Tourism and migration

This article explains why significant Thai-Western ‘both-ways’ migration pathways have evolved, grown and sustained over the last decades. It introduces a set of research contributions on transnational social relationships and cross-border connections between people that arise from the increasingly large-scale mobilities and migrations between Thailand and ‘the West’ – countries from Europe, North America and Australia. While Thai and Western people’s social relationships are usually studied as personal stories within a cross-border marriage migration perspective, we consider it necessary to see them as more than marriage migration. Specifically, we argue that the growing ‘both-ways’ Thai-Western migration pathways can only be understood by reference to three features of globalisation processes specific to Thailand: first, cross-border connections and social networks generated by massive West-to-Thailand tourist mobilities that incentivise Western men to see living permanently with a Thai partner as ‘realistic’; second, the radical transformations of Thai rural societies under conditions of economic development that produces ‘surplus’ mobile women; and third, the restrictive state immigration and citizenship regimes in the West and Thailand that leaves few pathways open for migration, other than by ‘marriage’. In sum, Thailand’s specific experience of globalisation is the explanatory backstory to the extraordinary prevalence of Thai-Western ‘both-ways’ migrations.

(Barcelona); Jordi Giner y Carles Simó completaron un análisis sociodemográfico sobre el retorno de los jubilados europeos a sus países de origen en la comarca de la Marina Alta (Alicante); Rosario Navalón presentó los resultados de un estudio realizado a partir de la aplicación de un sistema de indicadores dedicado a evaluar la capacidad de carga de los municipios litorales en la comarca de la Vega del Bajo Segura (Alicante).

The development of ethnic minority souvenir businesses in Thailand was once initiated by external actors and mostly limited to the northern region, but over the last decades, an increasing number of ethnic minorities has gone into business for themselves and migrated southwards to Thailand's urban and beachside tourist areas such as Chiang Mai, Bangkok, Phuket or Koh Samui. This paper focuses on the ethnic minority group of Akha who have moved temporarily or permanently into Thailand's urban tourist areas in order to sell souvenirs as street vendors. This research aims to reconstruct and understand the Akha migratory processes into Thailand's urban tourist areas and to analyse agency perspectives of these micro-entrepreneurs as well as their embeddedness in social, political and economic structures. The author argues that the development of Akha souvenir business over time and space can only be understood by analysing conditional changes and structuring in both Akha home...

This paper explores reasons for choosing Malaysia as a retirement location.In-depth interviews were carried out with 30 international retirees.Pearce's concept of the Travel Career Ladder (TCL) guided the data analysis and results discussion.The dominant motivation themes clustered in the seeking of self-fulfilment needs.Issues as to overlaps between motives and stages in the TCL are discussed.‘Malaysia My Second Home’ is an international retirement migration programme aimed at attracting the lucrative retiree market to choose Malaysia as their residence. This study implemented the concept of the Travel Career Ladder (TCL) (Pearce, 1991), with a purposeful sample of 30 participants who had retired to Malaysia. Questioning was directed towards their motives for selecting Malaysia and the analysis indicated that the majority of the motivation themes clustered in the seeking of self-fulfilment needs. Among motivation themes discovered are meaningful second life, positive instant thoughts, central travel location, positive retirement book description, food variety, tranquillity and simple life, political stability and security, and ease of communication. The study also revealed a challenge in applying TCL to its findings as some motivational themes simultaneously represent various TCL hierarchies. The theoretical, marketing and managerial implications of the study are discussed.

While the quality of life (QoL) concept in tourism research has gained momentum, scholarly work has focused on host QoL and tourist-host relations, rather than exploring and analysing the perception, interpretation and understanding of QoL among different social groups in a given tourist destination. Macao is a densely populated tourism destination and designated World Centre of Tourism and Leisure, where local residents and migrants work and cohabit side by side. By broadening the scope of research through in-depth interviews, our research findings highlight how different social groups in Macao experience QoL differently. While all groups perceive positive economic impacts and appreciate career opportunities from tourism development, the analysis raises questions as to the QoL of residents and migrants, and the social sustainability of Macao. The study recommends that authorities embed a social sustainability focus in deliberations,

The development of ethnic minority souvenir businesses in Thailand was once initiated by external actors and mostly limited to the northern region, but over the last decades, an increasing number of ethnic minorities has gone into business for themselves and migrated southwards to Thailand's urban and beachside tourist areas such as Chiang Mai, Bangkok, Phuket or Koh Samui. This paper focuses on the ethnic minority group of Akha who have moved temporarily or permanently into Thailand's urban tourist areas in order to sell souvenirs as street vendors. This research aims to reconstruct and understand the Akha migratory processes into Thailand's urban tourist areas and to analyse agency perspectives of these micro-entrepreneurs as well as their embeddedness in social, political and economic structures. The author argues that the development of Akha souvenir business over time and space can only be understood by analysing conditional changes and structuring in both Akha homeland and migration destination areas. On the individual or agency level, moreover, the author shows that Akha vendors' motivation to migrate and enter the own-account souvenir work is not only tied to economic but also social and emotional factors. The empirical data collection of this study involved participant observation, informal conversations, semi-structured interviews and personal network analysis which were conducted at the various living and working areas of Akha souvenir vendors across Thailand. Existing research on highland groups in Thailand has focused on village case studies while urban perspectives beyond the northern city of Chiang Mai have been neglected. This research thus aims to enrich existing literature by integrating data from empirical research carried out in urban and tourist areas in the capital city Bangkok and the southern beachside destinations.

