''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. 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 ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' 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'' adds that the word "welcome culture" was originally created decades ago in the

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism mor ...

industry. According to this view "welcome culture" would also be a Germanisation of the technical term ''Hospitality Management''. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' 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 In the United States, the term hyphenated American refers to the use of a hyphen (in some styles of writing) between the name of an ethnicity and the word "American" in compound nouns, e.g., as in "Irish-American". Calling a person a "hyphenated ...

identities. The concept has dramatically increased the sphere of influence of Germany.

References

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