Abstract
As temporary mobility, tourism may either have a complementary and symbiotic relationship with permanent mobility or act as a precursor to permanent relocation (Bell & Ward, 2000). There are strong connections between tourism and migration based on both the roles played by identities and by the knowledge accumulated through travelling to places that individuals have prior knowledge of and social ties (Duval, 2006). However, limited research in the tourism field considered diaspora tourism under the broader construct of mobility, not only because of the methodological challenges for locating and sampling the population of diaspora tourists, but also the complexity of disentangling concepts at the junction of migration, tourism, and mobility. (Basu, 2004). Taking transnationalism approach, this research connects diaspora tourism to return migration intention, through the cultural factors of cultural identity and homeland attachment (Cassarino, 2004; Rishbeth & Powell, 2013).
This research was conducted in two phases: the qualitative interviews for determinant factors exploration; followed by the quantitative survey questionnaires for measurement scales validation and relationship modelling. Six dimensions with 24 items of were developed and validated to measure the diaspora’s memorable tourism experience (DMTE), including Affective Emotions, Accessibility and Infrastructure, Nostalgia Re-enactment, Social Interaction, Newness, and Personal Milestone. Return Migration Intention was measured by the diaspora’s personal plans and the social environments in the origin country, and a positive relationship was evidenced between DMTE and return migration intention.
For the cultural factors, the value commitment and attachment to the origin country were deemed influential on the relationship between DMTE and return migration intention, taking the positive partial mediation effects. The generalisability of the research findings was also ensured by cultural distance and ration generations, as no statistically significant difference was found on the relationship between DMTE and return migration intention between European and Asian migrants and across first- and second-generation migrants.
Theoretically, this research highlights the facilitating role of diaspora tourism in return migration (Duval, 2004b; Pelliccia, 2018), drawing on the notion of the “myth of return” (Anwar, 1979), contributing to the transnationalism approach to return migration (Cassarino, 2004), and placing tourism in the broader domain of human mobilities research. It also brings the concept of superdiversity in contemporary globalisation to address the homogeneity of diaspora tourists by cultural distance and migration generations, enriching the acculturation and adaptation strategies in a cross-cultural context (Vertovec, 2007).
Practically, this research provides empirical evidence in support of the notion of a path-dependency relationship between tourism and migration (Williams, 2013), and has potential to inform the prediction of national migration patterns and their demographic consequences by enhancing the knowledge of memories and behavioural decisions of diaspora tourists. The output of this research also has potential to inform tourism policies, etc. Furthermore, this research also contributes to national economic and social development concerned by the increasing scale of diaspora communities and returnees in both diaspora-receiving and diaspora-sending countries.