant status (Curtain et al., 2018; Howe et al., 2019; Helleiner, 2017; Oke, 2012; Robertson, 2014; Underhill et al., 2019; Vosko, 2023).

Given that WHM may account for 10% of all migrant workers (OECD, 2019), backpacking or tourism may no longer be the only “true” social category for WHM, as their link to backpacking stems from a historical way of seeing WHM as young, single and carefree Westerners (Wilson et al., 2009). Robertson (2014) found that the majority of WHM interviewed saw themselves as migrants rather than tourists. Brennan (2014a) argues WHM cannot simultaneously be backpackers and TMW, whilst Nagai et al. (2018a) argue that Asian WHMs cannot be fully understood when they are categorised as part of the wider backpacker market. In Australia, phrases such as “backpacker visa” (Curtain et al., 2018) have been used to describe a WHV, and the phrase “working backpacker” (Allon, 2004; Allon et al., 2008; Clarke, 2004b; Harris and Prideaux, 2011) has received political, cultural and institutional support (Kinnaird, 1999). Cultural intermediaries, consultants, policymakers, newspapers and societal institutions (agricultural, construction, touristic and economic) have helped support the image of WHM as working backpackers and therefore represented as young, fit, cosmopolitan, single and affluent.

Whilst this framing has legitimised the category for some would-be applicants, parents, employers and host communities, it masks the temporary migration of thousands of workers (Ho, 2017; Li, 2022; Robertson, 2014) that fill labour shortages (Productivity Commission, 2016). As WHM experiences appear to be produced by individual motivations as well as intersecting factors of ethnicity, class, gender, wealth and profession, reliance on the backpacker category by researchers and authorities may oversimplify the social world of contemporary WHM. Similarly, Western-centric concepts such as “cultural travel practice” (Bell, 2002, p. 17), pilgrimage, or rite of passage (Bell, 2002; Inkson and Myers, 2003; Kato, 2013; Yoon, 2014a) may fail to capture the diversity of participant experiences and motivations across different cultural contexts.

The 42 papers that frame WHM as TMW argue that international migration has become increasingly transitory, circular, seasonal and temporary (Choe and Lugosi, 2022), with almost one in five WHM from 1991 to 2014 ending up with some form of permanent residence in Australia. Getting a second-year WHV is usually considered the first step before seeking Temporary Work (Skilled) (subclass 457) visas, which may in time lead to permanent residency in Australia by way of a 186 visa (Mares, 2013; Robertson, 2021). Critical papers, argue that Asian WHM rarely have gap years between their study and work, largely avoid engaging in activities or behaviours associated with backpacking (Bui et al., 2014; Ho, 2017; Tsai and Collins, 2017), and are already in a career pathway, older and even married (Bui et al., 2014; Ho et al., 2014; Oishi, 2022; Tsaur and Huang, 2016). Given the lack of longitudinal studies, papers have only begun to highlight the protracted and challenging journeys of individuals who, whilst starting on a WHV, may seek to navigate a sequence of continuous yet tenuous temporary legal statuses before ultimately attaining permanent residency and citizenship (Dewi and Setiawati, 2019; Robertson, 2014, 2021).

The tendency to categorise WHM as backpackers or working tourists can therefore mask the immobility of WHM, as they work an average of two jobs over an average stay of 9.4 mon (Hordacre et al., 2021), with 40% spending the whole of their time in Australia in one urban location (Reilly, 2015). The categorisation may also mask workplaces exploitation, deep-seated inequalities and structural constraints within WHM schemes (Barry, 2021). Papers exploring the Asian WHM experiences in Australia found or reported on exploitation, discrimination, wage theft and sexual harassment (Dewi and Setiawati, 2019; Hugo, 2009; Oishi, 2022; Reilly, 2015; Underhill and Rimmer, 2016; Zhu et al., 2022; Vosko, 2023; Wright and Clibborn, 2018). The papers also revealed that Asian WHM tend to exhibit lower awareness of their labour rights and capacity to counter coercive practices exhibited by unscrupulous employers (Berg and Farbenblum, 2017; Fang et al., 2021; Li and Whitworth, 2016; Howe and Reilly, 2015; Oishi, 2022; Reilly et al., 2018; Underhill et al., 2019).

