Property tourism and the facilitation of investment -migration mobility in Asia
Keywords:
Property tourism, facilitation of investment -migration mobility in AsiaAbstract
This paper examines the ways through which real estate developers and their agents facilitate the investment-migration mobility of middle-class investor-migrants in Asia. Drawing from ongoing research conducted in Brunei, Singapore and Iskandar Malaysia, this paper argues that the property marketing industry can be conceptualised as a transnational mobility industry. Th is is because this intermediary industry (1) exposes potential investor-migrants to the idea of transnational investment-migration; and (2) educates and facilitates the investment-migration of its clients and their capital, especially through the use of subtle marketing strategies such as social activities and exploratory property tours – what I call “property tourism”. As most sales rely on repeat and referral clients, these intermediaries in turn facilitate diverse and multiply overlapped migration mobilities amongst investor-migrants (e.g. tourism, temporary, transnational, retirement). Th is paper concludes by highlighting the implications of this transnational mobility industry on our understandings of transnational mobility and the perpetuation of inequalities.
References
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Besbris, Max. 2016. “Romancing the Home: Emotions and the Interactional Creation of Demand in the Housing Market.” Socio-Economic Review 14 (3): 461-482.
Bolzman, Claudio, Laure Kaeser, and Etienne Christe. 2017. “Transnational Mobilities as a Way of Life Among Older Migrants From Southern Europe.” Population, Space and Place 23 (5). doi: 10.1002/psp.2016.
Botterill, Kate. 2017. “Discordant Lifestyle Mobilities in East Asia: Privilege and Precarity of British Retirement in Th ailand.” Population, Space and Place 23 (5). doi: 10.1002/psp.2011.
Coe, Neil M., Katharine Jones, and Kevin Ward. 2010. “Th e Business of Temporary Staffing: A Developing Research Agenda.” Geography Compass 4 (8): 1055-1068. DeMagalhães, Claudio Soares. 2001. “International Property Consultants and the Transformation of Local Markets.” Journal of Property Research 18 (2): 99-121.
Fernandez, Bina. 2013. “Traffickers, Brokers, Employment Agents, and Social Networks: The Regulation of Intermediaries in the Migration of Ethiopian Domestic Workers to the Middle East.” International Migration Review 47 (4): 814-843.
Findlay, Allan, David McCollum, Sergei Shubin, Elina Apsite, and Zaiga Krisjane. 2013. “The Role of Recruitment Agencies in Imagining and Producing the ‘Good’ Migrant.” Social & Cultural Geography 14 (2): 145-167.
Gammeltoft-Hansen, Thomas, and Ninna Nyberg Sorensen, eds. 2013. The Migration Industry and the Commercialization of International Migration. New York: Routledge.
Gehring, Anoeshka. 2017. “Pensioners on the Move: A ‘Legal Gate’ Perspective on Retirement Migration to Spain.” Population, Space and Place 23 (5). doi: 10.1002/psp.2007.
Glucksberg, Luna. 2016. “A View From the Top: Unpacking Capital Flows and Foreign Investment in Prime London.” City 20 (2): 238-255.
Green, Paul. 2015. “Mobility, Subjectivity and Interpersonal Relationships: Older, Western Migrants and Retirees in Malaysia and Indonesia.” Asian Anthropology 14 (2): 150-165.
Hall, Colin Michael, and Dieter K. Müller, eds. 2004. Tourism, Mobility, and Second Homes: Between Elite Landscape and Common Ground. Clevedon; Buffalo: Channel View Publications.
Harrington, Brooke. 2016. Capital Without Borders: Wealth Managers and the One Percent. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
Hayes, Matthew, and Rocío Pérez-Gañán. 2017. “North–South Migrations and the Asymmetric Expulsions of Late Capitalism: Global Inequality, Arbitrage, and New Dynamics of North–South Transnationalism.” Migration Studies 5 (1): 116-135.
Howard, Robert W. 2008. “Western Retirees in Th ailand: Motives, Experiences, Wellbeing, Assimilation and Future Needs.” Ageing and Society 28 (2): 145-163.
