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Volunteer tourism
Deconstructing volunteer activities within
a dynamic environment
Michelle Callanan and Sarah Thomas
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Introduction
Volunteer tourism, coined voluntourism, is one of
the major growth areas in contemporary tourism.
This niche market is an inevitable consequence of a
restless society, jaded from the homogeneous nature
of traditional tourism products, and seeking alternative tourism experiences. As such, the 1990s saw
the cultural and adventure tourism rush and the
late 1990s and early 2000s are now experiencing the
volunteer tourism rush inuenced by an ever
increasing guilt-conscious society.
Within a short timeframe, volunteer tourism has
arguably become a mass niche market facilitated by
a number of factors: the growth in volunteer projects,
the variety of destinations promoted, the range of
target markets, the type of players involved (for
example: charities, tour operators and private agencies) together with the increasing competitive nature
of this sector. In addition, volunteer tourism focuses
on the altruistic and self-developmental experiences
that participants can gain during their time working
on such projects. As such, there is an urgent need to
examine this niche market further and to deconstruct
it accordingly.

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Niche Tourism

The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the historical context of

volunteer tourism, including an analysis of the key factors that have shaped its
development and growth, predominantly in the past 30 years. The authors will also
examine the parameters of the eclectic volunteer tourism product within todays
dynamic and consumer society. Finally, the chapter will provide a new framework
for the study of volunteer tourism.

Defining volunteer tourism

Volunteer tourism has its roots in volunteerism, which implies that individuals
oer their services to change some aspect of society for the better; in other words,
to participate in goodwill activities. As Bussell and Forbes (2002: 246) conclude:
a volunteer must have some altruistic motive. In fact, they advocate that to be
considered a volunteer, altruism must be the central motive where the reward is
intrinsic to the act of volunteering. The volunteers motive is a self-less one (Bussell
and Forbes, 2002: 248). Similarly, volunteer tourism focuses on such goodwill/
altruistic activities whilst on holiday. In this context, Wearing (2001: 1) provides a
denition of volunteer tourists as:
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Those
tourists
who, for various reasons, volunteer in an organised way to

undertake holidays that might involve aiding or alleviating the material poverty
of some groups in society, the restoration of certain environments or research
into aspects of society or environment.
In addition, Wearing (2001) contends that the volunteer tourism experience
oers an opportunity to examine the potential of travel to develop oneself, in the
belief that experiences have the potential to have a more lasting impact than the
average package holiday that lasts 2 or 3 weeks.
Accordingly, volunteer tourism is perceived in a two-dimensional manner;
at the centre of this denition is the fact that holidaymakers volunteer their
time to work on projects that are established to enhance the environment
of an area or a local community. The second dimension focuses on the development of the participant through the intrinsic rewards of contributing to such
projects.
In an eort to rene denitions of volunteer tourism, whilst acknowledging its
link to many dierent types of tourism and leisure activities, Figure 15.1 depicts
volunteer tourism as having discrete yet related components.
Wearing (2001: 12) formally categorises voluntary tourism as a form of
alternative tourism, which tourism appears able to oer an alternative direction
where prot objectives are secondary to a more altruistic desire to travel in order to
assist communities. Thus the importance given to altruistic desires over prot
motives presents volunteer tourism primarily as alternative to mass tourism. On a
sub-level, volunteer tourism can also be linked to social tourism (Relph, 1977, as
cited in Suvantola, 2002: 81), charity tourism, moral tourism (Butcher, 2003),
and serious leisure (Stebbins, 1992) owing to its link with tourists working on local
projects with local groups.

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Volunteer tourism

Figure 15.1 Categorising volunteer tourism.

Historical context of volunteer tourism

The growth of tourism as a social phenomenon changed dramatically during the
second half of the 20th century. Voluntary activities, however, have their roots in
the altruistic and missionary movements of the 19th century; the key driving force
of this movement was to curb the explicit class divisions in society. Over time,
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various social institutions were established to address social problems and create
social good. Many institutions relied on their workers to volunteer their time to
engage in such social activities; for example, the Red Cross.
The late 20th century was a signicant time period in the growth of both the
volunteer sector and international tourism. Mass tourism was growing at a phenomenal rate, exposing tourists to international cultures albeit in an uncontrolled and
exploitative manner. Arguably, the 1980s was a key turning point both in tourism
and in society. Concepts like eco-tourism, responsible tourism and sustainable
tourism emerged during the 1980s as the alternative to mass tourism. The media
played a key role in exposing the exploitation of resources and communities on a
global scale and the explicit divisions between the haves and havenots of society.
The success of international initiatives, such as the global exposure of Band Aid/
Live Aid, provided a new promotional outlet for the voluntary and charity sectors
with established icons of society popularising charitable contributions. This
growing attention to goodwill activities has prompted charities to exploit new
opportunities available to them to promote their cause.
In recent years, many charities have teamed up with tour operators to create
combined fundraising and adventure holidays. According to Marriott (1999: 48)
over the past 2 years, sponsored charity tours have become one of the fastest
growing sectors of the holiday market. The two key strands of charity involvement
with tourism operators are fundraising travel events or volunteer projects.
According to McCallin (2001) charities are increasingly looking to business to
diversify their revenue stream due to the increasing public concern that there are
too many charities on the beat and increasing competition for limited nancial
resources. Simultaneously, the motive for tour operators and many other businesses
to get involved in social and community projects is to promote an image of ethical
and social responsibility. According to Patten (1991: 6) investing in the community

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Chapter extract

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