The positives of VFR, a summary

A contact of mine at the City of Toronto asked me to create a summary of the benefits of VFR, I summarised the research I know, and created the following document (click here).  It was quite a useful exercise, and includes a bibliography as well.  Any questions please email tomgriffin77@gmail.com.

Methodological paper on studying immigrant hosts is published

My methodological discussion paper on researching the hosting experience for immigrant hosts has been published in Critical Issues in Tourism.  In it I argue that a constructionist approach is the most suitable for this subject due to the way in which hosting could help provide fresh cultural resources for immigrants to construct new meanings and understandings about their identity in their new community.  The link and abstract are below.

Personal relationships play a substantial part of many tourism trips, commonly referred to as visiting friends and relatives (VFR) tourism, yet despite the high volume of VFR, it is a relatively under-researched subject, receiving little attention from tourism practitioners. Immigration and VFR travel patterns are linked, and the study of immigrants who host VFR has implications for integration, community development, and destination marketing. This paper offers a discussion on the paradigmatic considerations of approaching research on this topic, drawing from literature on VFR, immigrant integration and leisure. The paper ultimately proposes that a constructionist approach would be most beneficial at this point of the topic development because of the unknown and highly contextual nature of the experience. http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/PhHjMCu9NXeUGXKXI2Bc/full