Huang, Y. 2008. Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics: Entrepreneurship and the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Illés, Sándor, and Gábor Michalkó. 2008. “Relationships Between International Tourism and Migration in Hungary: Tourism Flows and Foreign Property Ownership.” Tourism Geographies 10 (1): 98-118
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Janoschka, Michael, and Heiko Haas. 2014. “Contested Spatialities of Lifestyle Migration: Approaches and Research Questions.” In Contested Spatialities, Lifestyle Migration and Residential Tourism, edited by Michael Janoschka and Heiko Haas, 1-12. Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge.
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Ley, David. 2010. Millionaire Migrants: Trans-Pacific Life Lines. Chichester, West Sussex; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Light, Ivan. 2013. “Th e Migration Industry in the United States, 1882– 1924.” Migration Studies 1 (3): 258-275.
Lindquist, Johan, Biao Xiang, and Brenda S. A. Yeoh. 2012. “Opening the Black Box of Migration: Brokers, the Organization of Transnational Mobility and the Changing Political Economy in Asia.” Pacific Affairs 85 (1): 7-19.
Lockshin, Larry, and David Knott. 2009. “Boozing or Branding? Measuring the Effects of Free Wine Tastings at Wine Shops.” International Journal of Wine Business Research 21 (4): 312-324.
Longino, C.F. jr. 1992. “Th e Forest and the Trees: Micro-Level Considerations in the Study of Geographic Mobility in Old Age.” In Elderly Migration and Population Redistribution: A Comparative Study, edited by Andrei Rogers, 23-34. London; New York: Belhaven Press; Halsted Press.
Mahrotri, Pooja Thakur, and En Han Choong. 2016. “$100 Bilion ChineseMade City Near Singapore ‘Scares the Hell Out of Everybody’.” Bloomberg, November 21. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-1121/-100-billion-chinese-made-city-near-singapore-scares-the-hell-out-of everybody.
Malaysia. 2007. Iskandar Regional Development Authority Act 2007. Kuala Lumpur: Percetakan Nasional Malaysia Berhad.
Mohd, Rosera. 2016. “Consultancy to Organise Melbourne Educational Trip.” Th e Brunei Times, 7 June.
O’Reilly, Karen. 2007. “Emerging Tourism Futures: Residential Tourism and its Implications.” In Going Abroad: Travel, Tourism, and Migration. Cross Cultural Perspectives on Mobility, edited by C. Geoffroy and R. Sibley, 144-157. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
O’Reilly, Karen, and Maggy Lee. 2014. “Lifestyle Migration in East Asia.” Th e Newsletter 69: 12.
Ono, Mayumi. 2010. “Long-Stay Tourism: Elderly Japanese Tourists in the Cameron Highlands, Malaysia.” In Tourism and Glocalization: Perspectives on East Asian Societies, edited by Min Han and Nelson Graburn, 95-110. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology.
Ono, Mayumi. 2015. “Commoditization of Lifestyle Migration: Japanese Retirees in Malaysia.” Mobilities 10 (4): 609-627.
Overvåg, Kjell. 2011. “Second Homes: Migration or Circulation?” Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift - Norwegian Journal of Geography 65 (3): 154-164.
Rodriguez, Vicente. 2001. “Tourism as a Recruiting Post for Retirement Migration.” Tourism Geographies 3 (1): 52-63.
Rogers, Dallas, Chyi Lin Lee, and Ding Yan. 2015. “Th e Politics of Foreign Investment in Australian Housing: Chinese Investors, Translocal Sales Agents and Local Resistance.” Housing Studies 30 (5): 730-748.
Salt, John, and Jeremy Stein. 1997. “Migration as a Business: Th e Case of Trafficking.” International Migration 35 (4): 467-494.
Sumption, Madeleine, and Kate Hooper. 2014. Selling Visas and Citizenship: Policy Questions From The Global Boom in Investor Immigration. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute.
The Star Online. 2016. “Wooing Chinese Tourists to Johor.” http://www. thestar.com.my/news/nation/2016/12/30/wooing-chinese-touriststo-johor-property-shopping-part-of-tour-packages-offered-in-state/.
Torres, Edwin N. 2015. “The Influence of Others on the Vacation Experience: An Ethnographic Study of Psychographics, Decision Making, and Group Dynamics Among Young Travelers.” Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management 24 (8): 826-856.
