Progress in volunteer tourism research: From niche tourism curiosity to experience-based improvements

Lis, Weronika; Grzelak-Kostulska, Elżbieta; Dymitrow, Mirek

doi:0016-7282 (print)

Skip to main menu
Skip to search engine
Skip to content
Skip to footer

Download

Title: Progress in volunteer tourism research: From niche tourism curiosity to experience-based improvements

Abstract:

This paper reviews the latest research directions and conceptual developments on the phenomenon of volunteer tourism. The last review was published in 2017, so it is time to summarize and re-evaluate how voluntourism has evolved. The paper projects future developments within voluntourism by showcasing some critical changes in the participants’ attitudes. This is likely to influence how, where and by whom volunteering initiatives will be implemented. The contributions of this paper are assembling an overview of efforts to formulate a definition of voluntourism and providing clues as to what socio-cultural and market- forces will drive its evolution in the future.

References:

Almela, M. S., & Calvet, N. A. (2021). Volunteer tourism and gender: A feminist research agenda. Tourism and Hospitality Research, 21(4), 461-472. https://doi.org/10.1177/14673584211018497
Bandyopadhyay, R. (2019). Volunteer tourism and "The White Man's Burden". globalization of suffering, white savior complex, religion and modernity. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 27(3), 327-343. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2019.1578361
Bandyopadhyay, R., & Patil, V. (2017). 'The white woman's burden' - the racialized, gendered politics of volunteer tourism. Tourism Geographies, 19, 644-657. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2017.1298150
Banki, S., & Schonell, R. (2018) Voluntourism and the contract corrective. Third World Quarterly, 39(8), 1475-1490, https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2017.1357113
Brennan, C. (2018). Northern lights instead of workers' rights: Volunteer working tourists in Finnish Lapland. Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies, 8(2), 43-61. https://doi.org/10.18291/njwls.v8i2.106154
Brown, S. (2005). Travelling with a purpose: Understanding the motives and benefits of volunteer vacationers. Current Issues in Tourism, 8(6), 479-496. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500508668232
Butcher, J. (2011). Volunteer tourism may not be as good as it seems. Tourism Studies, 36(1), 75-76. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2011.11081662
Callanan, M., & Thomas, S. (2005). Volunteer tourism: Deconstructing volunteer activities within a dynamic environment. In M. Novelli (Ed.), Niche tourism (pp. 183-200). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-7506-6133-1.50025-1
Cavallo, F., Letizia, D., & Matteo, G. (2021). Volunteer tourism and lived space: Representations and experiences from Lesvos. Tourism Recreation Research, 46(1), 19-38. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2020.1769430
Coghlan, A., & Fennell, D. (2009). Myth or substance: An examination of altruism as the basis of volunteer tourism. Annals of Leisure Research, 12(3-4), 377-402. https://doi.org/10.1080/11745398.2009.9686830
Daley, P. (2013). Rescuing African bodies: Celebrities, consumerism and neoliberal humanitarianism. Review of African Political Economy, 40(137), 375-393. https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2013.816944
De Moura, H.; Mendes Pinheiro, C.; Gomes, B. M. A. & Bartoszeck-Nitsche, L. (2020). Voluntary tourism in rural spaces in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil. Enlightening Tourism. A Pathmaking Journal, 10(1), 58-77. https://doi.org/10.33776/et.v10i1.4574
Della, Lucia, M., Giudici, E., & Secchi, D. (2020). Reshaping tourism: Advances and open issues. In M. Della Lucia, E. Giudici (Eds.), Humanistic Tourism: Values, Norms and Dignity, 231-244. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003108993-13
Doerr, N. M. (2017). Discourses of volunteer/service work and their discontents: Border crossing, construction of hierarchy, and paying dues. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, 12(3), 264-276. https://doi.org/10.1177/1746197916684565
Eckardt, C., Font, X., & Kimbu, A. (2022). Collaborations in volunteer tourism. Current Issues in Tourism, 25(8), 1341-1355. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2021.1955842
Eckardt, C., Kimbu, A. N., & Font, X. (2021). Operationalising sustainability in volunteer tourism by powersharing with the receiving organisation. Tourism Recreation Research, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2021.2002097
Everingham, P, & Motta, S. C. (2020). Decolonising the 'autonomy of affect' in volunteer tourism encounters. Tourism Geographies, 24(2-3), 223-243. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2020.1713879
