Mobility, Migration and Tourism

351Mobility, Migration and TourismEsmat Zaidan and Geoffrey WallIntroductionA new emphasis in the social sciences that focuses on mobility has far-reaching implications for tourism research. The approach recognises that, in today’s world, people are more mobile than they have ever been. Of course, not all people are free to travel, and there may be differential physical, eco-nomic, political and other constraints that enable some to be more mobile than others. Furthermore, it is not only people that are on the move. There are movements of goods, money, information and ideas, and their changing distribution, both directly and indirectly, are influenced by the uneven dis-tribution of both traditional (e.g. highways) and new (e.g. the internet) dis-tribution channels. These movements are not discrete phenomena but are closely intertwined, movements of people, money and ideas being intercon-nected. Furthermore, these movements occur at a variety of overlapping and linked scales. Some observers emphasise globalisation, including the break-down of international borders, and argue for the declining importance of the nation-state. Conversely, others point out that the world is not flat, that global trends are modified by local circumstances, and that movements occurring at one scale are not interdependent from those taking place at other scales. Thus, interest in mobilities has arisen in recognition of the need to understand and address movements of a multiplicity of phenomena that occur at a variety of spatial scales and are interconnected.In this broad context, the present chapter examines some of the links between tourism and migration. While these two phenomena have much in common, they have seldom been addressed together and they are usually exam-ined by different researchers, who are largely unaware of each other’s research because it is published in different locations. However, this situation is begin-ning to change. The objective of the chapter is to argue for the utility of a ‘mobilities’ approach and, for example, to suggest that origins can become