Conclusions

Abstract

Although mobility has recently emerged as a key concept in the social sciences (e.g. Bauman, 1998; Williams and Kaltenborn, 1999; Urry, 2000; Williams and Hall, 2000, Chapter One), the significance of tourism as a component of the migrant experience has received relatively little attention in the mainstream migration literature. For example, Vertovec and Cohen’s (1999) introduction to key readings on migration, diaspora and transnationalism, which may be regarded as an exemplar of much recent migration research, fails to acknowledge the significant role of tourism in contemporary migration processes. Nevertheless, the key elements which affect the triadic relationship between migration, diaspora and transnationalism are as significant to the flow and movement of tourists as they are to the flow of migrants:

• abandonment of controls on exit, although increasing entry controls;

• growth of diasporic populations anchored socially, culturally or physically neither at their places of origin nor at their places of destination;

• transnationalism of migrant communities cemented by global spanning networks.