Immigrant hosts and intra-regional travel

ABSTRACT

A large number of tourism-related experiences involve a personal relationship between a visitor and resident host. As immigration continues to be an increasingly integral experience for many people and communities, and advances in technology make relationship maintenance more accessible, the traditional distinctions of travel types based on ‘pleasure’, ‘visiting friends and relatives’ (VFR), and even ‘business’ become blurred and detrimental to conceptual understandings for large numbers of tourism experiences and their impacts. The purpose is to explore the experiences of immigrants with intra-regional travel when they host VFRs. Constructionism was used as a guiding epistemology in this narrative analysis. The research co-constructed narratives with nine participants in Toronto, Canada about their hosting and intra-regional travel. The hosting experience is powerful, linking old and new worlds, and challenging traditional discursive tourism binaries such as home and away. The experience of intra-regional communities through side-trips with VFR guests added additional context where the host was in a non-routine place on vacation, with a guest who brings expectations of participating in leisure, but in a place that has cultural links to the participant's ongoing integration and connection to the broader sense of Canadian culture. Hosting both inspired intra-regional travel, and enhanced the memorable co-construction of meaning associated with the experience as links and distinctions to the culture of origin were more easily made due to the co-presence of their guest. Implications for integration, place making and marketing are discussed.

摘要

大量的旅游体验涉及到游客与常住东道主之间的个人关系。随着迁移逐渐成为很多个人和社区经历的一部分, 以及技术进步使得维持游客与原住地之间的关系变得更为容易, 传统的把旅行分为愉悦、探亲访友和商务的类型划分变得更为模糊, 甚至不利于从概念上理解各种旅游体验及其旅游影响。本文目的是探讨了迁居者在区域内接待亲戚朋友的旅行体验。建构主义是指导本叙事分析的认识论。本研究与加拿大多伦多地区9位参与者共同建构了他们对接待行为和区域内旅行的叙事。他们的接待体验是强有力的, 连接了现在和过去的新旧两个世界, 挑战了传统的诸如在家和离家等牵强的旅游二元观点。由于客人们带来了参与休闲的期望, 区域内社区通过探亲访友客人的额外旅行, 与客人一道给常住地增加了新的背景, 在那里接待地是个非常规的度假场所, 能够持续地进行文化互动, 并且连接到更大范围的加拿大的文化意识。由于客人的到来, 能够轻易实现与来源地文化的联系但又有所不同, 所以这种接待既刺激了区域内旅行又增强了可资回忆的旅游体验的意义共建。最后文章讨论了本研究对互动、地方生产与营销的意义。

KEYWORDS:

• VFR travel
• hosting
• immigration
• integration
• intra-regional travel
• Canada
• narrative analysis
• destination marketing

关键词:

• 探亲访友旅行
• 东道主接待
• 移民
• 融合
• 区域内旅行
• 加拿大
• 叙事分析
• 目的地营销

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tom Griffin

Tom Griffin is an assistant professor in the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, and assistant director of the Tourism and Hospitality Research Institute and has a Ph.D. in recreation and leisure studies at the University of Waterloo. His research interests revolve around visiting friends and relatives (VFR) travel and the implications for individual and community development, as well as for tourism service providers and destination marketers.