Married immigrant women’s VFR tourism as the way to ethnic minority group acculturation

The purpose of the study was to examine the bases of married immigrant women’s VFR Tourism behaviors. Over the last decade, Korea has witnessed an unprecedented growth of immigrants who are married to Korean males. This emerging population, as a new ethnic minority group, are expected to play an important role in the sustainability of the Korean family as well as the society. Academic interest in this phenomenon naturally leads to the consideration of the acculturation issue and multi-cultural policy impacts. Extending the research horizon, VFR tours as one of the leisure patterns of married immigrant women are considered important. Nevertheless, VFR tourism studies in the context of married immigrants are scarce. In this study we take a grounded theory approach. Questionnaire based in-depth interviews with 11 Vietnamese women in Korea were conducted. The findings were: the core category of the VFR tour is revealed as a ‘Process to overcome their doubled disadvantaged position as an ethnic minority and as a housewife under patriarchy.’ They encounter family risk mainly due to the cultural adaptation problem and choose a VFR tour to their origin to sustain successful marriage life and acculturation. The significance and limitation of this research are discussed.