Toyota, Mika, and Mayumi Ono. 2013. “Building a Temporary Second Home: Japanese Long-Stay Retirees in Penang.” In Catching the Wind: Penang in a Rising Asia, edited by Francis E. Hutchinson and Johan Saravanamuttu, 160-178. Singapore: ISEAS.
Van den Broek, Diane, William Harvey, and Dimitria Groutsis. 2016. “Commercial Migration Intermediaries and the Segmentation of Skilled Migrant Employment.” Work, Employment & Society 30 (3): 523-534.
Van Noorloos, Femke. 2011. “Residential Tourism Causing Land Privatization and Alienation: New Pressures on Costa Rica’s Coasts.” Development 54 (1): 85-90.
Williams, Allan M., and Colin Michael Hall. 2000. “Tourism and Migration: New Relationships Between Production and Consumption.” Tourism Geographies 2 (1): 5-27.
Williams, Allan M., Russell King, Anthony Warnes, and Guy Patterson. 2000. “Tourism and International Retirement Migration: New Forms of an Old Relationship in Southern Europe.” Tourism Geographies 2 (1): 28-49.
Wortman, Tessa, Ronnie Donaldson, and Guus van Westen. 2016. “‘They are Stealing My Island’: Residents’ Opinions on Foreign Investment in the Residential Tourism Industry in Tamarin, Mauritius.” Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 37 (2): 139-157.
Wu, Yue-Fang, Hong-Gang Xu, and Alan A. Lew. 2015. “Consumption-Led Mobilized Urbanism: Socio-Spatial Separation in Th e Second-Home City of Sanya.” Mobilities 10 (1): 136-154.
Xiang, Biao, and Johan Lindquist. 2014. “Migration Infrastructure.” International Migration Review 48 (S1): S122-S148. Xu, Honggang, and Yuefang Wu. 2016. “Lifestyle Mobility in China: Context, Perspective and Prospects.” Mobilities 11 (4): 509-520.
Åkerlund, Ulrika. 2013. “Buying a Place Abroad: Processes of Recreational Property Acquisition.” Housing Studies 28 (4): 632-652.
Benson, Michaela, and Karen O’Reilly. 2009. “Migration and the Search for a Better Way of Life: A Critical Exploration of Lifestyle migration.” Th e Sociological Review 57 (4): 608-625.
Besbris, Max. 2016. “Romancing the Home: Emotions and the Interactional Creation of Demand in the Housing Market.” Socio-Economic Review 14 (3): 461-482.
Bolzman, Claudio, Laure Kaeser, and Etienne Christe. 2017. “Transnational Mobilities as a Way of Life Among Older Migrants From Southern Europe.” Population, Space and Place 23 (5). doi: 10.1002/psp.2016.
Botterill, Kate. 2017. “Discordant Lifestyle Mobilities in East Asia: Privilege and Precarity of British Retirement in Th ailand.” Population, Space and Place 23 (5). doi: 10.1002/psp.2011.
Coe, Neil M., Katharine Jones, and Kevin Ward. 2010. “Th e Business of Temporary Staffing: A Developing Research Agenda.” Geography Compass 4 (8): 1055-1068. DeMagalhães, Claudio Soares. 2001. “International Property Consultants and the Transformation of Local Markets.” Journal of Property Research 18 (2): 99-121.
Fernandez, Bina. 2013. “Traffickers, Brokers, Employment Agents, and Social Networks: The Regulation of Intermediaries in the Migration of Ethiopian Domestic Workers to the Middle East.” International Migration Review 47 (4): 814-843.
Findlay, Allan, David McCollum, Sergei Shubin, Elina Apsite, and Zaiga Krisjane. 2013. “The Role of Recruitment Agencies in Imagining and Producing the ‘Good’ Migrant.” Social & Cultural Geography 14 (2): 145-167.
Gammeltoft-Hansen, Thomas, and Ninna Nyberg Sorensen, eds. 2013. The Migration Industry and the Commercialization of International Migration. New York: Routledge.
Gehring, Anoeshka. 2017. “Pensioners on the Move: A ‘Legal Gate’ Perspective on Retirement Migration to Spain.” Population, Space and Place 23 (5). doi: 10.1002/psp.2007.
