This study focuses on local and regional governments using place branding strategies to attract intra-EU inward migration for demographic and/or economic purposes. This forms an important aspect of contemporary migration industries, whereby the interlinking of lifestyle, work and economic investment is pivotal. Taking the case of the Emigration Expo event in the Netherlands, it draws on interviews with the organizer and with public sector exhibitors to assess their purposes, roles and strategies when participating in the event. In addition, this paper examines to what extent public sector agents perceive this Expo as a viable physical event, contributing to a lifestyle migration industry. Findings suggest a shift in public sector strategies from attracting residents to recruiting skilled workers or lifestyle entrepreneurs and businesses. Exhibitors that maintain a recurring presence at the Expo over several years can build meaningful relations with each other and with prospective migrant visitors, providing practical information and integrated ‘packages’ to promote their destination as an attractive place to work and live. This supports the idea that (e)migration expos remain relevant physical sites of an evolving branch of the migration industry, including public-private partnerships involved in place and relocation branding as part of spatial planning strategies beyond growth.
This work was supported by the Swedish government assignment Uppdrag Landsbygd, (project ‘Rapid and radical changes in sparsely populated areas? Building a research network on migration, entrepreneurship and integration’), and by the Swedish research council for sustainable development (Formas) for the projects ‘Mobilities, micro-urbanization and changing settlement patterns in the sparsely populated North’, and ‘Cities of the North: Urbanization, mobilities and new development opportunities for sparsely populated hinterlands’ under Grant numbers 2016-00344 and 2016-00352 respectively