Sweet or profitable home? Migrants’ intention to return for tourism employment

Abstract

The ‘homecoming’ wave of migrant workers is a new phenomenon in the current stage of China’s modernization. How can the rural tourism industry develop a mechanism to attract migrants back to their hometowns? The answer to that question is key to understanding the new human-place relationship between migrant workers and rural destinations in tourism development. This study developed a model to examine migrant workers’ intentions to return for employment by integrating multiple elements, including two types of emotion, perceived benefits, perceived cost, and risk taking. We conducted an empirical test using PLS-SEM and found that both real and assumed emotions played significant roles in the perceptions of benefit in returning, and assumed emotions negatively affected perceived cost. Perceived benefit positively affected tourism support and intention to return for tourism employment; tourism support was an important factor affecting migrant workers’ intention to return. Risk taking could enhance the influence of tourism support for that intention. This study makes a theoretical contribution to research into place emotion in rural areas and presents theoretical starting points for further explorations.

Keywords:

• Migrant workers
• rural tourism destinations
• intention to return for tourism employment
• perceived benefits
• perceived cost
• place emotion
• risk taking
• China

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Author contributions

Yuangang Zhang: Writing; Investigation; Visualization; Funding acquisition; Yameng Hao: Methodology; Data Curation; Validation; Yingzhi Guo*: Conceptualization; Funding acquisition; Lu Liu: Data collection; Funding acquisition.

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by the Humanities and Social Sciences Youth Foundation, Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China [22YJCZH248], the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant no. 72074053], and National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant no. 42001168].

Notes on contributors

Yuangang Zhang

Dr. Yuangang Zhang is an Associate Professor in College of Tourism, Shanghai Normal University. He is also taking a postdoc position in the Postdoctoral Station of Business Administration at Fudan University. Dr. Zhang’s research interest focuses on rural tourism and destination management.

Yameng Hao

Yameng Hao is a master’s degree candidate in in College of Tourism, Shanghai Normal University, China. She mainly engages in rural tourism research.

Lu Liu

Dr. Lu Liu is a lector in Tourism College of Beijing Union University, China, her research focus on rural tourism and destination conservation.