Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR) Travel in a Post-COVID World

Abstract

This editorial article introduces the six articles in this Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR) travel Special Issue. A call for submissions was undertaken in late 2021 to invite articles for consideration for a Special Issue dedicated to VFR travel. Despite the size of VFR travel and its relevance to countries around the world, research interest has not been as high as would normally be expected for such a substantial form of visitor movement. The COVID-19 pandemic presented a juncture for VFR travel. On one hand, VFR was the ‘biggest loser’ during COVID-19 as people most missed contact with friends and family. However, it may be the ‘biggest winner’ in a post-COVID world, as people were harshly reminded of how vital social connections are. The six featured articles in this volume bring together a broad range of perspectives on how COVID-19 impacted aspects of VFR travel. This editorial piece summarises those articles and outlines future directions and conclusions.

1. Introduction

VFR travel is a major form of visitor movement worldwide. In some regions, VFR accounts for more than half of visitor volume. It also offers a range of benefits to communities through being less vulnerable to seasonality, more resilient during economic downturns, and having a lower carbon footprint (Zentveld, 2025). Despite its volume and attributes, VFR receives relatively little research attention within tourism. To date, only one VFR travel book has been published, and this is only the third Special Issue dedicated to VFR travel within tourism.

This third VFR travel Special Issue aligns with the timing of the world starting to emerge from a COVID-19 period. COVID-19 was initially discovered in late 2019 in Wuhan China and escalated rapidly from early 2020, being declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2020; in May 2023, WHO declared the public health emergency was at an end (Northwestern Medicine, 2025). The timing of this third Special Issue aligns with the opening of international borders and the realisation by many of the importance of family and friends. In Australia, international borders were closed for two years, and when borders reopened “there were many emotional reunions” (Jose, 2022) as people prioritised reuniting with family and friends. Being unable to connect with family and friends for so long resulted in many people realising the great sense of loss and importance of those connections, and in many cases, that was the priority trip. As such, the timing of this Special Issue is ideal. At a time when reconnecting with loved ones is a key driver of travel, understanding more about VFR travel is valuable to tourism researchers and practitioners.

This Special Issue brings together six articles that present varying aspects related to the field of VFR travel. The articles highlight different components and are also drawn from different countries. Contributors range from original early VFR researchers to newer VFR researchers.

2. Overview of Featured Articles

One of the contributing articles was authored by Anthony V. Seaton—one of the leading VFR travel researchers who was instrumental in publishing key works in the field in the 1990s when VFR travel research first emerged in tourism journals. Seaton was recently ranked as the sixth leading VFR travel author based on volume of publications between 1990 and 2021 (Zentveld et al., 2022b). Seaton’s work in the early foundation period for VFR travel research comprised six publications between 1990 and 2004 (Zentveld et al., 2022b). Uniquely, Seaton has contributed to each of the three VFR travel Special Issues and also the only (to date) VFR travel book. The first VFR travel Special Issue was in 1995, to which Seaton contributed alongside Tagg (Seaton & Tagg, 1995). He also contributed to the second VFR Special Issue with his article on the use of literary and cultural texts as resources in VFR travel (Seaton, 2017; Seaton & Tie, 2015). Seaton had also contributed a co-authored chapter (Seaton & Tie, 2015) in the VFR travel book (Backer & King, 2015b). One of Seaton’s publications ranks first based on citations, as is discussed later in this article. As such, Seaton’s contribution to this Special Issue provided a rich depth of knowledge in the field.

Seaton’s article is titled “Life and Family in the Time of COVID-19 Pandemic in England 2020”. His article commences with questions to the reader: “What would living through a pandemic be like? How would it be remembered? And what lessons would it hold for the future?” (Seaton, 2022, p. 931). Whilst COVID-19 seemed new in so many ways, Seaton (2022) reminds readers that “epidemics and pandemics have been a feature of life on the planet in fact and fiction since written records began” (p. 933). In many ways, COVID-19 resembled previous pandemics with some of the same questions and concerns being raised. The key aspects that were raised during COVID-19 centred on the management and control of the pandemic as well as individual freedoms (Seaton, 2022). That loss of freedom meant the inability to see many friends and family members. As such, VFR travel translated to “one way out” for tourism industries (Seaton, 2022, p. 937). That resulted in VFR being higher on policy lists and being a priority for people from all classes. Seaton (2022) takes readers on a journey through the history of pandemics, the importance of family and friends, and centrally reminds us that through VFR, we are all equal.

