CABI International

Main Description

The fast-growing phenomenon of volunteer tourism encompasses a diverse range of activities, from conserving environments to working with host communities to alleviate poverty. However, understanding the complex relationship between volunteering and tourism requires a wide analytical framework. This book provides a broad and valuable insight into how volunteer tourism is growing and developing. Theoretical and empirical case studies from leading researchers in the field explore the experiences of the volunteer tourist and the power relationships between volunteers and host communities and commercial, non-commercial and government entities involved in developing and supporting volunteer tourism. The ambiguous and contested intersections between volunteering, travel and alternative tourism as a foundation for considering the future of volunteer tourism are also examined.

Readership

Essential for those interested in sustainable tourism, community and social development as well as commercial operators, NGOs and volunteer management organizations

Main Contents

Part One: Journeys Beyond Otherness - Communities, Culture and Power

• Volunteer Tourism as Alternative Tourism: Journeys Beyond Otherness, K Lyons; S Wearing
• "Pettin' the Critters": Exploring the Complex Relationship Between Volunteers and the Voluntoured in McDowell County, West Virginia, USA and Tijuana, Mexico, N McGehee; K Andercek
• Volunteering Tourism Knowledge: A Case from the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, C Cooper, L Ruhanen; E Fayos-Sola
• Lessons from Cuba: A Volunteer Army of Ambassadors, R Spencer
• "Make a Difference!": The Role of Sending Organizations in Volunteer Tourism, E Raymond

• The Volunteer's Journey through Leisure to the Self, S Wearing; A Deville; K Lyons
• Gibbons in their Midst? Conservation Volunteers' Motivations at the Gibbons Rehabilitation Project, Phuket, Thailand, S Broad; J Jenkins
• Discovering Self and Discovering Others through the Taita Discovery Centre Volunteer Tourism Program, Kenya, A Lepp
• Negotiated Selves: Exploring the Impact of Local-Global Interactions on Young Volunteer Travellers, A Matthews
• Opening the Gap: The Motivation of Gap Year Travellers to Volunteer in Latin America, N Söderman; S Leigh Snead
• The Dynamics Between Volunteer Tourism, P Pearce; A Coghlan

• All for a Good Cause: The Blurred Boundaries of Volunteering and Tourism, K Lyons; S Wearing
• Volunteers as Host and Guest in Museums, K Holmes; D Edwards
• Journeys for Experience: The Experiences of Volunteer Tourists in and Indigenous Community in a Developed Nation - A Case Study of New Zealand, A McIntosh; A Zahra
• Absences in the Volunteer Tourism Phenomenon: The Right to Travel, Solidarity Tours, and the Transformation Beyond the One-Way, F Higgins-Desboilles; G Russell-Mundine
• Mediation of Volunteer Tourism Alternatives: Guidebook Representations of Travel Experiences in Aboriginal Australia, T Young

Have you read this book, or used it for one of your courses? We would love to hear your feedback. Email Louise Rock-West (l.rock-west@cabi.org) to submit a review.

Are you the Author or Editor of this book? Submit your bio to Kerstin Holz (k.holz@cabi.org) and we will put it up here.