At the most basic level, the relationship between tourism and migration can be viewed as a spectrum with permanent migration at one extreme, and tourism at the other (Bell and Ward, 2000).
For instance, the forced migration of refugees is very different from the case of retirees in search of a good life, although both may end up in the same destination and both would be considered migrants.Ĥ The significance of tourism has received little attention within the literature on migration (Hall and Williams, 2002). These categorizations stress the different types of migrations and highlight their vast array of applications. Mobility can be categorized in different ways based on its application: temporally vs. However, spatial mobility can involve moving anything, from people to goods, money, information, and so forth, while migration is a subject of spatial mobility that is limited to the movement of people (Boyle et al. We will thus define migration, and a short discussion of the definitions of tourism and how these two terms are related in the formation of the concept of lifestyle migration will follow.ģ Migration is essentially a form of spatial mobility. To set the stage for our later discussion, we will first shed some light on the definitions of these terms as they relate to one another. This leads to a complex synergy when attempting to define these terms and their interrelationship. To claim that defining tourism and migration is complex would be an understatement, as both terms have a wide array of definitions, categorizations, and applications that are largely subjective to individual interpretations. Tourism and MigrationĢ Before delving into lifestyle migration, we first examine the key concepts that shape our understanding of this term: tourism and migration. Our investigation reveals that class issues assume a significant role in the motivations and experiences of the migrants, and this has relevant implications on the lifestyle migration literature. We are interested in determining whether this case can really be considered one of lifestyle migration based on our understanding of the term from the literature. In this paper, we focus on one type of relationship, which is that of lifestyle migration, and examine the case of Québécois migrants in Florida in light of the literature on that subject. This relationship is multifaceted due to the interdisciplinary nature of both terms and the haphazard development in their associated concepts.
1 International migration is on the rise, and consequently, researchers are increasingly more interested in the link between tourism and migration.