Labour migration and tourism mobilities: Time to bring sustainability into the debate

Abstract

Migration and tourism are interconnected forms of human mobility, similar but different. It is impossible to draw neat boundaries around the two because they constantly intersect, sometimes within one and the same individual. Tourism and migration often fuel each other, thereby raising two interesting questions that are rarely asked, namely 'What would tourism be without migration?' and 'What would migration be without tourism?'. In significant ways, sustainability is directly related to the 'mobility' aspects of tourism-related labour. However, in tourism studies, research on mobility often focuses merely on tourist movements. In general, there has been little detailed examination of the mechanisms that comprise and (re)produce the border-crossing movements of tourism labourers. If there is little attention to tourism-related labour mobilities, considerations related to the sustainability implications of worker mobility are highlighted even less often. Indeed, despite the anthropocentric focus of sustainability as a concept, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to the aspect of social sustainability. As the COVID-19 crisis shows, when it comes to the nexus between migration and tourism, the current and future challenges are huge.

The Impact of a Global Crisis on Areas and Topics of Tourism Research

“…[27] Not every tourist is interested in change and seeks for change. [66] Preparing for a crisis is difficult and costly, and at what cost should the new system be maintained and converted? [53] How can travel change others?…”

“…[51, 55,66] Inequality within the country Colonialism and inter-ethnic inequality that still exists. [67] Inequality in the nature of tourism For a long time, tourism has been capitalist, which is the opposite of non-capitalist tourism.…”

“…The establishment of a new international order will need to consider a good balance between political totalitarianism and a free market economy, as both show different advantages. A living example is that, as one of the most populous developing countries in the world, China has rescued its citizens from COVID-19 deaths to a considerable level and is gradually resuming tourism, while the United States, Britain, Italy, Spain, and France cannot alleviate the crisis with its best medical insurance, market, and education [66]. Political totalitarianism and liberal market economy debates will be extended to the tourism industry, which may change the attitude and decision-making of tourists to travel in developing and developed countries after COVID-19.…”

Mobile labour: an introduction

“…In this context, 'the nomad -whether traveller, refugee, runaway' became 'the symbolic identity of our age', as suggested by Kendal, Woodward and Skrbis (2009, 85). At the turn of the millennium, the world was portrayed as revolving around movement and migration, transnationalism and hybridism, networks and cosmopolitanism, liquidity and fluidity, nomads and runaways (Salazar 2020). Metaphorized as proximity and togetherness, along with cultural exchange, hybridism, networks, connectedness and cosmopolitanism, mobility was perceived by many as positive and as reducer of inequality gaps.…”

Bildiğimiz turizmin sonu mu? COVID-19’un Türkiye’deki turizm hareketliliğine etkisi

“…Salgının en ayırt edici özelliği hızlı küreselleşen, çok boyutlu ve birbirine bağlı etkilere neden olan, mevcut değerlere ve sistemlere meydan okuyan, dünya çapında bir durgunluğa ve depresyona yol açmasıdır. Bu bağlamda yapılan tartışmalarda salgının sadece sağlık sisteminde değil yaşamın tüm boyutlarını etkileyeceği, salgın sonrasında hiçbir şeyin eskisi gibi olmayacağı ve yeni normallerle yaşama devam edileceği öngörüsü ön plana çıkmaktadır (Karakaş, 2020;Sigala, 2020 İkinci kategoride salgının politik, mekânsal ve sosyokültürel etkilerine yönelik çalışmalar; bu araştırmalarda salgının vatandaşların turist olarak sahip oldukları haklara etkileri ve eşitsizliği (Baum & Hai, 2020;Mostafanezhad, 2020); uluslararası seyahat ve halk sağlığı önlemleri (Çetin & Kara, 2020;Carr, 2020); sosyal ve kurumsal dayanışmanın salgınla mücadeledeki önemini (Grydehøj, Kelman & Su, 2020); salgının sahip olduğu sosyo-mekansal süreçleri (Kuebart & Stabler, 2020), göç hareketleri, göçmen ve turizm ilişkisini (Salazar, 2020;Sirkeci & Yüceşahin, 2020); salgının turizm sektöründe neoliberal adaletsizlikleri ve sömürüyü nasıl ortaya çıkardığını (Harvey, 2020;Higgins-Desbiolles, 2020), salgının seyahat özgürlüğüne getirdiği yasakların sosyal yaşam üzerindeki etkilerini ( Sirkeci, Özerim & Bilecen, 2020;Üstün & Özçiftçi, 2020), salgın süreci ile birlikte ikinci konutların artan önemi ve fonksiyonlarında meydana gelen değişimi Zoğal, Domenech & Emekli, 2020), Covid-19 salgını sonrasında Türkiye'deki turizm sektörünü desteklemek için çeşitli turizm birlikleri ve kurumlarca ilan edilen düzenlemeleri (Sezen Doğancılı, 2020), salgınının Türkiye'de turizm sektörü üzerindeki etkilerini (Demir, Günaydın & Demir, 2020) konuları ele alınmıştır.…”