Allan M. Williams

Tourism and migration: New relationships between production and consumption

There is weak conceptualization of the differentiation between migration and tourism, which has contributed to relative neglect of the relationships between these. This paper examines some of the major influences on these relationships, dividing them into two general but inter-linked categories: broad economic and social trajectories, and tourism factors. A number of specific forms of tourism-related migration are then examined in the context of these social and economic trajectories. The paper explores labour migration, return migration, entrepreneurial migration, retirement migration, and the special feature of second homes. It concludes by emphasizing the need to place studies of the links between tourism and migration more firmly into wider social science debates, and by setting out some fruitful lines of future research.

Tourism and Innovation

This groundbreaking volume provides an overview of relevant innovation theories and related literatures on productivity and competitiveness, and their ...

Tourist group holiday decision-making and behaviour: the influence of children

Abstract This paper examines the influence children have on the behaviour of tourist parties while on holiday. It argues that the role of children has been under-researched and under-valued. A diary based space-time budget survey was used to collect information on the activities of 143 tourist parties staying in Cornwall, England, for a period of at least one week. The paper stresses the role of group decisions in purchasing tourism products while on holiday and the contrasting needs of two or more generations. Children were found to influence the behaviour of tourist parties either through their physical needs (e.g. arrangement of meal times, need for sleep) or through their ability to negotiate with parents. The results suggest the need for theories sensitive to the influence of group decision-making and the ability of children to influence group behaviour.

A place in the sun: international retirement migration from northern to southern Europe.

International retirement migration (IRM) is a significant feature of the changing map of Europe. It has important implications in terms of the redistribution of both health care and social costs, and incomes and wealth. This article considers four aspects of IRM. The first considers the limited literature on this under-researched topic and identifies the distinctiveness of both its international and European features. The second reviews the existing statistical data for north-south IRM in Europe, particularly from the UK to Italy, Malta, Portugal and Spain; it establishes both the scale and the geography of these migrations. In the third section we investigate some of the major influences on both the volume and the spatial pattern of IRM. Finally, in the fourth section, a brief review is presented of the economic, social and cultural implications of IRM for both the emigrants and their host communities.

Older Migrants in Europe: A New Focus for Migration Studies

This article introduces the eight papers in this collection, all of which arose from the deliberations and research projects of the members of a European Science Foundation Scientific Network. The thematic focus is the intersection of migration and personal ageing. The article has three aims and themes, the first being to provide a summary account of the diversity of older migrants in contemporary Europe. A key distinction is between older people who migrate, and former labour migrants and those who accompanied them who have ‘aged in place’. Both groups have attracted innovative research since the early 1990s. Other ‘aged migrant trajectories’, such as those of return labour migrants and those who move internationally in late-life to live near or with close relatives for support and care, have received much less attention, a lacuna that some of the papers in this issue begin to correct. The second aim is to synthesise the principal personal, societal and welfare implications of the growing number of ‘older migrants’ across Europe, emphasising that there are both similarities and surprising differences amongst diverse groups of migrants. Finally, the individual papers will be introduced; in so doing, the design and methodological challenges of research on the variant groups will be drawn out. Raising understanding of the motivations of migration in old age, and even more of the inter-related consequences of migration and ageing, requires longitudinal, biographical or lifecourse perspectives. While such a research agenda is both stimulating and theoretically and empirically fruitful, it also implies profound practical research challenges.

Lost in translation? International migration, learning and knowledge

There are changing but increasingly important ways in which international migration contributes to knowledge creation and transfer. The paper focuses on four main issues. First, the different ways in which knowledge is conceptualized, and the significance of corporeal mobility in effecting knowledge creation and transfer in relation to each of these types. Second, the significance of international migration in knowledge creation and transfer, and how this is mediated by whether migration is constituted within bounded (by company structures) or boundaryless careers, and as free agent labour migration. Third, the situating of migrants within firms, and the particular obstacles to their engagement in co-learning and knowledge translation: especially positionality, intercultural communication and social identities. Fourth, a focus on the importance of place, which is explored through theories of learning regions and creativity, and notions of the transferability of social learning across different public and private spheres. The need to view migrant learning and knowledge creation/transfer as widely dispersed, rather than as elite practices in privileged regions, is a recurrent theme.

From Tourist to Tourism Entrepreneur, from Consumption to Production: Evidence from Cornwall, England

There has been little research on the social and cultural aspects of tourism entrepreneurship. In this paper the social routes to tourism entrepreneurship are investigated, with emphasis on two major channels—those of the ex-employer and the ex-employee. Data are reported from a case study of Cornwall where 411 firms were interviewed as part of a stratified sample, representing different local economic environments and different sectors of tourism. An analysis of previous occupational experience and of access to capital only provides a partial explanation of entrepreneurship in Cornish tourism. Further analysis of business motivations and of migration patterns reveals an important dimension of noneconomic decisionmaking. This raises questions as to whether tourism entrepreneurship can be seen as a form of consumption rather than production and to its relationship with the entrepreneurial middle class as a whole.

Tourism and economic development : Western European experiences

Tourism and development - introduction, Allan M. Williams and Gareth Shaw Western European tourism in perspective, Allan M. Williams and Gareth Shaw Spain - the phenomenon of mass tourism, Manuel Valenzuela Italy - multi-faceted trourism, Russell King Greece - prospects and contradictions of tourism in the 1980s, Lila Leonidou Portugal - market segmentation and regional specialization, Jim Lewis and Allan M. Williams Switzerland - structural change within stability, Andrew W. Gilg Austria - contrasting tourist seasons and contrasting regions, Friedrich Zimmermann The United Kingdom - market responses and the public policy, Gareth Shaw et al France - the changing character of a key industry, John Tuppen West Germany, Peter Schell The Netherlands - tourist development in a crowded society, David Pinder tourism policies in a changing economic environment, Allan M. Williams and Gareth Shaw Scandinavia - challenging nature in Norway, Knut S. Brichmann and Morten Huse.

International Labour Mobility and Uneven Regional Development in Europe Human Capital, Knowledge and Entrepreneurship

Economic geographers have tended to neglect human mobility, and yet international labour migration constitutes significant flows that shape and are shaped by institutionally specific economic spaces. Three underlying themes run through the paper. First, the role of social networks in mediating relationships between flows and spaces. Second, the recomposition of the spatiality and temporality of flows in response to Europeanization and globalization, evident especially in the emergence of increased but differentiated skilled labour mobility. And, third, the locking into space - however temporarily - of inherently ‘sticky’ flows of labour mobility. These themes are investigated through an exploration of how the human capital, knowledge and financial capital embedded in migrants are created and articulated by migrants’ local and trans-local relationships in their spaces of origin and destination. Finally, the paper reflects on some of the ways in which the intersection of migration flows and spaces mediate patterns of uneven regional development in Europe.

What Human Capital, Which Migrants? Returned Skilled Migration to Slovakia From the UK

This article contributes to the understanding of skilled labor migration by exploring some of the differences in the economic behavior of three contrasting groups of returned skilled labor migrants from Slovakia to the United Kingdom: professionals and managers; students; and au pairs. Formal professional experiences and training provide only limited understanding of the value of working/studying abroad. Instead, there is a need to look at particular competences, such as interpersonal skills and self-confidence, as well as the role of social recognition. The empirical results also emphasize the importance of spatiality and temporality when analyzing skilled labor migration.