The analysis reveals a field characterised by persistent theoretical confusion extending beyond definitional disputes, marked by significant conceptual drift. Whilst initially conceived as vehicles for cultural exchange and lifestyle experiences, WHM schemes have evolved to serve different purposes for both governments and participants. On one hand, employers are increasingly utilising WHM schemes as a source of temporary migrant workers (TMWs) (Orton and Howes, 2017). On the other hand, many WHMs themselves are approaching these schemes not merely as temporary adventures, but as potential pathways to more permanent migration or as part of a hybrid mobility strategy. This dual transformation indicates a departure from the original intent of WHM schemes and aligns more closely with labour migration and stepped immigration processes. As the totality of the review indicates that the WHM experience often transcends simple tourism categories and aligns more closely with migration patterns (Tan and Lester, 2012), revealing fundamental tensions between motivational orientations and self-perceptions, we developed a 2x2 scenario planning matrix to capture this complexity. Given the research focus on Australia, which represents creates a destination-country bias that privileges Australian policy frameworks and cultural contexts whilst systematically marginalising source-country perspectives and alternative destination experiences, we deliberately account for this geographic bias by incorporating broader global mobility trends, diverse policy approaches from multiple destination countries and varying cultural contexts beyond Australian experiences.

During the ICA coding process, papers consistently revealed a fundamental tension between tourism or cultural exchange objectives and labour market functions. Papers conceptualising WHMs as tourists/backpackers emphasised non-instrumental motivations including cultural immersion, adventure seeking and personal growth (17 papers linking WHMs to backpacking; multiple papers emphasising cultural exploration). Conversely, papers framing WHMs as temporary migrant workers (42 papers) documented instrumental motivations including earning money, gaining work experience, improving language skills for career advancement and seeking pathways to permanent residency. The 2x2 matrix (Figure 2) captures fundamental tensions between motivational orientations, self-perception categories and structural issues. These two axes were validated through cross-referential analysis, examining how motivation and self-perception interacted across different cultural contexts, destination countries and temporal periods. The self-perception dimension emerged from systematic analysis of how WHMs understand and articulate their own identity and status. The ICA revealed four distinct self-identification patterns (Figure 2) that consistently appeared across studies: tourist/backpacker identity (emphasising temporary status and recreational objectives), temporary worker identity (focusing on employment relationships and skill development), migrant worker identity (acknowledging labour market participation and economic necessity) and potential immigrant identity (oriented towards permanent settlement pathways).

Each matrix quadrant represents a distinct WHM type supported by substantial evidence in the reviewed literature (Table 2). Whilst cultural exchange seekers prioritise cultural immersion and travel experiences, identifying as tourists or backpackers focused on embedding diverse leisure activities that align with traditional WHM scheme objectives, career explorers pursue professional development and work experience, viewing themselves as temporary workers with travel components whilst focusing on skills acquisition and career exploration that encompasses both work and travel aspects of WHM schemes. Economic opportunists are motivated primarily by financial gain, identifying as temporary migrant workers, whilst aspiring migrants seek pathways to permanent residency, viewing themselves as potential long-term migrants focused on meeting visa requirements and societal integration.

The matrix acknowledges motivational fluidity through potential trajectory shifts, illustrating how participants may evolve between categories during their stay (Robertson, 2014). The matrix emphasises that the movement and trajectories of these individuals are not just organic but are heavily shaped by official regulations, such as visas and residency or migration pathways. For example, cultural seekers may evolve into economic opportunists voluntarily or in Australia’s case, be institutionally forced into this category through specified work requirements. This dynamic conceptualisation challenges static typological approaches whilst providing policy-relevant insights for scheme design, stakeholder management and strategic planning that can accommodate diverse participant needs and changing motivational patterns.

