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particularly its impacts on the mobility patterns and residential strategies of those involved in
this form of lifestyle migration.
Moreover, the effects of the global fi nancial crisis on the geographical re-distribution of
elderly lifestyle migrants are yet to be assessed, since most published research predated the
fi nancial crisis. Likewise, the implications of the globalisation of tourism and second-home
developments for future patterns of IRM, the growth of visiting friends and relatives tourism
linked to international retirement communities, and its role in the intensifi cation/reinforce-
ment/consolidation of chain migration to already well-established retirement destinations
are research topics that remain still unexplored in tourism geography. In the European
context, rising prices and costs in the context of a strong Euro, together with growing
competition from amenity regions located in South East Europe, might prelude a rapid
growth of the already existing international communities in these regions (Williams,
2008: 89).
These are but a few research areas to be explored further and, therefore, there is a rich
research agenda waiting to be developed by tourism geographers with respect to the many
forms and consequences of contemporary lifestyle migration. There is an increased recogni-
tion of the need for a more theoretical informed understanding of lifestyle migration (Benson
and O'Reilly, 2009a, 2009b) and greater considerations of the methodological approaches
that drive this type of research, such as the need for more in-depth multi-site and multi-
disciplinary studies exploring the transnational practices and interpersonal relationships of
these lifestyle migrants.
N o t e
1 For a directory of researchers working in this fi eld and published and ongoing research go to
the Lifestyle Migration Hub link at http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ss/lmhub/lmhub_
home.html.
 
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