Missing friends and family during COVID-19 was also raised by Catherine Kelly in her article titled “‘I just want to go home’: Emotional Wellbeing Impacts of COVID-19 Restrictions on VFR Travel” (Kelly, 2022). As Kelly (2022) points out, family connections are often taken for granted, but COVID-19 resulted in border lockdowns and travel restrictions, meaning that connections were limited. The inability to connect with family for extended periods of time had emotional impacts on diasporic migrants. Kelly’s (2022) article specifically examines how COVID-19 restrictions affected migrant people both during the pandemic and during the easing of restrictions. Both first- and second-generation migrants in the UK were interviewed across a period from December 2020 through to March 2022. The timeframe allowed for examining experiences across multiple lockdowns with varying levels of severity. Kelly (2022) identifies that fear was a strong emotion among respondents—fear of personal safety as well as uncertainty. This article provides readers with an examination of a significant moment in history through a VFR lens.

Adoption travel as an aspect of VFR travel is the focus of the article by Annerbäck and Sparrman (2022), whose article is titled “The Child Tourist: Agency and Cultural Competence in VFR Travel”. The article focuses on a seven-year-old boy from Africa who was adopted by a family that resides in Sweden. The article describes how adoption return trips to visit friends and relatives are a key aspect of adoption, as it allows adopted children to be aware of their origins. It is also a political recommendation to conduct adoption return trips (Annerbäck & Sparrman, 2022).

When adoption return trips are undertaken, they are typically family holidays and involve visiting the country in which the adopted child was born, visiting people and places, and experiencing the differences between the country of birth and the country of residence. Often, the trips include visiting the orphanage, the birth town, and, where possible, visiting the foster parents (Annerbäck & Sparrman, 2022). This article outlines how place can sometimes be symbolic of VFR, and, as such, even where adoption return trips do not involve visits to friends or family, these places are representative of family; accordingly, these trips are a form of VFR travel. This article offers a unique assessment of the interrelationship between adoption return trips in VFR travel.

The host’s impact on VFR travel is examined in the article titled “Does Destination, Relationship Type, or Migration Status of the Host Impact VFR Travel?” (Zentveld & Yousuf, 2022). As the authors explain, hosts are crucial to VFR travel, and, as such, understanding how hosts influence and shape VFR trips is important from a practitioner as well as a scholarly perspective. Crucially, COVID-19 impacted VFR travel through the inability to see friends and family, which “reinforced the importance of social connections” (Zentveld & Yousuf, 2022, p. 590).

Quantitative research was employed in the article with a dataset of 515 (Zentveld & Yousuf, 2022). The key findings were that the nature of the relationship between hosts and visitors could impact the length of stay, the volume of repeat trips, and decisions regarding staying with the hosts. Relatives tended to have more diverse spending compared to friends and visit more often, and are more likely to stay with the host. Friends were found to stay longer and were more likely to stay in commercial accommodation rather than stay with the host they had travelled to see. The authors also determined that hosts were more likely to accompany relatives compared to friends on travel activities and attractions. The authors suggest that it is likely that “VFR travel becomes a more significant form of travel in a post-COVID environment” (Zentveld & Yousuf, 2022, p. 590) and that targeted VFR strategies by Destination-Marketing Organisations could greatly benefit regions.

Hosts are also the focus of the article by Song-Agócs and Michalkó (2022), titled “Chinese VFR Travel in Budapest: The Hosts’ Role”. The article highlights that VFR travel is a key driver of the growth in outbound travel from China to the Central and Eastern European region, with Hungary being a primary country. The authors discuss the way in which Chinese hosts can shape VFR travel, and identify that shopping, an important activity for Chinese travellers, is typically organised by the hosts. Quantitative research was employed by the authors, yielding a sample size of 202. Chinese hosts were found to have a strong role in influencing and shaping VFR trips. Hosts were also identified as having a key role in determining the nature of the trip, the areas in which the VFR travellers participate, as well as the transit route. Hosts were also very active in their role as they often guided their visitors around Budapest to show their VFR travellers key activities and attractions. They also often provided accommodation in their home for their visiting friends/relatives. The authors determined that, similar to the research by Shani and Uriely (2012), hosts who accompany their VFR travellers to visit tourist attractions contribute more to the local tourism industries compared to hosts who do not accompany their visitors on trips to local attractions and activities.

The sixth and final article selected for the Special Issue is based in Turkey, titled “VFR Travel in Turkey during Post-COVID-19” (Zentveld et al., 2022a). This article highlights that whilst COVID-19 impacted VFR travel in all countries, it had a pronounced impact on certain cultures. The article involved qualitative data collected from participants who had travelled between December 2021 and January 2022, which was after the outbreak in January 2020. With a sample of 22, the in-depth interviews were analysed using thematic analysis.