The matrix also draws attention to how WMV produces temporariness and produces a hierarchy of categories ranging from the temporarily temporary to the permanently temporary and temporarily permanent (Rajkumar et al., 2012). Whilst initially permanently temporary (Coderre and Nakache, 2022), WHM can seek, if authorities facilitate, to become temporarily temporary (e.g. through a high-skilled temporary worker visa) or temporarily permanent (e.g. a student visa) (Rajkumar et al., 2012). Temporariness, often desired by scheme designers and authorities, can also bring exploitation, discrimination and poorer working conditions and thereby limit the cultural change and personal growth opportunities that WHMs seek (Hugo, 2006b; Wright and Clibborn, 2018, 2020; Zhu et al., 2020). Given these challenges, policymakers should carefully consider and implement regulations that shape WHM experiences to align with their society’s values and goals. This approach would help balance the interests of employers, WHMs and the broader community, ensuring that the scheme fulfils an intended purpose.

Table 3 illuminates the wider realities of the WHM experience and scenarios for policy focus, given the complex interplay of local, national and global factors, such as global mobility trends, the global race for talent, and local political and economic factors (Allon and Anderson, 2010; Wright and Clibborn, 2018; Jarvis and Peel, 2013). Cultural Bubbles scenarios are exemplified by traditional bi-lateral European WHM schemes that prioritise cultural immersion over labour market access. Countries such as Slovenia, Andorra and Malta, for example, only have bilateral agreements with 1–2 other countries, whilst most EU countries have country-specific participant quotas (Katsiaficas and Frelak, 2024). Others, such as France, have high proof of sufficient funds requirements, typically equivalent to €2,500. A looser scheme targeting global wanderers could attract individuals who seek to explore new cultures whilst maintaining professional flexibility through remote work. It could prioritise broad accessibility, personal growth and long-term engagement, attracting digital nomads and remote workers who maintain their existing employment (King, 2017). This scenario is exemplified by proposed EU multi-country mobility discussions leveraging Schengen advantages (Katsiaficas and Frelak, 2024).

Managed migration scenarios align with the WHM scheme, such as the UK Youth Mobility Scheme (YMS), which is restrictive, and are not designed as a direct pathway to permanent residency, with only Australian, Canadian or New Zealand nationals able to extend their visa. The skill-based mobility scenario largely aligns with Australia’s regional work requirements for second-year visa eligibility, which channels WHMs into specific agricultural regions experiencing labour shortages whilst maintaining cultural exchange rhetoric (Wright and Clibborn, 2020).

The four policy scenarios reflect an evolving spectrum of global youth mobility, temporary migration and global labour flows. It updates the traditional view of WHMs as young, Western tourists seeking cultural exchange needs and acknowledges an expanding pool of participants with varying needs, including those seeking economic opportunities, professional development or a pathway to permanent residency rather than just travel and leisure. The scenarios reflect several key findings from the review, including the fundamental tension between conceptualising schemes as cultural exchange initiatives versus addressing acute labour market needs, the evolving nature of global mobility patterns and their transformative impact on traditional WHM scheme design and the emerging potential for schemes to align more strategically with broader national migration policies and talent attraction frameworks. These findings underscore the complexity of contemporary youth mobility governance, where scheme originally designed for temporary cultural immersion can serve as de facto labour migration channels, necessitating a reconceptualization of policy objectives and regulatory frameworks to better reflect actual scheme utilisation and outcomes.

