Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.3 Host–Guest Relationship in VFR Tourism
2.3.3 The VFR host–guest relationship
‘focusing on in-home hospitality’ and ‘serving as a local tourist guide’. These typologies emphasise the role of VFR hosts in promoting VFR tourism, as well as their potential influence on the VFR tourism behaviour of their guests.
Choi and Xu (2018) identified several factors that might affect the VFR hosting experience of migrants, such as the interplay of destination-specific attributes, the migrants’ and their guests’ characteristics and personal preferences, and situational constraints. However, their study did not consider the role of the prior relationship between the migrants and their guests, which distinguishes the host–guest relationship in VFR tourism from other forms of tourism. Viewing VFR hosting as a practice of social identity and self-respect, Janta and Christou (2019) recognised the importance of gender, culture and caring practices in hosting experience. The fact that hosting behaviour can be influenced by a wide range of factors contributes to the multifaceted nature of hosting practices in VFR tourism.
The mentioned typologies indicate different approaches to conceptualising VFR hosts and VFR guests, as well as reconfirming the need to look at host and guest roles from both spatial and behavioural perspectives. The variety of typologies also highlights the complexity in understanding these roles. The concepts of VFR hosts and VFR guests, as well as factors constituting these roles, have therefore been difficult to constrain within single, succinct definitions. As a result, an integrated understanding of hosting and guesting experiences in VFR tourism has not been achieved. There is a need for more studies that provide greater insight into the ‘host’ and ‘guest’ roles in VFR tourism, so that the experience resulting from the VFR host–guest relationship can be better captured. The next section discusses the host–guest relationship in VFR tourism.
VFR visitors are likely to have some prior connections to the place and the local people, whether it be by having friends and relatives there (who might provide them with information about the destination), or even by having been born there. While the extent of such familiarity is still arguable, VFR participants’ familiarity with the local settings could also come from their previous experience of visiting the place (e.g., through prior visits to friends and relatives) and, if so, it is further likely to depend on the duration of their previous stays. That is, the longer time they have spent at the location, the higher their level of familiarity is likely to be. Prior connection with, and previous visits to, the visited place may, therefore, have a potential impact on the host–guest relationship in VFR tourism.
The level of host–guest interaction in the VFR tourism context is also likely to be different from that of the host–guest interactions in the generic tourism context (see Section 2.3.1, above). According to Eusébio and Carneiro (2012), the tourist–host interaction level is, in general, influenced by a number of factors including the kind of destination, interpersonal attraction, motivations, rules of social behaviour, costs and benefits as perceived by hosts and tourists, travel arrangements, and status and cultural background of both the tourists and the hosts. Moreover, the kind of accommodation used has the potential to act as a gatekeeper to cross-cultural contact, constraining or encouraging tourist–host interaction (Eusébio & Carneiro, 2012). In VFR tourism where ‘guests’ are more likely to share some sociocultural similarities and stay in the same place with ‘hosts’, the level of host–guest interaction is likely to be higher compared with other types of tourism. More interaction can be seen as more opportunities for socialisation, which contributes to the social impact of VFR tourism.
In the case of university students, motivations, socio-demographic profiles and perceptions of cultural benefits are important determinants of their level of interaction with the hosts at their travel destinations (Eusébio & Carneiro, 2012). This tendency might potentially also be applied to international students, who are a subset of the university student group. Moreover, perceived cultural benefits can reasonably explain their intention to interact more with the hosts, so that they learn about the local culture where their studies take place. This study, with a primary focus on international PhD students and their VFR tourism experience, aims to develop an understanding of the host–guest interaction of international students in VFR tourism.
The host–guest relationship in VFR tourism is a sophisticated phenomenon that is expressed in various ways. First, VFR hosts and VFR guests have an effect on each other in terms of travel decision making and total trip experience satisfaction. For instance, word-of-mouth recommendations from hosts affect their guests’ choice of tourist attractions to visit and activities to participate in (Bischoff & Koenig-Lewis, 2007; Young et al., 2007). On the other hand, the presence of guests may cause various impacts, both positive and negative, on the hosts’ quality of life (Janta &
Christou, 2019; Larsen et al., 2007; Shani & Uriely, 2012). Such influences affect the whole VFR experience of both parties.
Another point concerning the VFR host–guest relationship is the interdependence and transition of the host and guest roles. Relevant literature mostly focuses on either VFR hosts (Bischoff & Koenig-Lewis, 2007; Young et al., 2007) or VFR guests (Lehto, Morrison, & O’Leary, 2001; Moscardo et al., 2000) independently, rather than on the interdependence of both. Nevertheless, several attempts have been made to explore this dynamic.