Glucksberg, Luna. 2016. “A View From the Top: Unpacking Capital Flows and Foreign Investment in Prime London.” City 20 (2): 238-255.
Green, Paul. 2015. “Mobility, Subjectivity and Interpersonal Relationships: Older, Western Migrants and Retirees in Malaysia and Indonesia.” Asian Anthropology 14 (2): 150-165.
Hall, Colin Michael, and Dieter K. Müller, eds. 2004. Tourism, Mobility, and Second Homes: Between Elite Landscape and Common Ground. Clevedon; Buffalo: Channel View Publications.
Harrington, Brooke. 2016. Capital Without Borders: Wealth Managers and the One Percent. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
Hayes, Matthew, and Rocío Pérez-Gañán. 2017. “North–South Migrations and the Asymmetric Expulsions of Late Capitalism: Global Inequality, Arbitrage, and New Dynamics of North–South Transnationalism.” Migration Studies 5 (1): 116-135.
Howard, Robert W. 2008. “Western Retirees in Th ailand: Motives, Experiences, Wellbeing, Assimilation and Future Needs.” Ageing and Society 28 (2): 145-163.
Huang, Y. 2008. Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics: Entrepreneurship and the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Illés, Sándor, and Gábor Michalkó. 2008. “Relationships Between International Tourism and Migration in Hungary: Tourism Flows and Foreign Property Ownership.” Tourism Geographies 10 (1): 98-118
Iskandar Properties. 2013. Johor Tourism Numbers. August 3. https: //iskan darpropertie s.info/2013/08/03/johor-tourism-numbers/.
Iskandar Regional Development Authority (IRDA). 2016. “Introduction to Iskandar Malaysia.” Unpublished Powerpoint Presentation.
Janoschka, Michael, and Heiko Haas. 2014. “Contested Spatialities of Lifestyle Migration: Approaches and Research Questions.” In Contested Spatialities, Lifestyle Migration and Residential Tourism, edited by Michael Janoschka and Heiko Haas, 1-12. Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge.
Kili, Kathleen Ann. 2016. “Direct Flights to Jakarta and Shenzhen From Johor soon.” Th e Star Online, December 25. http://www.thestar.com. my/news/nation/2016/12/25/direct-flights-to-jakarta-and-shenzhenfrom-johor-soon.
Koh, Sin Yee, and Bart Wissink. 2017. “Enabling, Structuring and Creating Elite Transnational Lifestyles: Intermediaries of the Super-Rich and the Elite Mobilities Industry.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. doi: 10.1080/1369183X.2017.1315509.
Ley, David. 2010. Millionaire Migrants: Trans-Pacific Life Lines. Chichester, West Sussex; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Light, Ivan. 2013. “Th e Migration Industry in the United States, 1882– 1924.” Migration Studies 1 (3): 258-275.
Lindquist, Johan, Biao Xiang, and Brenda S. A. Yeoh. 2012. “Opening the Black Box of Migration: Brokers, the Organization of Transnational Mobility and the Changing Political Economy in Asia.” Pacific Affairs 85 (1): 7-19.
Lockshin, Larry, and David Knott. 2009. “Boozing or Branding? Measuring the Effects of Free Wine Tastings at Wine Shops.” International Journal of Wine Business Research 21 (4): 312-324.
Longino, C.F. jr. 1992. “Th e Forest and the Trees: Micro-Level Considerations in the Study of Geographic Mobility in Old Age.” In Elderly Migration and Population Redistribution: A Comparative Study, edited by Andrei Rogers, 23-34. London; New York: Belhaven Press; Halsted Press.
Mahrotri, Pooja Thakur, and En Han Choong. 2016. “$100 Bilion ChineseMade City Near Singapore ‘Scares the Hell Out of Everybody’.” Bloomberg, November 21. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-1121/-100-billion-chinese-made-city-near-singapore-scares-the-hell-out-of everybody.
Malaysia. 2007. Iskandar Regional Development Authority Act 2007. Kuala Lumpur: Percetakan Nasional Malaysia Berhad.
Mohd, Rosera. 2016. “Consultancy to Organise Melbourne Educational Trip.” Th e Brunei Times, 7 June.
