When is a tourist?

Abstract

As flexible forms of migration undermine the distinction between tourism and migration, analyses of human mobility demand new conceptualizations and characterizations. However, before we rush to ever more metaphors of flux and flow it is important to explore the articulation of tourism and migration as they are experienced in individuals’ daily lives. This article draws on ethnographic data to investigate in depth the migration experiences of three forms of tourism-related migration of British migrants in Spain: retirement migrants, entrepreneurial migrants, and consumption-led economically-active migrants. We note that these migration patterns are inextricably linked to tourism history and tourist systems, and via individual actions, attitudes and expectations. We also note that theories of tourism as escape can illuminate the behaviour of some of the migrants. However, we acknowledge that these migrants cannot, therefore, be considered to be tourists. In crucial definitional ways they are migrants. Furthermore, they claim not to be tourists. The article then goes on to explore how the articulation of migration and tourism can be a tension for some groups of migrants who are uncomfortable with constant flux. Articulation enables us to explore the two things that articulate as separate entities and the joint, or nexus, and how this joining together, this articulation, is experienced by diverse groups of mobile humans.