A core feature of VFR tourism that distinguishes it from other types of travel is the role of residents as both consumers (participating in tourism activities with guests) and producers (attracting visits from friends and relatives) of tourism experiences within their own communities (Griffin, 2016). As an example, Liu and Ryan (2011) looked at the host–guest relationship as consequential, that when international students were satisfied being guests in their country of study, they were motivated to invite their families and friends over to visit and were then likely to be the hosts, in both a hospitality and tourism sense. The results of a study by Young et al. (2007) indicated that residents might also take part in tourist activities that they would not normally engage in, simply to accompany the visitors. In other words, they act like tourists (‘guests’) in their own ‘backyards’. These cases indicate the potential roles of international students as both consumers (‘guest’) and producers (‘host’) of experiences.
The dynamic of the VFR host–guest relationship is also expressed through the mutual transition between the two roles. According to Humbracht (2015), identities of migrant residents and their visitors continually shift between ‘hosts and guests’,
‘locals and visitors’, and ‘migrants and tourists’. Duval (2003) used the transition
visits in a Commonwealth Eastern Caribbean community in Toronto, Canada. The return migrants, who were once locals (or the hosts according to the definition by Sherlock, 2001), subsequently became strangers or guests in their own hometown due to significant changes of the place over time. Choi and Fu (2018) suggested that
‘sojourner hosts’ (which is considered another term for migrant hosts) took on different roles at different phases of their migration journey. At the beginning, they were more likely to be the ‘guests’ as they visited and undertook various tourist activities to get familiar with the local place. After a while, once they became more familiar with the place, they would likely be ‘hosts’ for visits from their friends and relatives (Choi & Fu, 2018).
A concept that sheds light on the fluidity and potential for transition between the host and guest roles in VFR tourism of international PhD students is ‘liminality’. The concept of liminality can be described as the temporary state in between physical places, or social and/or cultural contexts (Turner, 1969). Liminal entities are neither
‘here’ nor ‘there’, and their ambiguous attributes are expressed by characters that constitute cultural and social transitions (Turner, 1969). The notion of liminality is particularly relevant today with constant movements of people, ideas and objects as a result of increasing mobilities. The transition between the host and guest roles in VFR tourism of international PhD students reflect the liminal position that the students are in, between ‘guest’ and ‘host’, being neither a ‘local’ nor a ‘visitor’. There is both the potential for growth but also anxiety when such liminal positions are occupied which, further, has implications not only for the hosting-guesting phenomenon but also–in the case of international students–for the success or otherwise of their sociocultural adaptation. The blurred boundary between hosts and guests in VFR tourism remains under studied. It is one of the current study’s objectives to explore this supposed dynamic of the host–guest relationship in VFR tourism in more detail through the case of international PhD students.
2.3.3.2 In emerging context (third places)
The host–guest relationship manifested in VFR in a third place is likely to be distinctive because all participants potentially have a neutral role towards the visited place. Janta et al. (2015) suggested that with VFR in third places, none of the participants has hosting responsibilities. This view, however, is yet to be confirmed empirically. According to Griffin (2016), VFR experiences are often discursively
centred within the physical home and local community of the host, and the host’s routine and normal daily life is never far away; but when ‘host’ and ‘guest’ visit a new region, the context shifts to a leisure vacation for all those involved. Being in
‘holiday mode’ may influence the tourism behaviour of the participants, and the role they undertake during the trip. They are likely, for example, to participate in more tourist activities; and, those who are more familiar with the visited destination may be more likely to take on the host role. Accordingly, the concepts of hosting and guesting in VFR tourism seem to be dependent on the spatial context where the VFR trip takes place.
VFR tourism in a third place is likely to be favoured by international students who wish to explore and travel as much as possible during their overseas study period.
That is, VFR tourism might be ‘leveraged’ by international students to allow greater experience of travel, either in the study country or other destinations with the advantage of being with familiar travel companions. Moreover, due to travellers’
unfamiliarity with the place and non-obvious hosting responsibility, VFR in a third place may not follow the same ‘rules’ as conventional VFR tourism. For example, the assumption that VFR travellers do not contribute economically to the accommodation sector (on the assumption that they stay with friends or relatives) would not be applicable.
When the physical place in hosting is connected to the residential area and routines of any VFR participants, the impacts are more permanent because the resulting experiences are likely to integrate into those participants’ ongoing life (Griffin, 2016).
With VFR in third places, hosting experiences, if any, are not tied to the visited parties and therefore, the impacts of these VFR trips may be different from those that take place in the traditional context. Limited understanding of hosting and guesting experiences in VFR tourism in third places indicates gaps in understanding not only the VFR phenomenon, but also theories related to hosts and guests.
With the dynamics of globalisation and people’s increased mobility, travelling to a destination that is not the travellers’ homes to visit each other is likely to grow.
Hence, the idea of VFR tourism in a third place, as well as the host–guest relationship involved, deserves more investigation. VFR tourism in a third place not only indicates a gap in any comprehensive understanding of VFR tourism, but also suggests a new
address this gap in the literature by exploring this possible form of VFR tourism, through attempts to collect relevant data. Though not one of the main focuses of the current study, the potential relation of the ‘third place’ context to both VFR ‘host’ and
‘guest’ roles and the host–guest relationship make it of interest, especially in the case of long-term international education experiences. In the next section, literature on the relationship between VFR tourism and international students is presented.