O’Reilly, Karen. 2007. “Emerging Tourism Futures: Residential Tourism and its Implications.” In Going Abroad: Travel, Tourism, and Migration. Cross Cultural Perspectives on Mobility, edited by C. Geoffroy and R. Sibley, 144-157. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
O’Reilly, Karen, and Maggy Lee. 2014. “Lifestyle Migration in East Asia.” Th e Newsletter 69: 12.
Ono, Mayumi. 2010. “Long-Stay Tourism: Elderly Japanese Tourists in the Cameron Highlands, Malaysia.” In Tourism and Glocalization: Perspectives on East Asian Societies, edited by Min Han and Nelson Graburn, 95-110. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology.
Ono, Mayumi. 2015. “Commoditization of Lifestyle Migration: Japanese Retirees in Malaysia.” Mobilities 10 (4): 609-627.
Overvåg, Kjell. 2011. “Second Homes: Migration or Circulation?” Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift - Norwegian Journal of Geography 65 (3): 154-164.
Rodriguez, Vicente. 2001. “Tourism as a Recruiting Post for Retirement Migration.” Tourism Geographies 3 (1): 52-63.
Rogers, Dallas, Chyi Lin Lee, and Ding Yan. 2015. “Th e Politics of Foreign Investment in Australian Housing: Chinese Investors, Translocal Sales Agents and Local Resistance.” Housing Studies 30 (5): 730-748.
Salt, John, and Jeremy Stein. 1997. “Migration as a Business: Th e Case of Trafficking.” International Migration 35 (4): 467-494.
Sumption, Madeleine, and Kate Hooper. 2014. Selling Visas and Citizenship: Policy Questions From The Global Boom in Investor Immigration. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute.
The Star Online. 2016. “Wooing Chinese Tourists to Johor.” http://www. thestar.com.my/news/nation/2016/12/30/wooing-chinese-touriststo-johor-property-shopping-part-of-tour-packages-offered-in-state/.
Torres, Edwin N. 2015. “The Influence of Others on the Vacation Experience: An Ethnographic Study of Psychographics, Decision Making, and Group Dynamics Among Young Travelers.” Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management 24 (8): 826-856.
Toyota, Mika, and Mayumi Ono. 2013. “Building a Temporary Second Home: Japanese Long-Stay Retirees in Penang.” In Catching the Wind: Penang in a Rising Asia, edited by Francis E. Hutchinson and Johan Saravanamuttu, 160-178. Singapore: ISEAS.
Van den Broek, Diane, William Harvey, and Dimitria Groutsis. 2016. “Commercial Migration Intermediaries and the Segmentation of Skilled Migrant Employment.” Work, Employment & Society 30 (3): 523-534.
Van Noorloos, Femke. 2011. “Residential Tourism Causing Land Privatization and Alienation: New Pressures on Costa Rica’s Coasts.” Development 54 (1): 85-90.
Williams, Allan M., and Colin Michael Hall. 2000. “Tourism and Migration: New Relationships Between Production and Consumption.” Tourism Geographies 2 (1): 5-27.
Williams, Allan M., Russell King, Anthony Warnes, and Guy Patterson. 2000. “Tourism and International Retirement Migration: New Forms of an Old Relationship in Southern Europe.” Tourism Geographies 2 (1): 28-49.
Wortman, Tessa, Ronnie Donaldson, and Guus van Westen. 2016. “‘They are Stealing My Island’: Residents’ Opinions on Foreign Investment in the Residential Tourism Industry in Tamarin, Mauritius.” Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 37 (2): 139-157.
Wu, Yue-Fang, Hong-Gang Xu, and Alan A. Lew. 2015. “Consumption-Led Mobilized Urbanism: Socio-Spatial Separation in Th e Second-Home City of Sanya.” Mobilities 10 (1): 136-154.
Xiang, Biao, and Johan Lindquist. 2014. “Migration Infrastructure.” International Migration Review 48 (S1): S122-S148. Xu, Honggang, and Yuefang Wu. 2016. “Lifestyle Mobility in China: Context, Perspective and Prospects.” Mobilities 11 (4): 509-520.
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Published
2017-06-30
How to Cite
Yee, Koh Sin. 2017. “Property Tourism and the Facilitation of Investment -Migration Mobility in Asia”. ASIAN REVIEW 30 (1):27-45. https://so01.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/arv/article/view/226234.
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