The key themes that emerged related to trip distance and trip duration, with COVID-19 influencing both aspects. Bans had been in place in Turkey during the height of the COVID-19 outbreak, limiting entry and departure from certain cities and countries. High-risk provinces in Turkey resulted in limited entry and exit from those high-risk locations during certain periods. Bus and airline services were halted except for certain special circumstances (Zentveld et al., 2022a). The research revealed that prior to being vaccinated, many participants felt fear of travelling and fear of catching COVID-19. This fear resulted in missing out on key VFR events such as weddings, funerals, and circumcision ceremonies (Zentveld et al., 2022a). Participants also highlighted difficulty when asked to be a host to friends/family members; accepting fewer VFR visits resulted in conflict, with many stating they felt unable to refuse VFR guests due to cultural expectations (Zentveld et al., 2022a). This article presents readers with a unique aspect of VFR during COVID-19 in terms of how culture and tradition can add to the normal difficulty of hosting.

Collectively, the six feature articles in this Special Issue highlight distinctive attributes relating to VFR travel. The featuring of different countries highlights how VFR can be experienced very differently due to the uniqueness of each culture. In combination, all the articles reinforce the importance of VFR travel and identify that the restrictions from COVID-19 strengthened the appreciation of social connections. COVID-19 restricted visits to friends and relatives, but in doing so, it may result in VFR being a higher priority in the future.

3. Citations

As mentioned earlier in this article, this represents the third VFR travel Special Issue, and to date, there has been only one VFR travel book published. That can be understood to be one indicator of scholarly interest in a field. Citations are another measure of scholarly interest in a field. Citations were considered in the closing chapter of the VFR travel book (Backer & King, 2015a) and the same publications examined by Backer and King (2015a) were also examined and compared by the guest editors in the most recent VFR travel Special Issue (Backer & Morrison, 2017). That list, originally compiled, was based on the publications in tourism outlets that were located on the first four pages of Google Scholar (Backer & King, 2015a). In both publications (Backer & King, 2015a; Backer & Morrison, 2017), few articles had received more than 100 citations. Only two publications were found to have more than 100 citations in the analysis by Backer and King (2015a), with the leading article by number of citations having 140 citations (Seaton & Palmer, 1997) and the other article with more than 100 citations (Moscardo et al., 2000) had 102 citations. In the most recent VFR travel Special Issue, citations had grown, but still only three articles had received more than 100 citations, with the third article being the first VFR travel article published in a tourism journal (Jackson, 1990) with 163 citations.

To measure change, the same publications previously examined for citations were examined. Those original publications examined are listed in

Table 1. A comparison of citations of VFR travel publications.

Author/s	Reference Year	Article	Journal	Citations (18/11/14)	Citations (5/6/17)	Citations (10/3/26)
Jackson, Richard	Jackson (1990)	VFR Tourism: Is it underestimated?	Journal of Tourism Studies	94	163	270
Paci, Enzo	Paci (1994)	The major international VFR markets	Travel & Tourism Analyst	45	70	89
Braunlich, Carl Nadkarni, Nandini	Braunlich and Nadkarni (1995)	The importance of the VFR market to the hotel industry	Journal of Tourism Studies	53	85	130
McKercher, Bob	McKercher (1995)	An examination of host involvement in VFR travel	CAUTHE conference proceedings	10	21	31
Meis, Scott, Joyal, Sophie Trites, Anne	Meis et al. (1995)	The US repeat and VFR visitor to Canada: Come again, eh!	Journal of Tourism Studies	50	82	120
Morrison, Alastair, Hsieh, Sheauhsing O’Leary, Joseph	Morrison et al. (1995)	Segmenting the visiting friends and relatives market by holiday activity participation	Journal of Tourism Studies	60	96	146
Yuan, Tsao-Fang, Frigden, Joseph, Hsieh, Sheauhsing, & O’Leary, Joseph	Yuan et al. (1995)	Visiting Friends and Relatives Travel Market: The Dutch Case	Journal of Tourism Studies	51	80	111
McKercher, Bob	McKercher (1996)	Host involvement in VFR Travel	Annals of Tourism Studies	14	40	74
Seaton, Anthony Palmer, Christine	Seaton and Palmer (1997)	Understanding VFR tourism behaviour: the first five years of the United Kingdom tourism survey	Tourism Management	140	199	315
Morrison, Alastair Woods, Barbara Pearce, Philip Moscardo, Gianna Sung, Heidi	Morrison et al. (2000)	Marketing to the visiting friends and relatives segment: An international analysis	Journal of Vacation Marketing	23	38	73
Moscardo, Gianna, Pearce, Philip, Morrison, Alastair, Green, David, O’Leary, Joseph	Moscardo et al. (2000)	Developing a typology for understanding visiting friends and relatives markets	Journal of Travel Research	102	166	302
Lehto, Xinran Morrison, Alastair O’Leary, Joseph	Lehto et al. (2001)	Does the visiting friends and relatives’ typology make a difference? A study of the international VFR market to the United States	Journal of Travel Research	55	97	174
Hu, Bo Morrison, Alastair	Hu and Morrison (2002)	Tripography: Can destination use patterns enhance understanding of the VFR market?	Journal of Vacation Marketing	40	68	140
Pennington-Gray, Lori	Pennington-Gray (2003)	Understanding the domestic VFR drive market in Florida	Journal of Vacation Marketing	28	52	91
Lee, Gyehee, Morrison, Alastair, Lehto, Xinran You, Webb, Jonathan Reid, Jerome	Lee et al. (2005)	VFR: Is it really marginal? A financial consideration of French overseas travellers	Journal of Vacation Marketing	26	54	86
Pearce, Philip Moscardo, Gianna	Pearce and Moscardo (2006)	Domestic and visiting friends and relatives tourism	Tourism Business Frontiers (book)	9	23	37
Backer, Elisa	Backer (2007)	VFR travel: An examination of the expenditures of VFR travellers and their hosts	Current Issues in Tourism	32	87	202
Backer, Elisa	Backer (2008)	VFR travellers—Visiting the destination or visiting the hosts	Asian Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research	20	49	110
Backer, Elisa	Backer (2010b)	VFR travel: An assessment of VFR versus non-VFR travellers	PhD thesis (SCU)	7	24	50
Backer, Elisa	Backer (2010a)	Opportunities for commercial accommodation in VFR travel	International Journal of Tourism Research	14	41	107
Backer, Elisa	Backer (2012)	VFR Travel: it is underestimated	Tourism Management	28	93	250