TOURISM AND MIGRATIONAJOURNEY THROUGH THE SOCIAL IMAGINATION - In the last year I have been engaged along three research paths dealing with themes that intersect, in various ways, the relationship between tourism and migration or, even better still, the connections between the “tourist” and the “migrant”. These paths are all inconclusive, to date: the first two due to Covid-19 and the last one, because of it. Nonetheless, the accumulated materials, the reflections, the scattered notes, gradually became welded inthe construction of a socially evolutionary profile of this relationship, marked by the intertwining of distinct “figures” of the collective imagination: contrast, germination, correlation. Albeit in a preliminary form, in this paper I attempt to present this representational dynamic, which will need conceptual deepening as well as documentary enrichment.

Didyma is an area which has been home to immigrants for 100 years and so experienced changes in many aspects. Immigration towards a region, alone, has the power to cause change. The development of tourism in Didyma has increased the power of migration to cause change and has turned migration into a self-acting social process. Starting from 1924, when first immigrants arrived at Didyma, if we call every movement of migration of a group of individuals with common characteristics a "stratum of migration," it will be possible to distinguish three main strata; namely, the Balkanization, dam-induced and tourism related migrations. Within this framework, the purpose of this study is to investigate the sociocultural change created by social groups distinguished according to their sociocultural characteristics and reasons for migration related tourism. The data for this study were collected through interviews conducted in person and analyzed in accordance with grounded theory approach. As a result of this study, the dimensions of change were divided into five main categories; deterioration of social values, declination of business ethics, changes in senses of identity and belonging, socio-spatial accumulation and emergence of social hegemony.

Migration and tourism are interconnected forms of human mobility, similar but different. It is impossible to draw neat boundaries around the two because they constantly intersect, sometimes within one and the same individual. Tourism and migration often fuel each other, thereby raising two interesting questions that are rarely asked, namely ‘What would tourism be without migration?’ and ‘What would migration be without tourism?’. In significant ways, sustainability is directly related to the ‘mobility’ aspects of tourism-related labour. However, in tourism studies, research on mobility often focuses merely on tourist movements. In general, there has been little detailed examination of the mechanisms that comprise and (re)produce the border-crossing movements of tourism labourers. If there is little attention to tourism-related labour mobilities, considerations related to the sustainability
implications of worker mobility are highlighted even less often. Indeed, despite the anthropocentric focus of sustainability as a concept, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to the aspect of social sustainability. As the COVID-19 crisis shows, when it comes to the nexus between migration and tourism, the current and future challenges are huge.

Eye-catching self-employed female Akha souvenir vendors have become part of the informal sector in Thailand that is linked to the global tourism economy. Data from nine months’ qualitative research are analysed in the framework of “mixed embeddedness” to explore the opportunities and risks with which ethnic minority street vendors in Bangkok are confronted. The role of social capital merits analysis, and Akha vendors’ practices of economic action require examination. Comprehensive assessment of ethnic minority entrepreneurs with respect to their everyday economic activities and prospects must systematically integrate individual and collective action into socio-economic and politico-institutional contexts.

El presente trabajo analizó el comportamiento
de los principales mercados receptivos del país
(Colombia, Perú, Venezuela, Estados Unidos y
España), y el estatus de los turistas con la posterior
modificación de su estatus migratorio a
residente. Para la obtención de datos se aplicaron
encuestas a 1003 turistas en cuatro puntos
claves del Distrito Metropolitano de Quito. El
análisis de los resultados permitió identificar
que: los 5 países antes mencionados mantienen
una constante de visita, ya que 7 de cada 10 turistas
que ingresan pertenecen a estos países; y
se caracterizan principalmente por ser jóvenes
con un gasto promedio bajo, un tiempo de visita
temporal, un consumo turístico mayormente
local, que se inclinan por visitar provincias aledañas
al territorio que al momento es su nueva
residencia.

El presente trabajo analizó el comportamiento de los principales mercados receptivos del país (Colombia, Perú, Venezuela, Estados Unidos y España), y el estatus de los turistas con la posterior
modificación de su estatus migratorio a residente. Para la obtención de datos se aplicaron encuestas a 1003 turistas en cuatro puntos claves del Distrito Metropolitano de Quito. El análisis de los resultados permitió identificar que: los 5 países antes mencionados mantienen una constante de visita, ya que 7 de cada 10 turistas que ingresan pertenecen a estos países; y se caracterizan principalmente por ser jóvenes con un gasto promedio bajo, un tiempo de visita temporal, un
consumo turístico mayormente local, que se inclinan por visitar provincias aledañas al territorio que al momento es su nueva residencia

This article explains why significant Thai-Western ‘both-ways’ migration pathways have evolved, grown and sustained over the last decades. It introduces a set of research contributions on transnational social relationships and cross-border connections between people that arise from the increasingly large-scale mobilities and migrations between Thailand and ‘the West’ – countries from Europe, North America and Australia. While Thai and Western people’s social relationships are usually studied as personal stories within a cross-border marriage migration perspective, we consider it necessary to see them as more than marriage migration. Specifically, we argue that the growing ‘both-ways’ Thai-Western migration pathways can only be understood by reference to three features of globalisation processes specific to Thailand: first, cross-border connections and social networks generated by massive West-to-Thailand tourist mobilities that incentivise Western men to see living permanently with ...