''Willkommenskultur'' (in German: Welcoming culture) is a German concept which designates firstly a positive attitude of politicians, businesses, educational institutions, sports clubs, civilians and institutions towards foreigners, including and often especially towards migrants. Secondly, the term expresses the wish that all foreigners and migrant people encountered by these institutions may be accepted and particularly not be exposed to

discrimination Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, relig ...

. Thirdly, the word ''welcoming culture'' means all the measures promoted by a positive attitude towards foreigners and migrants in others. The German word ''Willkommenskultur'' was voted Austria's "Word of the Year" in December 2015.

Foreign perspectives

'' The Guardian'' distinguishes two meanings of the term welcoming culture: Originally it was meant to attract people from abroad to Germany to compensate for a huge shortage of skilled workers, particularly in sparsely populated areas. Since the beginning of the European refugee crisis in 2015, the term was being used to promote assistance for millions of refugees coming to Germany, who were received by highly visible posters "refugees welcome", and by actual help of any kind, mainly on private initiative of uncountable German citizens. Welcome differentlangs

The French daily ''

Libération ''Libération'' (), popularly known as ''Libé'' (), is a daily newspaper in France, founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Initially positioned on the far-left of France's ...

'' adds that the word "welcome culture" was originally created decades ago in the tourism industry. According to this view "welcome culture" would also be a Germanisation of the technical term ''Hospitality Management''. '' The New York Times'' suggested that Chancellor Angela Merkel was also laying the foundation for new "hyphenated German" groups, namely "the Syrian-Germans, Iraqi-Germans, Afghan-Germans", alluding to the phenomenon of hyphenated American identities. The concept has dramatically increased the sphere of influence of Germany.

References

German words and phrases Society of Germany 2010s neologisms {{Germany-stub