with the citations as at 10 March 2025. The list of publications is in chronological order, with the earliest publications listed first. As shown in Table 1, citations have grown considerably, which is natural over time. More than half (13) of the articles examined originally by Backer and King (2015a) had over 100 citations, with the only two articles to exceed 100 citations originally increased to over 300. Some of the older VFR articles remained under 100 citations. The first VFR publication (Jackson, 1990) had increased to 270 citations, and, notably, the most recent VFR publication from the list (Backer, 2012) had received almost as many citations (250) despite being published 22 years later; Jackson’s (1990) article is regarded as the seminal VFR piece as it was the first VFR publication in a tourism outlet. Publication outlet may be a contributing factor, as top-tier journals often result in more citations (Drivas & Kremmydas, 2020). However, in Table 1, there are a number of articles published in top-ranking journals that have less than 100 citations. There is also a conference paper and a PhD thesis with reasonable citations.

4. Future Direction and Conclusions

This Special Issue dedicated to VFR travel, explored the way in which COVID-19, as a significant and unique crisis, impacted VFR travel. The findings from the articles highlight the importance of VFR travel to societies. The articles also reveal a shift in the focus areas of VFR travel from previous Special Issues and reinforce its potential for the future. In addition, when the citations were examined, there had been a notable increase in interest with disproportionate increases in some of the publications, revealing a focus on particular aspects of VFR travel. Whilst citations are still low, particularly given that VFR travel has such a large proportion of visitors globally, crises such as COVID-19 may give VFR travel the respect it deserves.

This issue contains six unique and distinct articles. Those articles demonstrate a broadness in topics, countries, and research methods. Whilst VFR travel still remains a smaller area of research interest in tourism, the articles in this Special Issue present deeper and richer information compared to early VFR research that was typically based on early learning, such as identifying how to market to VFR travellers and its profiles and characteristics.

In 1995, the first VFR Special Issue stated that VFR travel is desperately seeking respect. More than two decades later, in 2017, the editors of the second VFR travel Special Issue felt VFR was still seeking more respect and was still underestimated (Backer & Morrison, 2017). More recently, in 2022, it was felt that VFR was still desperately seeking respect (Zentveld et al., 2022b). Whilst VFR travel remains inadequately researched relative to its size, it is better understood, and COVID-19 has alerted communities to its importance.

The relatively low volume of VFR travel publications is connected to the relatively low level of citations and the low volume of Special Issues/dedicated books. However, part of the entire problem with recognition relates to a bigger problem—the academic metric machine. As academe has transformed from a place of deep thinking to an enterprise of corporatisation, increasingly metrics such as an h-index drive publications. Academics on the metric machine may be seduced into choosing ‘sexy’ topics that tend to place their work on the machine where citations are more likely. In fields such as VFR travel with less research traffic, citation volumes are unlikely. Such behaviour only serves to fuel the metric machine. However, researchers can choose to either “fuel it or resist it” (Dolnicar, 2025, p. 1). It is hoped that more tourism researchers will consider VFR travel to pursue important research. If tourism researchers are not researching the topic, if it continues to be absent from core tourism textbooks, and continues to be absent from the tourism teaching syllabus, there is little chance that future tourism practitioners will be educated about VFR travel and be aware of the opportunities as part of marketing campaigns for their future employment businesses.