A person who travels to or within Britain in order to live off social security payments while untruthfully claiming to be seeking work.
〈英，非正式〉（谎称为找工作而在英国）四处游历以骗取社会保险金的人
Example sentencesExamples
The moves were solely designed to protect the welfare system from so-called ‘benefit tourists’, she said.
Some of the last tabloid articles they would have seen were about how people from abroad ‘are heading to Britain to leech on us’ and branded them all ‘benefit tourists’.
Sadly, the Government has left it to the eleventh hour before thinking about how these loopholes might be closed and the nation's borders secured against a tide of benefit tourists.
He's the ‘benefit tourist’ who grabbed £1.5 million in a tax rebate in Britain in 2002.
The Government has taken action to stem the arrival of people from 10 new EU countries, but the situation is more complex than ‘benefit tourist’ scare stories.
Derivatives
benefit tourism
noun
British informal
The habitual residence test was introduced as a centrepiece for a party conference speech in order to deal with the dangers of what is described as benefit tourism.
Example sentencesExamples
I intend to monitor migration flows but, contrary to what was said regarding the accession states previously, large numbers did not migrate and I do not anticipate a scenario such as benefit tourism occurring in Ireland.
In parallel with these EU level negotiations, the UK government has just announced measures to discourage what some sections of the press have described as benefit tourism from current and prospective accession states.
The changes are directed at discouraging people from the new EU member states taking part in what is seen as benefit tourism after enlargement on May 1.
The Opposition said that benefit tourism was a non- problem, and that there were at most 5,000 continental claimants a year.