International migration, second home programmes development and Malaysia experience

Abstract

Second homes primarily used for leisure and recreation, which located away from the city. The scenario changed over the years as there are a lot of programmes, namely second home or international migration programmes around the world that promote and attract the foreigners, not only to live in other countries but also giving the opportunities to invest in the reporting economy. Therefore, the objectives of international migration have covered from labour (work), recreation and labour, retirement and investment to date. However, previous literature which has studied second home programmes does not give overview of the programmes elsewhere, rather than focusing on programme individually. In Malaysia context, Malaysian government has introduced Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) programme, an international residency scheme that allows the foreigners to live in Malaysia on a long stay up to 10 years. These does not exclude other countries to do so, as in Indonesia, Thailand, Malta, Spain, Portugal and Philippines. Thus, the aim of this paper is to review comprehensively on the development of second homes and second home programmes, to study the pattern behind the evolution, including lessons from Malaysia experience. This paper explains range of historical developments of second homes and second home programmes, in relation of international differences in practice, and the connection with Malaysia experience, MM2H programme. Although this paper will not provide in depth contribution on institutional theory, however it provides an important foundation for further theoretical development, which also offers useful review for case studies of practice.