The importance of friends and relations in tourist behaviour : a case study on heterogeneity in Surinam

Tourism is becoming an important sector with a great impact on economic development. Tourists form a heterogeneous group of visitors with significantly different spending patterns. This paper addresses the economic importance of a particular class of tourists, viz. those visiting friends and relatives (VFR). After a review of the literature, this paper offers an empirical case study of VFR tourism with reference to Surinam. The findings show that the economic impacts of tourist visits to friends and relatives are by no means negligible, but represent a heterogeneous spending pattern.