These scenarios provide a starting point for policymakers and stakeholders to consider the potential consequences, challenges, opportunities and implementation mechanisms associated with different approaches to WHM schemes within the broader context of global tourism and migration (Table 4). The suitability of each scenario will depend on various contextual factors, including the host country’s social and economic goals, demographic trends and immigration policies. Notably, countries may implement multiple approaches simultaneously through different WHV sub-classes targeting specific participant types or allow transitions. For example, whilst maintaining traditional schemes with a cultural focus, countries seeking to facilitate skill-based mobility should incorporate clear pathways to permanence, allowing participants to transition to longer-term migration channels and maximising the potential for skill retention and economic contribution to host countries.

The successful implementation of Working Holiday Maker (WHM) schemes requires a multifaceted approach that addresses both structural and procedural elements, particularly given evidence that these schemes will require significant policy reform to ensure their sustainability and effectiveness (Berg and Farbenblum, 2017; Robertson, 2021). Critical success factors include establishing clear goal definition and stakeholder alignment to ensure coherent scheme objectives and implementing appropriate legal instruments that match the specific nature and scope of WHM schemes. Where schemes prioritise cultural exchange objectives, stakeholders should develop structured incentive programmes that encourage meaningful cross-cultural engagement through targeted discounts for cultural attractions, subsidised participation in events and festivals, and rewards programmes for community-based tourism activities (Katsiaficas and Frelak, 2024; Kawashima, 2010; Li, 2022; Robertson, 2014; Yoon, 2015). Strategically designed schemes targeting global wanderers through comprehensive digital infrastructure, co-working spaces, tourism experience options and cultural immersion programmes may provide destinations with substantial tourism potential through extended stays, word-of-mouth marketing benefits and development of niche tourism markets.

Conversely, for schemes addressing skills shortages, employment support requires systematic reform through industry partnerships, with closer collaboration between industry associations and employers to address persistent issues of exploitation and wage theft (Underhill and Rimmer, 2016). Strong worker protections and quality assurance mechanisms must be embedded to address documented concerns about exploitation and poor working conditions, with enhanced monitoring and enforcement mechanisms including stricter regulations and penalties for noncompliant employers (Li and Whitworth, 2016; Vosko, 2023). Integration of structured training opportunities would enhance WHMs’ employability, reflecting research showing many participants view WHM schemes as career development pathways.

Schemes should work towards more equitable design by gradually reducing arbitrary ethnic and nationality-based discrimination, implementing transparent criteria that minimize unnecessary passport privilege and acknowledging how colonial legacies and bilateral arrangements create unequal access to mobility opportunities. Whilst complete elimination of nationality-based criteria may be unrealistic given the bilateral nature of traditional WHM schemes, governments should focus on ensuring equal treatment and protection for all participants regardless of origin. Particular attention should be paid to cultural preferences, as research shows Asian WHMs may have different needs, such as culturally appropriate food options, protection from exploitation and support networks that understand their specific cultural contexts and career objectives (Jarvis and Peel, 2013; Nagai et al., 2020). Authorities should work with stakeholders to explore designing multiple WHM schemes or WHM transition pathways that allow or nudge participants to move between different mobility categories. Comprehensive evaluation frameworks are necessary for all schemes to measure impact, monitor participant outcomes and enable evidence-based improvements that advance both equity and effectiveness in scheme design.

Analysis that WHM schemes can equally serve labour market functions whilst maintaining cultural exchange rhetoric directly challenges Uriely’s (2001) foundational distinction between “travelling workers” and “working tourists”, revealing this binary as theoretically insufficient for contemporary experiences. Uriely’s framework assumes clear motivational distinctions whereby travelling workers prioritise work instrumentally, whilst working tourists view work as secondary to travel. However, the systematic review demonstrates that WHMs frequently exhibit motivational fluidity, moving between categories as circumstances and structures evolve, with participants potentially shifting between tourist, worker and migrant identities (Robertson, 2014, 2021), supporting arguments about the constructed nature of mobility categories.

