Volunteer tourism describes a field of tourism in which travellers visit a destination and take part in projects in the local community. Projects are commonly nature-based, people-based or involve restoration of buildings and artefacts.
Contemporary volunteer tourism has tended to suffer from a lack of differentiation from other forms of tourism or volunteering, falling into areas such as alternative tourism, international volunteering, social work and conservation corps work. The aim of this book is to provide it with a more specific identity.
This book provides:
- An overview of the phenomenon of volunteer tourism, its sources and its development as a concept
- A focus on the potential positive social and environmental benefits of volunteer tourism, and the prerequisites for a successful experience
Researchers in tourism, recreation and leisure studies, geography and planning.
CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION
- Experiences that make a difference
- Historical context of alternative tourism
- Selves in the Tourism Experience
- Operators, Communities and Volunteer Tourism
- The Santa Elena Experience
- A new approach
CHAPTER 2 - ALTERNATIVE TOURISM EXPERIENCES
- Situating Volunteer Tourism Within the Context of the Alternative Tourism Experience
- Commodification and the Tourism Industry
- Volunteer Tourism and the Tourism Industry
CHAPTER 3 -VOLUNTEER TOURISM EXPERIENCES
- Youth Challenge International (YCI)
- Introducing the Interacting Elements
- The Ecotourism Element
- The Volunteer Element
- Serious Leisure Element
- The Elements and Interactionism
CHAPTER 4 - EXPLORING THE EXPERIENCE
- The Volunteers
- Similarities and Variations
- Motivation
- Motivation Categories
- Summary of Motivation
- How Do the Volunteers Define Themselves?
- Constructing a Framework to Examine the Data
CHAPTER 5 - THE VOLUNTEER TOURIST'S EXPERIENCE - SELF AND IDENTITY
- The Relational Elements of the Alternative Tourism Experience
- Environment/Nature
- Interaction/Exchange/Group
- Primary Influences on the Self and Identity
CHAPTER 6 - THE SITE, SOCIAL VALUE AND THE SELF
- Social Value, Identity and the Alternative Tourism Experience
CHAPTER 7 - DEVELOPING THE SELF THROUGH THE VOLUNTEER TOURISM EXPERIENCE
- Framing the experience
- Personal development in volunteer tourism experiences
- Personal Awareness and Learning
- Interpersonal Awareness and Learning
- Confidence
- Self-Contentment
- Conceptualising the development of self
- The selves of volunteer tourism
CHAPTER 8 - THE IMPACTS ON COMMUNITIES: MOVING BEYOND THE PASSING GAZE
- Resisting the impact of global capital in developing countries
- The challenge of community involvement
- The quest for sustainability
- Empirical explorations of commodification in volunteer tourism
a) 'World Expeditions': the market denying nature and traditional community
b) 'Adventure World': market colonisation of local communities
c) 'One World travel': guest-host dialogues beyond colonisation
- Natural resource conservation through volunteer tourism
- Beyond the passing gaze
CHAPTER 9 - VOLUNTEER TOURISM: MOVING ON FROM THE EMPTY MEETING GROUND
- The Self and Community
- Towards a sociology of volunteer tourism experiences
I can guarantee that it will make you think, reflect, and question your own tourist behaviour...it will serve as a valuable read for students and teachers of tourism, especially those interested in impacts and sustainability. Alan Fyall, Tourism, 2002
"The major contribution of this book, we think, is that it opens a new path for sociological research on alternative and volunteer tourism. It is the first time that tourism, volunteerism, alternative tourism, sustainable development and nature protection are linked and analysed as parts of a whole through social science methodological tools." E Svoronou, WWF, Athens, International Journal of Tourism Research, March-April 2003