Frilund, R. (2018) Teasing the boundaries of 'volunteer tourism': local NGOs looking for global workforce, Current Issues in Tourism, 21(4), 355-368, https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2015.1080668
Gilfillan, D. (2015). Short-term volunteering and international development: An evaluation framework for volunteer tourism. Tourism Analysis 20(6), 607-618. https://doi.org/10.3727/108354215X14464845877878
Godfrey, J., Wearing, S. & Schulenkorf, N. (2015). Motivations of medical volunteer tourists and a discussion of the underlying ethics: A qualitative case study from Cusco, Peru. In S. Slocum, C. Kline, & A. Holden (Eds.). Scientific Tourism: Researchers as travellers (pp. 149-165). London: Routledge.
Gray, Noella, J. & Campbell, L. M. (2007). A decommodified experience? Exploring aesthetic, economic and ethical values for volunteer ecotourism in Costa Rica. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 15(5), 463-482. https://doi.org/10.2167/jost725.0
Grimm, K. E. (2013). Doing 'Conservation' effects of different interpretations at an Ecuadorian volunteer tourism project. Conservation and Society, 11(3), 264-276. https://doi.org/10.4103/0972-4923.121029
Grimm, K. E., & Needham, M. D. (2012). Moving beyond the "I" in motivation: Attributes and perceptions of conservation volunteer tourists. Journal of Travel Research, 51(4), 488-501. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287511418367
Grimm, K. E., Wiehe, E. & Bath-Rosenfeld, R. (2021). How a political ecology lens can help assess and improve conservation volunteer tourism. In K. Holmes, L. Lockstone-Binney, K. A. Smith & R. Shipway (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Volunteering in Events, Sport and Tourism (pp. 45-55). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367815875-5
Guttentag, D. (2009). The possible negative impacts of volunteer tourism. International Journal of Tourism Research, 11(6), 537-551. https://doi.org/10.1002/jtr.727
Han, H., Ariza-Montes, A., Tirado-Valencia, P. & Lee, S. (2020). Volunteering attitude, mental well-being, and loyalty for the non-profit religious organization of volunteer tourism. Sustainability, 12(11). https://doi.org/10.3390/su12114618
Henry, J. (2019). Directions for volunteer tourism and radical pedagogy. Tourism Geographies, 21(4), 561-564. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2019.1567577
Henry, J. (2021). The spatial imaginaries of international volunteer teachers: Contrapuntal and disconnected geographies. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, pp. 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1177/1746197921999315
Henry, J. & Mostafanezhad, M. (2019). The geopolitics of volunteer tourism. In D. J. Timothy (Ed.), Handbook of globalisation and tourism (pp. 295-304). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781786431295.00037
Higgins-Desbiolles, F. (2023) Subsidiarity in tourism and travel circuits in the face of climate crisis, Current Issues in Tourism, 26(19), 3091-3101. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2022.2116306
Inversini, A., Rega, I. & van Zyl, I. (2019). Internet representations of voluntourism fail to effectively integrate tourism and volunteering. Tourism Geographies, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2019.1600007
Jafari, J. (1990). Research and scholarship: The basis of tourism education. Journal of Tourism Studies, 1(1), 33-41.
Kadomskaia, V., Brace-Govan, J. & Cruz, A. G. B. (2021). Ambivalence in volunteer tourism: Toward decolonization. Australasian Marketing Journal, 31(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/18393349211022047
Kahana, N. (2021). The road worth taking, the life worth living, and the person worth being: Morality, authenticity and personhood in volunteer tourism and beyond. Tourist Studies, 21(4), 509-525. https://doi.org/10.1177/14687976211019910
Kainthola, S., Tiwari, P. & Chowdhary, N. R. (2021). Deconstructing volunteer tourism. In K. Holmes, L. Lockstone-Binney, K. A. Smith & R. Shipway (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Volunteering in Events, Sport and Tourism pp. 122-132). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367815875-12
Keese, James, R. (2011). The geography of volunteer tourism: Place matters. Tourism Geographies, 13(2), 257-279. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2011.567293
Kelemen, M., Mangan, A., & Moffat, S. (2017). More than a 'little act of kindness'? Towards a typology of volunteering as unpaid work. Sociology, 51(6), 1239-1256. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038517692512
Kennedy, K. & Dornan, D. A. (2009). An overview: Tourism non-governmental organizations and poverty reduction in developing countries. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 14(2), 183-200. https://doi.org/10.1080/10941660902847237