The analysis also demands we move beyond Cohen’s (1973, 1974) early work, given the cases he described took place against a lack of policy frameworks and legal status, with individual improvisation and ad-hoc arrangements between travellers and employers taking place without a clear legal status for many work-travel participants. Whilst his use and framing of working tourism and “tourist-migrants”, anticipated some aspects of contemporary WHM experiences, his framework could not account for the systematic policy architecture that now facilitates mobility. What Cohen observed as individual behavioural variations, tourists deciding to stay longer or work informally, have now become institutionalised systems designed and managed by governments through formal visa schemes and bilateral agreements. Cohen treated tourist-migrants as interesting exceptions to normal patterns. The systematic review evidence indicates a theoretical shift is needed, from viewing tourism-work combinations as individual behavioural variations to understanding them as institutionalised mobility pathways embedded in state policy frameworks. This extension in turn draws attention to the importance of power relations, infrastructures and institutional frameworks in shaping mobility experiences and demonstrates how contemporary mobility is increasingly structured by formal policy mechanisms rather than emerging organically from individual choices (Faist, 2013).

The systematic review also reveals how traditional youth mobility frameworks, rooted in concepts like the “gap year”, require substantial revision, given that papers challenge Western-centric assumptions about youth mobility motivations, with increasing numbers of participants necessitating theoretical frameworks that can accommodate diverse cultural approaches to mobility and career development. Indeed, framing WHMs as working tourists or working backpackers may not prove a useful instrument for research in most contexts, given such a framing overemphasises recreational and privileged dimensions without exploring the dynamic nature of societies from which WHMs emerge or their movement between categories. Indeed, these descriptive categories, if imposed, can embed hierarchies and reproduce social inequalities.

The paper’s most important theoretical contribution is demonstrating that WHM schemes function not as simple visa categories, but as institutional frameworks that actively shape individual experiences and trajectories. This challenges theoretical approaches treating tourism and migration as distinct phenomena by revealing how policy architectures create differentiated mobility experiences that transcend traditional categorical boundaries. Australia’s recent decision to allow UK passport holders up to three separate Working Holiday visas without specified work requirements from July 1st, 2024, exemplifies how visa policies embed inequality and hierarchy based on nationality, creating privileged mobility pathways for some WHM whilst subjecting others to exploitative work requirements and geographic restrictions.

The scenario analysis addresses Faist’s (2013) concerns about disciplinary fragmentation by integrating insights from tourism studies (experience and motivation), migration studies (temporality and settlement) and labour studies (skills and economic integration) into a coherent predictive framework. Rather than treating motivation as a purely individual phenomena, the analysis demonstrates how bilateral agreements, visa conditions and policy architectures systematically structure movement patterns and identity formation. This institutional embeddedness represents a fundamental shift from organic individual decision-making towards managed mobility systems, providing scholars and policymakers with tools for understanding how contemporary mobility functions as integrated systems and anticipating how changing policy arrangements will affect future tourism-migration intersections.

This systematic review reconstructs theoretical understanding of contemporary WHM schemes, challenging binary thinking in both tourism and migration studies. Rather than simply advocating for migration frameworks over tourism perspectives, the findings reveal motivational fluidity and demonstrate how institutional frameworks increasingly shape individual experiences. Contemporary WHM schemes represent a fundamental shift towards managed mobility systems where governments actively create, facilitate and regulate tourist-worker–migrant transitions. Given schemes can sustain a spectrum of movement from brief departures from home to seasonal or permanent relocations, necessitates longitudinal methodologies that can track changes over time rather than assuming stable characteristics. Similarly, cultural variation in mobility experiences requires comparative methodologies that examine how different contexts and mechanisms shape mobility patterns and WHM experiences rather than assuming universal processes. This requires theoretical frameworks that can analyse institutional architecture, policy objectives and systematic outcomes rather than focusing only on individual motivations and behaviours. Only then can tourism’s evolving role in contemporary mobility governance and destination competitiveness be fully understood and strategically developed.