What is "benefit tourism"

n. travel for the purpose of claiming benefits or social welfare.

Benefit tourism is a political term coined in the 1990s and later used for the perceived threat that a huge number of citizens from eight of the ten new nations given membership in the European Union in the 2004 enlargement of the European Union would move to the existing member states to benefit from their social welfare systems rather than to work. This threat was in several countries used as a reason for creating temporary work or benefit restrictions for citizens from the eight new member states.