in fundamental opposition by attempting to minimize the perceived negative environmental and socio-cultural impacts. Various other descriptions can be found in the literature to allude to environmentally compatible tourism. Examples include green tourism (Song, 2012), nature-based tourism (Newsome et al., 2002), soft tourism (Mader, 1988; Mose, 1993), community-based tourism (Dernoi, 1988; Wearing & Chatterton, 2007), PPT (Ashley et al., 2000; Roe & Urquhart, 2001) and defensive/justice tourism (Krippendorf, 1982, 1987; Higgins-Desbiolles, 2008). In this way, the concept of alternative tourism can itself be as broad and vague as its diametrical opposite. Many divergent leisure types can be classified as alternative tourism, including adventure holidays, hiking holidays or the solitary journeys undertaken by globe trotters.
The term itself encompasses a wide range of connotations: tourists characterized by particular motivations; touristic practices; a touristic product; levels of technology; solutions to planning; local, regional, national and international politics; and as a strategy for development. In the last case, alternative tourism is the application to tourism of sustainable development practices in regions where tourism has been chosen as a factor in economic development.
Dernoi (1988: 253) initially defined alternative tourism by accommodation type: ‘In alternative tourism the “client” receives accommodation directly in, or at the home of, the host with, eventually, other services and facilities offered there’. However, he then went on to list a number of other features by which alternative tourism might be distinguished from ‘mass tourism’: ‘Simply stated, alternative tourism and community based tourism (CBT) are privately offered set of hospitality services (and features), extended to visitors, by individuals, families, or a local community. A prime aim of alternative tourism/CBT is to establish direct personal/cultural intercommunication and understanding between host and guest’ (Dernoi, 1988: 89; Priporas & Kamenidou, 2003).
Moving on from a supply-side focus and acknowledging the inextricable role of participants, the ECTWT (Ecumenical Coalition of Third World Tourism) states that: ‘alternative tourism is a process which promotes a just form of travel between members of different communities. It seeks to achieve mutual understanding, solidarity and equality amongst participants’ (Holden, 1984: 15). The stress here is on the facilitation and improvement of contacts between hosts and guests, especially through the organization of well-prepared special interest tours, rather than on actual development of facilities. As noted, however, such definitions are elaborated on by way of a systematic contrasting of the features of alternative tourism with those of what is perceived to be the dominant or mainstream variety. The distinction is usually between polar oppo-sites, and there is scarcely any recognition of variations in the mainstream, nor any evidence of the existence of intermediate cases. Another body of literature dealing with tourism typology gives greater attention to these variations with classifications between three or more categories that are not uncommon. Moreover, ‘alternative tourism’ as variously defined above, rarely occurs specifically as one of the classes in the typology literature.
Thus it would appear from the literature that all forms of tourism exist side-by-side, each playing an important role in the tourist spectrum.3 Both mass tourism and alternative tourism can be viewed at corresponding extremes of such a spectra and, as Mieczkowski (1995: 463) states, they should remain there. The relational elements of ecotourism, volunteerism and serious leisure, as definitional components of a specific alternative tourism experience, exist as modalities of tourism experience along many divergent and convergent points of this spectrum. By elaborating upon each of these elements as specific components of the volunteer tourism experience in the context of alternative tourism, and thus, explore the impact upon individual subjective experience, it is envisaged that the analysis of tourism experiences can achieve a clarity of focus through the recognition of the particular elements that contribute to the specific market segments of tourism.
The diagrammatic representation in Fig. 2.1 — adapted from Mieczkowski (1995: 460) — is designed to provide a framework in which to locate the volunteer tourism experience. Mieczkowski (1995) initially divides tourism into two broad categories. The first is CMT, which has prevailed on the market for some time. The second broad category is that of alternative tourism, a flexible generic category that contains a multiplicity of various forms that have one feature in common — they are alternatives to CMT. That is, they are not associated with mass large-scale tourism but are essentially small scale, low-density, dispersed in non-urban areas, and they cater to special interest groups of people with mainly above average education and with good incomes. This category also includes the ‘explorers’ and ‘drifters’ identified by Cohen (1987).
Figure 2.1 demonstrates the general relational aspects of the different forms of tourism identified in the literature and how serious leisure and volun-teerism lie in relation to these forms of tourism. This conceptual model identifies and includes the elements of serious leisure and volunteerism. These elements are fundamental to the construction of volunteer tourism experiences and allow for, as this diagram shows, the elaboration of the overlaps and divergences of tourism forms or markets through viewing the specific elements that comprise them, and their relation to the experiential reality of those participating.
Fig. 2.1. A conceptual schema of alternative tourism. (Adapted from Mieczkowski, 1995: 459.)
As to the specific forms of alternative tourism, Mieczkowski (1995) distinguishes such forms as cultural, educational, scientific, adventure and agritour-ism with rural, ranch and farm subsets. Significantly, there is some overlap with CMT (e.g. cultural tourism in Smith & Eadington, 1992) but the main criterion of distinction is the scale and character of the impacts. Another overlap occurs between the various types of alternative tourism themselves. Cultural tourism, for example, is largely educational. Ecotourism, also called nature or green tourism, is nature oriented and nature based but is not always necessarily practised in wilderness settings. Mieczkowski (1995) finds it difficult to place eco-tourism in the context of alternative tourism because, while not coinciding directly with cultural tourism, it overlaps with the educational, scientific, adventure, pro-poor and agritourism forms.
The distinct characteristics of ‘alternative tourism’ are schematically outlined in Box 2.1, and, although not considered exhaustive, are included here to provide the underpinning of the conceptual framework that underlies the basis of the movement towards elaborating the specificity of a particular touristic experience.
Box 2.1. Features of alternative tourism.
• The attempted preservation, protection and enhancement of the quality of the resource base, which is fundamental to tourism itself (Wearing, 2004).
• The fostering and active promotion of development in ways that complement local attributes in relation to additional visitor attractions and infrastructure, and with roots in the specific locale (Wearing, 2004).
• The endorsement of infrastructure, hence economic growth, when and where it improves local conditions and not where it is destructive or exceeds the carrying capacity of the natural environment or the limits of the social environment whereby the quality of community life is adversely affected (Cox, 1985: 6–7).
• Tourism that attempts to minimize its impact upon the environment, is ecologically sound and avoids the negative impacts of many large-scale tourism developments undertaken in areas that have not previously been developed (Saglio, 1979; Travis, 1982; Kozlowski, 1985; Bilsen, 1987; Gonsalves, 1984; Holden, 2008).
• Tourism that does not exploit