Kontogeorgopoulos, N. (2017). Finding oneself while discovering others: An existential perspective on volunteer tourism in Thailand. Annals of Tourism Research, 65, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2017.04.006
Lai, P.-H., Chuang, S.-T., Zhang, M.-C. & Nepal, S. K. (2020). The non-profit sharing economy from a social exchange theory perspective: A case from World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms in Taiwan. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 28(12), 1970-1987. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2020.1778709
Laurie, N. & Baillie Smith, M. (2018). Unsettling geographies of volunteering and development. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 43(1), 95-109. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12205
Lee, H. Y. & Zhang, J. J. (2020). Rethinking sustainability in volunteer tourism. Current Issues in Tourism, 23(14), 1820-1832. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2019.1653267
Lis, W., Dymitrow, M., & Grzelak-Kostulska, E. (2022). Tourists becoming involved: The influence of proenvironmental voluntourism on destination image formation, Tourism and Hospitality, 3(3), 706-719. https://doi.org/10.3390/tourhosp3030043
Lyons, K. D. & Wearing, S. (2008). All for a good cause? The blurred boundaries of volunteering and tourism. In K. D. Lyons & S. Wearing (Eds.), Journeys of discovery in
McGehee, N. G., & Santos, C. A. (2005). Social change, discourse, and volunteertourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 32(3), 760-779. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2004.12.002
McGehee, N. G. (2012). Oppression, emancipation, and volunteer tourism: Research propositions. Annals of Tourism Research, 39(1), 84-107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2011.05.001
McGehee, N. G. (2014). Volunteer tourism: Evolution, issues and futures. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 22(6), 847-854. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2014.907299
McGehee, N., & Andereck, K. (2009). Volunteer tourism and the "voluntoured": The case of Tijuana, Mexico. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 17. 39-51. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669580802159693
McGloin, C., & Georgeou, N. (2016). 'Looks good on your CV': The sociology of voluntourism recruitment in higher education. Journal of Sociology, 52(2), 403-417. https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783314562416
McIntosh, A. J., & Bonnemann, S. M. (2006). Willing workers on organic farms (WWOOF): The alternative farm stay experience? Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 14(1), 82-99. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669580608668593
McIntosh, A. J., & Campbell, T. (2001). Willing workers on organic farms (WWOOF): A neglected aspect of farm tourism in New Zealand. Journal of Sustainable Touris, 9(2), 111-127. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669580108667393
Mosedale, J. (2013). Diverse economies and alternative economic practices in tourism. In I. Ateljevic, N. Morgan & A. Pritchard (Eds.), The critical turn in tourism studies: Creating an academy of hope (pp. 194-207). Routledge.
Mostafanezhad, M. (2013). The geography of compassion in volunteer tourism. Tourism Geographies, 15(2), 318-337. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2012.675579
Mostafanezhad, M. (2016). Volunteer tourism: Popular humanitarianism in neoliberal times. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315547886
Naess, A. (1973). The shallow and the deep, long-range ecology movement. A summary. Inquiry, 16(1-4), 95-100. https://doi.org/10.1080/00201747308601682
Ong, F. (2021). Glocal citizenship: Lofty ideals in regional space. In K. Holmes, L. Lockstone-Binney, K. A. Smith & R. Shipway (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Volunteering in Events, Sport and Tourism (pp. 434-443). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367815875-40
Palk, S. (2003). Why do so many women go on volunteer vacations? http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/06/02/more.women.in.voluntourism/index.html
Pompurová, K., Sokolová, J., Cole, D., Marčeková, R., & Kožiak, R. (2020). Are visitors interested in volunteer tourism? Evidence from Slovakia. Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, 7(4), 3339-3352. https://doi.org/10.9770/jesi.2020.7.4(50)
Proyrungroj, R. (2023). Motivations of international volunteer tourists working with elephants in Thailand. Tourism Recreation Research, 48(3), 432-448. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2021.1943631
Saarinen, J. (2014). Tourism geographies: Connections with human geography and emerging responsible geographies. Geographia Polonica, 87(3), 343-352. https:// doi.org/10.7163/GPol.2014.23
Sandiford, P. J. (2021). Volunteer tourists as scientifically aware environmental citizens: Citizen science within an Australian non-governmental organization. Australasian Journal of Environmental Management, 28(3), 248-266. https://doi.org/10.1080/14486563.2021.1957031
Schwarz, K. C. (2018). Volunteer tourism and the intratourist gaze. Tourism Recreation Research, 43(2), 186-196. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2017.1399543
Shah, C., Trupp, A., & Stephenson, M. L. (2022). Deciphering tourism and the acquisition of knowledge: Advancing a new typology of 'Research-related Tourism (RrT)'. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 50, 21-30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2021.12.003
Sin, H. L. (2009). Volunteer tourism - "involve me and I will learn"? Annals of Tourism Research, 36(3), 480-501. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2009.03.001
Smith, P. (2016). International volunteer tourism as (de) commodified moral consumption. Moral encounters in tourism. In M. Mostafanezhad, K. Hannam (Eds.), Moral encounters in tourism (pp. 45-49). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315596068-7
Smith, V. L. & Font, X. (2014). Volunteer tourism, greenwashing and understanding responsible marketing using market signalling theory. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 22(6), 942-963. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2013.871021
Stainton, H. (2016). A segmented volunteer tourism industry. Annals of Tourism Research, 61, 256-258. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2016.09.011
Steele, J., Dredge, D., & Scherrer, P. (2017). Monitoring and evaluation practices of volunteer tourism organisations. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 25(11), 1674-1690. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2017.1306067
Steele, J., & Scherrer, P. (2018). Flipping the principal-agent model to foster host community participation in monitoring and evaluation of volunteer tourism programmes. Tourism Recreation Research, 43(3), 321-334. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2018.1457251
Syed, J., & Ali, F. (2011). The white woman's burden: From colonial civilisation to third world development. Third World Quarterly, 32(2), 349-365. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41300234
Sylvan, R. (1985). A critique of deep ecology (No. 12). Canberra: Canberra: Australian National University, Department of Philosophy.
Taylor, M., Hurst, C. E., Stinsonn, M. J., & Grimwood, B. S. R. (2020). Becoming care-full: Contextualizing moral development among captive elephant volunteer tourists to Thailand. Journal of Ecotourism, 19(2), 113-131. https://doi.org/10.1080/14724049.2019.1657125
Terry, W. (2014). Solving labor problems and building capacity in sustainable agriculture through volunteer tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 49, 94-107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2014.09.001
Thompson, J., & Taheri, B. (2020). Capital deployment and exchange in volunteer tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2019.102848
Tomazos, K. & Butler, R. (2009). Volunteer tourism: Working on holiday or playing at work?. Tourismos: An International Multidisciplinary Journal of Tourism, 4(4), 331-349. https://doi.org/10.26215/tourismos.v4i4.154
Urry, J. (1990). Tourist gaze: travel, leisure and society. https://doi.org/10.1177/030913259201600357
Vercammen, A., Park, C., Goddard, R., Lyons-White, J., & Knight, A. (2020). A reflection on the fair use of unpaid work in conservation. Conservation & Society, 18(4), 399-404. https://doi.org/10.4103/cs.cs_19_163
Wearing, S. (Ed.). (2001). Volunteer tourism. Experiences that make a difference. Wallingford, USA: CAB International.
Wearing, S., & McGehee, N. G. (2013). Volunteer tourism: A review. Tourism management, 38, 120-130. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2013.03.002
Wearing, S., Mostafanezhad, M., Nguyen, N., Nguyen, T. H. T., & McDonald, M. (2018). Poor children on Tinder'and their Barbie Saviours: Towards a feminist political economy of volunteer tourism. Leisure Studies, 37(5), 500-514. https://doi.org/10.1080/02614367.2018.1504979
Wearing, S., Young, T., & Everingham, P. (2017). Evaluating volunteer tourism: Has it made a difference?. Tourism Recreation Research, 42(4), 512-521. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2017.1345470
Yamashita, S. (2021). Public tourism: New forms of tourism after the great East Japan earthquake. In F. Higgins-Desbiolles, A. Doering, B. C. Bigby, (Eds.), Socialising tourism: Rethinking Tourism for Social and Ecological Justice (pp. 161-174). London-New York: Routledge.